A Realtor and a former client I will never forget.

I know that marketing trainers always say that the rant is one of the many ways we can blog consistently, I think that sometimes the idea is misconstrued. Ranting about how bad other Realtors are in my opinion sometimes goes to far. So I want to talk about an experience I had in 1995, and thank you Judi Barrett of Idabel, Oklahoma for inspiring me in your blog today about telling AR something good that happened.

Here is the story. A close friend on mind said I have a referral for you, but you may not want it. I was naturally intrigued, and still young enough to think, I can handle anybody. He went on, you will be the 6th Realtor she has dealt with in the last five years if you accept. Oops, maybe I am not so young, but i thought what the heck, just do it so I did. Yes she was difficult. It seemed that no matter how good the houses were something was always wrong. Maybe the master was just 1 foot not width enough, or the kitchen cabinets were just too light of a version of honey walnut stain, but you get the picture. 20 houses later I was showing her a house that fit every criteria you could imagine, and the price was right. This time she brought her son for the first time. While she was ion the bathroom I engaged him in a conversation. What do you think of the house I asked? He said it didn't matter, she was never going to buy. He then told me that she had gotten a divorce 5 years ago, and he had been living at The Baptist Boys Ranch for the last five years until she found a house to buy, and in September he would be a senior in high school. I couldn't believe that this is was the truth so I asked him, no lie? He said yes and the look on his face told it all.

I waited until the next day to call her because instead of counting to ten, I needed to count to 1000 not to by angry, and it didn't work. Then I did something I had never done before or since, I fired her. But I went on a very intense rant. I told her that her son had been waiting for 5 years, that I could tell he was very sad, and I was tired of her making every excuse in the world regardless of how ridiculous not to buy. Then I said something I regretted after I hung up the phone. I told her that in less than a year her son was going to graduate, and if I was me in his place, I would leave and not come back, is this what you want for your family? I also told her to kiss off. She touched a nerve in me that left me completely unhinged. I stepped over the line. Yes I should fire her, but it was not my job to tell someone how to live their lives even if I don't agree.

Now for the coda and the "payoff." Three months later I had a referral check in my box from a Realtor in my office and I didn't have a referral agreement with her. It was not a Realtor I particularly cared about or was friends with, just another Realtor. She told me this story. I had this crazy women come into my open house, and since she knew we were in the same office she started ranting to this Realtor about what an ass I was and what I had said to her. But she ended up buying the house! I don't know if my rant helped or not but is unimportant now. After she was done I tried to return the referral check to her and said she didn't owe me anything because we had nothing in writing. She refused. She said that after the women finished her rant, and talked about all the houses they had looked at, she felt an obligation to do this. Then she hit me with something that stopped me in my tracks. She told me that as a teenager, her father had gone off with another woman and abandoned the family, and that was something even in her 60's at the time she never forgot.

My moral to the story is this. When it comes to clients and they have said or done something so awful in your mind, don't rant, try to have a conversation. And before you write off another Realtor as I did with that lady, understand that you don't know them, and they have a story to tell about their experiences and what got them there. Passing judgement is easy, trying to understand others, give them the benefit of the doubt, realizing that we are not perfect is much harder. I will never forget a referral check I never asked for, and I will never forget the lesson she taught me.

re