What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Cool Hand Luke put it into our vocabulary.
Cool Hand Luke put it into our vocabulary.
But not into our hearts.
The people in this photo are communicating. I am not sure what year that was taken. We don't communicate person to person anymore.
One of the businesses I own began many years ago as a very hands-on and personal business. I worked with people wanting to sell their house and people wanting to buy a new one.
I might spend hours, days, and sometimes weeks with each. We got to know each other well. We talked and visited a lot! We communicated.
The Industry has Changed
The complexion of my industry has changed over the last couple of decades. I always tried to keep up with the changes, if not a step ahead. Home sales have become more seller-driven and buyer-driven on the other side.
Now, a prospective buyer sits on the couch and searches the internet for a house he wants to look at. Then, if he is working with a friend or acquaintance who has a license, that friend will be in the right place at the right time to make a sale.
The seller will also possibly sell their own house.
My brick-and-mortar office has morphed into a website I run from a mop closet. People sign up with my company to put their house in the MLS to get a huge amount of exposure.
They can do a good part of that process in the middle of the night while I'm asleep.
When we do communicate, it is very indirect at best.
The system I built automatically sends to my customers instructions, emails, videos, pdfs etc. Yet, I still fail at times to communicate with them. I try to email them weekly with advice. I have Q &A areas on my websites. I have years and years of blog entries with advice.
I have written several books.
But I am not communicating with them.
Not Communicating
I have been told before by one of my customers that they would rather just ask me a question about their sale than read instructions.
And also bad, is that from time to time, someone will have a less than perfect experience with my system. Of course, they always feel it is my fault.
A good bit of my business is driven by word of mouth and good recommendations. And I surely don't get those from customers who don't care for me or my company.
But here's the trick.
I found a long time ago, back when we started in just one city, before we expanded to be state-wide, I would try to call each of my customers and talk with them every Wednesday.
And more than once their reaction was that of surprise. They could not believe they were talking to me and that I was interested in them. I was not actually more interested in them, of course, but their perception was that I was.
How Great That Was!
I have had customers tell me before, after real conversations during their transactions, how great that was!
In the years I have been working with my systems, I have spoken about the advantages of comfort marketing, situationally having prospective customers feeling easy about the presentation and purchase areas and periods.
My industry has changed from offering a service to offering a product. I started offering a “right-to-sell” agency relationship where the seller looked to me for results. Now I offer an “MLS-entry-only” agency relationship where the seller is responsible himself for the outcome of the transaction experience.
The expense is a good deal less to the seller but the interaction is a good deal less too. The sellers start out feeling that this is exactly the way they want it. The problem is, when they discover how great it feels when they actually get to talk to the man behind the curtain, they like it much better.
As for me, I have now found that people, whether they be prospects, customers, or other co-brokers will go to the ends of the earth to send a request to me without actually talking to me.
They send me an email or a text. They may send an electronic signature form. They even have what I call a “stealth voice-mail,” in which I get a phone call, that I don't have an opportunity to answer, but I am left a voicemail saying that they are sorry they missed me. Other people will simply hang something on my front door and sneak away, never even knocking and running the risk of communicating.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is, I can do my job better when I can communicate with my customers and co-workers.
My customers are happier when they talk to me and I to them.
The question then is, why do we work so hard to keep something from happening that we all want and need to happen.