Thursday, April 20, 2023

Who hasn’t experienced awkward, embarrassing situations in their life—being either the cause of or witness to them? I can certainly think of a few—for example, the time I taught an entire PDP class without my zipper zipped. I’m still haunted by the memory. If the participants noticed, they’re probably haunted by it too. Sorry about that. Honestly, it would have been less embarrassing if someone had, ahem, pointed out the situation out to me.  

In the same vein, but not so excruciating, was the time I taught the wrong PDP course from the start time at 9 a.m. right up to the first break at 10:45. I’d been teaching Risk Management, but the members were expecting the REALTOR® Code. Oops. No one said anything. They were all very polite, probably not wanting to embarrass the instructor. But they missed 90 minutes of the course! 

When these things happen, speak up, I say: “Kim, your fly’s undone.” “Hey Kim, I thought we were doing the REALTOR® Code course today.”  

"Thinking about all the embarrassing situations we Realtors can find ourselves in, I wonder whether some are made worse when our natural impulses to be kind or not cause further embarrassment result in us not dealing with the situation, leaving the potential for more wreckage on the highway to our next deal. "

Consider this example: A seller and buyer agent were attending the showing of a fixer-upper. The buyer was elderly. His agent had written and presented three unsuccessful offers for him over the previous 30 days. During the showing, the buyer asked the seller’s agent for their card. Who knows why? The seller’s agent resisted, suggesting the buyer should be talking to his own agent if he had questions. But the buyer persisted, insisting he wanted the card.  

Embarrassed and unsure of what else to do, the seller’s agent handed over their card. Talk about awkward. A refusal to give the card would have upset the elderly buyer who, if you’d asked him, probably would have said he couldn’t care less about member-to-member etiquette. Giving out the card mollified the old man but upset the other member. See what I mean? Two good real estate agents put in an awkward situation with it being made worse for fear of creating a scene.  

Resolving this kind of situation is what diplomacy is all about.  

In a perfect world and with hindsight, that agent likely would have known what to do. Hindsight is 20-20, as they say. But in the moment and under pressure, sometimes we can go off track. I think that happened here.  

What would you have done, with a crusty old gent demanding your card, with his soon-to-be fuming agent standing nearby? If you’d given your card, it would have been good afterwards to call the other agent to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do. Don’t worry. If he calls me, I’ll refer him back to you.”  

The fuming colleague would then have the opportunity to be generous and say, “Thanks for calling, I appreciate that. It definitely wasn’t cool, but I understand now.” And that could be followed by, “If I can get my buyer to write, I will. Thanks for the showing,” or something similar. 

I wouldn’t want to wish this or any other awkward situation on anyone. But when one happens, do the best you can and be generous. I wish you the best.