There’s always something to howl about.

You Control Way More Than You Think

If you are an enemy of agents working hard, you are an enemy of mine.  If you make it socially acceptable to fail in this market, you–personally–are as bad as the media that has made it socially acceptable to walk away from your house.  I have said to just walk away from failure enablers, but I have to fight back. 

I read a post yesterday that made me again question WHY I read RE blogs.  The poster had some closings that were going sideways It occurred to me that this mighta been their fault.  I mentioned this.   This agent was using the ‘best lender, best systems and best procedures,’ to  watch their deals go sideways, and then use the best blog to yell at the echo chamber…I was quickly shouted down by the chorus of failure fanatics. 

If Your Systems Are Failing, By Definition, They Ain’t The Best!

Lemme tell ya something.  There are people doing great (and easy) business in this market.  I know a buyer’s agent here Columbus that has 7 houses under contract every month like a machine.  That’s because the month before he sends 15 people up for loan approval, and won’t be satisfied with a non approved loan, and asks me brutal questions.  Generates his own leads, doesn’t take listings, and is in 100% control.  Stuff happens, but it’s never on more than 1/10th of his business.  OH, this agent sells everyone two houses.  His buyers write an ethical and fully disclosed second house offer in case the first house fails to get the short sale processes moving at two places so he’s guaranteed a check.  And with his deals, he runs the short sale unless it’s a listing agent he knows.  He’s taken responsibility for way more work.  

It’s More Comfortable to Be and to Manufacture Victims

It’s infinitely more comfortable to think that something else was the author of our failure, isn’t it?  It makes us all feel better when we don’t have to realize that we effed it up, because the (choose one) [Buyer/broker/builder/lender/other agent/title company/buyer’s overprotective daddy/lawyer/unethical marketer/barista] caused our deal to go sideways.  

Everyone raced to reassure the original poster that it was okay to fail, and it wasn’t their fault.   We believe what we want, and what makes us sleep at night. 

I am WAY more comfortable believing in that my failure is ALWAYS my fault than I am believing that some external circumstances will impose their will on little old me.  Screw that.  Nothing pisses me off worse than thinking that I’m a victim of circumstance.  Bang the phones, make something happen.

As a Real Estate Agent, I’ve had both 15 closings and 0 closings in a month.  Guess what?  I caused both outcomes.  In 2007, I more than doubled my production as a loan officer…while the rest of the industry was cowering and quivering.  Guess what?  I caused that.  In 2003, I got brutal liens, judgements and had an IRS nightmare that I wouldn’t even wish upon NAR President Dick Gaylord.  Dug me a six figure IRS hellhole I’m STILL digging out of.  Yup, caused that, too.

Sure, there’s a lot of variance in any given deal.  But you must work to overcome the variance.  Deals CAN go sideways.  But you know what?  There’s a REASON why Russ Shaw moves a ton of homes, and it’s his fault.  He has deals go south from time to time (though I’ll betcha less often than most).  Guess what?  Because he’s running a business, he tries to fix it and moves on. 

In my classes, I even TEACH the self-learning it takes to build systems.  I have a (must download) form for closed loans and NON closed loans that I make sure we use…so you know what went right, wrong, how you can learn what the market is doing.  Waste of time?  Hell no.   Reading your notes and not making the same mistake twice is baseline service, and anything else is theft of client equity.  If some underwriter wants a condition?  Satisfy that condition, in advance on every loan at submission.   (The Xbroker elaborates here.)

Remember:  Responsibility is not blame.  We are paid a fortune for taking responsibility for things that seem out of our control.  We STILL NEED to raise our game and take control of more things…and then not surprisingly, we win.