Let's Play Nice In The Sandbox

Today I taught or maybe I should say presented a workshop called REALTOR® Professional Guidelines. This is a 3 hour continuing education credit course that I developed which is based on NAR's Pathway to Professionalism. I refer to it as my "Let's Play Nice in the Sandbox" class!!! New Hampshire requires 9 hours of ce (continuing education) to renew your real estate license. So I know my attendees are not there because they want to listen to me speak but simply because they want the credit for their license re-newel and I'm the necessary evil standing between them and that goal. No matter....when I present I am "up" on stage trying to entertain and hopefully educate them at the same time.

Usually in the beginning of the class the students have a little bit of an attitude...you know they don't really want to be there....want it over before it begins type of attitude.

I can't tell you how bad it feels to look at those faces...so bored and cold looking...sometimes I think people don't realize the impact their body language has on others...but I digress.

I usually start my class with an ice breaker exercise....just to get the juices flowing and set the tone for the class.

I ask my students to list up to 5 things that irritate them about working with fellow REALTORS® be it in a co-broking situation or in general.

The only rule is no talking about commission, commission splits or slamming different business models. After about 5 minutes I start to re group them and have them present town hall style, their lists of pet peeves. Usually you can see immediately a huge turnaround in their attitude as we discuss their issues and suggest and brain storm solutions. Today was no exception, my class really got into it and soon 45 minutes went by just like that.

Next I went through part of my power point...stats from NAR on what Buyers and Sellers want from Agents and then into my section on Reasonable Care...a short break and then real life Behavior Scenarios...we're having a run on REALTOR® cams, think on the lines of Nanny cams and finally a customized version of NAR's Pathway to Professionalism. I've customized it to my market area so it's not as long as the original and much more pertinent.

This time I threw in a short piece on consumer versus agent centric thanks to Kristal Kraft and her wonderful blog on REALTOR®...It's NOT about you! It was a success!!! Noon time arrived and I had an engaged group of REALTORS® who couldn't believe class was over already...LOL...how sweet is that? They walked out smiling and so did I!

BTW...does anyone have a good graphic showing adults in a sandbox...throwing sand or playing nice???