When Realtors are Too Polite for Their Own Safety

It’s an odd problem being too polite. But realtors often put their safety at risk by being overly polite and accommodating. Admirable qualities for sure but they can lead to them ignoring their intuition when something feels off. 

Real Estate agents need to control their environment and not be afraid to say no when necessary. 

And an important point, an agent should never lead on a showing. Always position yourself closest to the exit. And listen to your intuition.

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Transcript

Beth Andress (00:00):

How many times do you get taken to your table and you say, no, this table isn't good enough for me. No, I don't want to sit here. No, thank you. 

Rob and I are here today to talk to you a little bit about being too polite and relationship building in the real estate industry and how you might not even know that you're putting your safety at risk, right, Rob?

Rob Andress (00:38):

Oh, absolutely. So let's talk about the realtor servicing and you know what, you know, call me and you say, Hey, can we go and look at this house tonight? And they say, oh absolutely, yes, of course we can. And then you say to me, oh, can you come and pick me up? And I say, oh yes, absolutely, of course I can. And then I say to you, Hey, you know what? I don't know you. Would you mind maybe sending me photo id? And you go, oh gosh, I'm not going to send you photo id. Then you can't ask me. And then I say, oh, okay, well that's alright. Well I'll meet you at the house anyway and we'll go through the property too polite.

Beth Andress (01:20):

You're very accommodating when you do all those things for anybody that calls you. Right? How accommodating and wonderful, what a great realtor you must be. You're friendly, you do everything. I ask.

Rob Andress (01:34):

Well, well, let's take it a little bit further, right? What about sitting with a prospective buyer or prospective seller and something goes wrong and a disagreement starts happening and somebody starts raising their voice at us and they become very, very frustrated and angry. And we sit, there we go. Oh yes, yes. No, it's okay. I understand. I apologize. I'm I'm very sorry.

Beth Andress (02:00):

Well, building relationships, let's back up for a minute. Selling real estate is basically all about building relationships. You are building a relationship with this person in order to win the listing. You are building relationships in order for people to understand that you're trustable. You are building relationships to help people make their dream of home ownership come true. But in order to build relationships, we really need to be professional. We don't need to be polite all the time, do we?

Rob Andress (02:39):

Well, it's not just being polite. Realtors are way too polite way. You use the word accommodating and I guess it is accommodating. But within that being accommodating, we are way too polite, way too polite. We are so afraid, concerned that if we say the wrong thing, we may lose the client. But let's break this really down to what being over polite is and the risk that it puts us at.

Beth Andress (03:15):

Well, I think we have to remind everybody of is people are coming to you as the professional in your industry. So let's go back to that little restaurant that we were at in Edmonton and we had gone for dinner after a very long day. I know this is funny, Rob, we'd gone for dinner after a very long day to the restaurant that was at the bottom of our hotel and it was very nice from the outside. And we walked in and it was pretty dark inside and it was a little bit later in the evening and we noticed that we were pretty much the only people waiting for a table. There was a few other people in the restaurant and the young lady,

Rob Andress (04:02):

But the restaurant was basically pretty much empty. Pretty much

Beth Andress (04:07):

The young lady that was the hostess came up and was all smiles and she had her ponytail in and she had her menus in her hand. And she welcomed us to the restaurant and asked us how our day was. And then she said, table for two. We said yes. And she said, okay, follow me. And she be bopped her way back to the very back of the restaurant with where the music was super loud for the kitchen staff and we were right outside the kitchen doors and she dropped the menus on the table, one for me, one for you at this little table back in the back corner. And she said, is this okay? And the way she said it, I didn't really have a choice but to say, oh, it's fine. And she said, great. And she turned around and she walked away. And you and I sat down and when we realized we could hardly hear each other over the radio, the music in the back, it was so dark I couldn't see the letters on the menu and the kitchen door, it swung open and closed a few times. We just kind of looked at each other and laughed at the fact that we had been placed at the worst table in the house by a very nice young lady who was really good at her job. And we did what she said, we complied. We sat there and we stayed at the table for the whole time. And why? I'll tell you the reason is because that was her domain and she told us what to do and we did it right.

