Know Your Role

As a real estate agent you wear a number of hats at any given time. On the business side, you are CEO, marketing guru, accountant, customer service rep, and a number of other things. On the client side, you will serve at any moment as agent, advisor, psychologist, babysitter, marriage counselor, and hopefully friend. Not to mention, at some point, you'll probably want to have a life of your own outside of real estate, right?

In addition to that, as we've talked about before, Realtors tend to be people pleasers. As such, we tend to do all that we can to serve our clients. Part of that is a tendency to prove our value to our clients by plying them with information. We believe that by doing so we prove our expertise. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes, however, we run the risk of overstepping our role in a transaction and the result can be a negative experience for our clients, trade partners, the other agent and their clients. We won't even get into the legal aspect, because, well, you know, I know my role and it isn't a lawyer.

At the end of the day, you have only one hat that you need to be wearing...kick-ass agent to your client

More often than not, in my experience, the most common opportunity for an agent to step outside their role in a transaction is when they try to speak on behalf of or convey messages from the lender. Don't try to be a lender. You might know a thing or two about lending, but, if for no other reason than it puts you in an odd position when you know your client's dirty money laundry, you should let the lender just do their job. On matters of finance, the communication should only be between the lender and the client. All you really need to know is the progress of the loan to make sure the transaction is moving along according to plan.

The same goes for trying to be an attorney or a title/escrow rep or a builder or anything other than an agent. Know your role and stay within it. It ensures that you're focusing your efforts where they need to be in order to create the best experience for your client. Despite your effort to prove your value with your knowledge, doing everything you need to be doing instead of trying to be someone you aren't is where you show your true value to your clients.