Silver Linings: How What Goes Wrong Can Go Right

In any line of work, especially in a field like real estate that involves so many intricate and moving pieces, there are problems that come up and throw a wrench into your trajectory toward your goals. It is important to keep in mind when these issues occur that every single thing that goes wrong provides an opportunity to change the course of the situation for the better.

For every potential pitfall, there is a way to troubleshoot and remedy the situation, and if not, there is a way to make the best of it, use it as a learning opportunity, or take the chance to re-examine your approach in the current situation or adapt it for future situations.

A client getting cold feet

Big decisions are not easy, and in the time before they become final, those involved can experience a lot of anxiety and second-guessing. Your clients may not even share their misgivings with you, but on the other end of the spectrum, they may express a desire to back out of a deal, renegotiate terms, or even start over from scratch.

While many of these concerns will pass if your client rides them out, which you can encourage them to do, occasionally they can snowball into a bigger issue. You may end up having to deal with frustration not only from your clients but from the other parties involved in the transaction.

It will not be productive to explain to your client that there are more parties involved than just themselves; on some level, they are aware of this, but this does not make their concerns any less valid. In fact, one of the best things you can do for them and for yourself is to give them a safe space to be selfish.

Someone who is buying or selling a home should, to an extent, act on their own self-interest. Such a big decision requires a lot of personal investment, and the more they insist on their own personal satisfaction, the more you have to work with and the better they will feel about your services when you do all you can for them.

Selfishness is not the end of the road, however. Once you ensure that they feel validated and taken care of, you can begin to speak rationally to them and help them resolve their misgivings. But your client’s cold feet may be just what you need to practice interpersonal skills as well as to look more critically at the deal, or look at it from a different angle.

Communication issues

It is a fact of life that not everyone has the same communication style. Most of the time, people can adapt to the styles of others and meet somewhere in the middle. However, sometimes it can seem like you are speaking entirely different languages altogether.

When this happens, you have the opportunity to grow in your own communication. You may have an impeccable communication style, but no style is best-equipped for all situations.

If you are dealing with someone who communicates in a vastly different way from you, analyze their habits and think about in which situations you could put them to use. What are the benefits of communicating in a certain way? You can investigate someone’s communication style to learn more about their values and what they want out of a situation.