Rob Andress (05:40):

And she was professional about it. She controlled, controlled us, and she did it in a way that we accepted very graciously. She put us in the worst table that I even Sat in A restaurant.

Beth Andress (06:00):

Yeah, she controlled her environment. You spoil that. Yes, she controlled her environment and she controlled the people within it. So let's relate that to the real estate industry and how you as a real estate professional conducting a showing or a listing appointment can apply those techniques. You are the professional in your domain. Act like it control your clients, control your space. You can still be polite, it's so easy, but you have to practice it. And I'm a great proponent of roleplaying. So as you're listening to this, you're going to remember that when you're done listening to this podcast and these instructions today, you're going to go find somebody to be a client and you're going to role play this. Okay,

Rob Andress (06:52):

Well you know what? And I want to start because, and I've done this, so if you are on my social media friends, on my social media, I don't think this is on our professional site, but I actually posted a photo one time of clients standing on the sidewalk of a home while I was opening the lockbox and oh no, sorry, I didn't. I was actually using the photo at one time, carrying around in presentations. That's what it was from. Yeah, I remember now. And I took a photograph of them, they were standing there talking and I had just reversed the camera on the phone and took a click of it because I wanted to be able to show everyone that all I have to do on the very first showing when I meet someone is just say, Hey, would you mind waiting here on the walkway while I just run up the stairs and open the door? And you know what happens? They wait on the walkway and every house we go to, and I don't have to be pressured. I don't have to have somebody leaning over my back. I don't have to have somebody trying to look over my shoulder to get in the door or all that kind of stuff. Hey, would you mind waiting on the walkway? Will I just run up and open up the door? And they do it on every Show.

Beth Andress (08:07):

Absolutely. And one of our key takeaways from all of the education that we do is we tell you never lead, never lead on a showing. So in order to put those clients in front of you to get those clients ahead of you, you have to have those verbal skills to tell them how to be in front of you. So you're going to open the door and then you're going to make them go in the home first.

Rob Andress (08:34):

Absolutely.

Beth Andress (08:35):

And sometimes that can be difficult, Rob, because people, we are all very polite and nobody wants to walk in front of each other in that professional setting. So you have to have those verbal skills in order to get your client to cross over that front door threshold in front of you.

Rob Andress (08:54):

Well, hey, let's check that one if we can. So let's put the brakes on that one right now because male realtors don't have the same issue with that opening the front door. So you know what, hey, would you mind waiting on the walkaway? Will I run up? And now they do it on every showing. And you open the lock box and you unlock the door and you step back and either you open the main door, step back or you open the main door and then open the storm door and step back and open the storm door. And many men don't have the issue of saying, oh, please come on in. It becomes an issue with women where the male chivalry is, oh no, you have to go ahead in front of me first. And it's a real simple, easy thing to overcome. All you have to do is smile, a nice smile, nothing overly nice, just a nice smile and say, Hey, you know what? You are here to enjoy the property and I just want you to go in first and I want you to experience the home as you step into the front door. That's it. And once they do it once, they're never going to say to you, oh no, no, you go ahead. Go ahead first. They're not going to do it.

Beth Andress (10:07):

One of the other tools we've given people in that instance is, and again we tell you those little white lies, whatever it takes, doesn't matter. We tell you. It doesn't have to be true just because you say it in self-defense. And all of this by the way, is self-defense getting somebody to walk in the home ahead of you so that you don't have to lead at all during that showing. But tell them I'm superstitious and I really think it's bad luck for me to walk into your future dream home ahead of you. So you go ahead first, I'm going to hold the door for you and you get the first glance, the first impression of this home. It doesn't matter. You can control your client and still be polite. You don't have to be that Yes, yes, yes person all the time.

Rob Andress (10:56):

Oh, and the more we can do this, the more we become comfortable in doing this, the better we get at it. And it's interesting when we talk about it, we told about our little history lesson, the worst table in the world at the restaurant. But that happens at every restaurant that we go to, doesn't it? Every restaurant we go to, you have somebody who carries us in and sits us somewhere for

Beth Andress (11:26):

Sure. And how many times do you get taken to your table and you say, no, this table isn't good enough for me. No, I don't want to sit here. No, thank you. I mean it happens sometimes, but I'm going to say 80% of the time, 75, 80% of the time people sit where they're put. You do what you're told by the professional in that environment.

