As much as we like to think we have things under control our business can be far from it. Especially when so many fingers are in the real estate pie – your escrow officer, title company, cross agent, buyers, sellers, brokers, etc.
Basically, this means there’s plenty of people to muck up a transaction. But, is it wise to blame them when a transaction turns south?
Your decision can greatly impact your long term profitability.
It’s a tough call for any agent as to when and how to explain why a transaction fell or may fall through. Heck, it’s tough for any business facing an upset public.
Here are a few case studies that explore this theme. Be sure to share your comments and insights below.
The Landscaper Without a Clue
A friend of mine traveled 45 minutes to her new house to see the final result of weeks of professional landscaping. Imagine her shock when she arrived to find the yard far from complete and not a landscaper in sight.
She checked her planner and confirmed that indeed today was the day the landscaper said all would be complete and that she should drive out to see.
“Shock” might be an understatement. You and I both know that more than just a bit of anger was steaming out her ears. After all, the yard was promised to be done on this date and he’d even made an appointment to meet my friend for the big reveal.
She called and was told, “Yeah, sorry. It might be another two weeks. We ran into some problems with the weather.”
Years later she still tells people about the landscaping company’s horrible service.
An Airline Wins Even When It’s Wrong
Back in the winter of 2007, JetBlue Airways made a bold promise and lost. While many airlines cancelled flights due to coming storms, JetBlue promised it would still fly. The storms, not caring about who said what, grounded everyone – including JetBlue. Thousands of passengers were stranded.
The airline was faced with a dilemma – blame the weather or own up to poor planning. Ultimately, they owned up to the fact that the cause of so many passengers frustration was caused internally and that JetBlue had planned poorly.
Sure, the airline was the brunt of some heated words but in the end they still had the trust of passengers.
See, by admitting blame you come out ahead in public perception because it shows you understand the cause of the failure and have a plan to make sure the failure doesn’t happen again.
The Wrong Way To Win Respect
In fact, a study was done where a group of folks were shown annual reports of two fictitious companies. Both reports showed poor performance but company A blamed internal factors (bad decision making and resource allocation) while company B blamed external (economy and unexpected competition). In the end, the survey group viewed company A more positively than company B.
The research went even further. The annual reports of 14 companies over 21 years showed that those that pointed to internal and controllable factors had higher stock prices than those that pointed to external and uncontrollable factors.
As you can see, when you admit fault you build credibility with your market. You can take that business lesson or look at it a different way…
Your success is a mindset. By admitting that your success (or failure) is the result of internal factors rather than external ones, how you plan and run your business each day is a contributing factor to it.
What do you think?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent points, Mark. You’re such an inspiration.
@Susan – don’t look now, i’m blushing. frankly, feedback like that keeps me inspired. thanks.