Rob Andress (11:47):

And it's almost in anything that we do in any professional environment today, isn't it? We kind of are politely told where to go, where to sit, what to do, and we do it. We never think twice about it. Our industry needs to understand that if we can stop being overly polite, either through over accommodating people or being afraid to control our environment, we are going to elevate our safety. Huge. And this even comes down to being inside of a property. When people separate, you have two or three people and they separate even there, Hey, you know what? Do you mind if we all stay together during the showing and here maybe is the little white line seller requested that we stay together during the showings? Would you mind if we all stay together and went through the home? We're going to see the whole home. So we'll just all stay together at the same time.

Beth Andress (12:55):

Yeah, for sure.

Rob Andress (12:57):

It's just no big deal. It's

Beth Andress (12:57):

Those commandments, those commanding sentences, the verbiage that lets people know this is your domain and your are going to control it, but in a way that they don't feel that you're controlling them.

Rob Andress (13:12):

No, but let's put a spin on this. Okay, so I'm going to set up a scenario for you. You walk into an office, it doesn't matter what office it is, and you walk up to the front and you look at somebody and you say, oh, hey, I'm Beth and I'm here for whatever. And they go, yeah, they don't want to give you any advice. Don't want to tell you where to sit, don't want to tell you to wait for five minutes, don't want to ask for your id, don't want to ask for anything from you. And you just go and you sit in a chair and you wait. But then you walk into another office and you meet somebody and they smile nice at you and they say, oh, hey, yeah, Beth, can I have your id just so I can get that information down. You get it down and you say, Hey, you know what? We're going to be about 10, 15 minutes. Would you mind just having a seat? And I'll give you a call as soon as we're ready for you. What's your image of it?

Beth Andress (14:08):

Well, absolutely. The second encounter is definitely more professional, right?

Rob Andress (14:12):

More professional builds trust,

Beth Andress (14:14):

Doesn't it? A hundred percent. They know what they're doing.

Rob Andress (14:17):

Absolutely. So what's wrong with realtors in our industry doing the same? Because people, all people have the same reaction to that. They view someone who is confident in command and control as someone that we can build trust in and rely on rather than, oh yeah, no, it's okay. Yeah, you can do that. You can run off there and see that and you can go over and do that. And it's okay if you raise your voice at me, I'll be back the next day and you want to see the appointment? Yeah, no, we'll go running off. Do that now. So we don't need to as an industry, be that person who doesn't control not only your environment, but those who are in our environment. And it can be really easy, really easy to do. Let's

Beth Andress (15:03):

Talk about one of the other ways that people that are in the real estate industry are too polite, too nice. Rob, did you know that the human species is the only species on the planet that will override their intuition? And we learned this from one of our favorite authors, of course, from the Gift of Fear, which by the way is a great book. And if you haven't read it, I'm going to highly recommend that you read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Okay, thank you. We are the only species that will feel our intuition firing off and tell ourselves, oh, it's probably nothing. I'm fine.

Beth Andress (15:56):

If you know of any other species, animal mammal that reacts that way to their intuition, I would love to hear it. But the little bunny rabbits that you try to get close to their intuition tells them that something's wrong here. You might hurt them. The deers that jump out of the ditch on the side of the road, all of the animals that you can think of that you can't get close to, everybody knows that your intuition is there to keep you safe. And how many times have we heard from realtors that have said to us, I knew there was something not quite right about that, but I did it anyways because I didn't want to offend them

Rob Andress (16:36):

So many times.

Beth Andress (16:37):

Absolutely.

Rob Andress (16:38):

So many times.

Beth Andress (16:41):

So that has to be one of our biggest takeaways from all of the education programs that we do as well, is to listen to your intuition. And if something is telling you that this isn't right, this probably isn't right, and you don't have to say, you know what, to heck with you, you're a creep and I'm out of here. But you do have to have the verbal skills ready to remove yourself from those situations where you know something's wrong. I'm worried something bad is going to happen, something bad is going on here. And

Rob Andress (17:17):

Doesn't this fall into again, being over accommodating? Absolutely. And being over polite, being

Beth Andress (17:24):

Too polite for sure. We don't want to offend somebody by reacting in a way that lets them know that we think that there might be something wrong with them. There might be something wrong here, or I'm afraid of you, or you're scaring me, or whatever it is. We just roll with it. And man, that puts us in harm's way sometimes.

Rob Andress (17:47):

You know what you have mentioned before, you know what? We don't get the aha moment with our intuition. And we met an amazing realtor one time who actually had an encounter with Paul Bernardo, and I totally forgot to mention this to you and you should probably wake me up for it somehow. But last session, Edmonton was talking about scanning a pre attack indicator during a session. And at the break I had a realtor come up to me and said, oh my God, I had a man do that. And she said, when I met him, she said, well, no, the first was a conversation over the phone and she said something just, it didn't feel good to me, it just didn't feel good to me. And she said, I asked my husband to drive his vehicle and wait in the parking lot of the condo so he would be there.

Rob Andress (18:52):

And she said, as she was showing the condo when she arrived at the building, the man came and he was scanning the parking lot. And she thought, wow, that is weird. I've never had anybody who actually looks across the parking lot and is looking at the vehicles. And she said, and there was my husband's truck and it was running and he was sitting inside, it was cold. And she said, he looked at the truck and then said, he turned and looked at me. She said, I went ahead and showed the unit, got inside of the condo and he was standing in the living room window overlooking the parking lot, continually looking at her husband's truck. And when she left that day, she said, I'm not, I'm not going to contact him again. It was just so strange. It was so weird. And she didn't. And then you know what? Couple of years later, she's inside of a classroom and I start talking to her about scanning. So not only once did she listened to her intuition, cut it off, but I guess the end of this is the point of my story, she didn't feel the need to be over accommodating and too polite. Absolutely. She said, Nope, not doing this anymore. That's it.

Beth Andress (20:17):

And don't, when we listen to our intuition, we don't get that aha, I was right moment because your intuition takes you out of harm's way. It removes you from that incident that may have happened. So we have to tell people, never be afraid to listen to your intuition. You're not going to get your aha moment. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, you're probably not wrong, but you are home safe at the end of the day. And that's really what we're here for, Rob, is to remind everybody that controlling your space, controlling your client, don't be too polite and listen to your intuition. You have to be in charge of your own safety, your own domain. And please listen to the education, the reality of how these violent attacks can happen in order to understand what you have to do to keep yourself safe.

Rob Andress (21:14):

And you know what? If we have the ability to lose that fear that I'm going to say something or I might seem too controlling or whatever to my client, and that's not the reality of what's going to happen. I mean, it's the same as asking 'em to wait in the walkway. It's the same as holding the door and inviting them in because you want them to enjoy the experience of walking into the hall. It's the same as when you walk into a closing room. You have them sit where you want them to sit, and please don't have them sit near the door. You should always be the one closest to the door to the exit out controlling our environment. And I think a lot of times we forget where we work, right? As real estate professionals, we work in enclosed environments and environments where people can't see us, can't hear us, and generally can't come to help us

Beth Andress (22:07):

In places that you've never been before. Sometimes that environment is brand new to you, you've never been in it.

Rob Andress (22:13):

Absolutely. So not being overly polite, trying to control the people in a nice way within our environment. You mentioned not leading, and that is frigging critical. Like stop that nonsense. That's just something we don't need to do anymore. And then we talk about intuition and the importance of listening to it and not running away, but being mindful of it. Being aware that your body's telling you something and the lady that I met in Edmonton, right? I mean, if it's really out and your intuition's firing off and you're seeing weird things that don't seem right to you that you haven't experienced before in dealing with someone else, it's okay to lose their number. It's okay. It's okay to say no. It's okay to say no. I can refer you to somebody else. It's okay to say I'm not available that day, but I can refer you to somebody else if you'd like.

Beth Andress (23:25):

That's one of the big takeaways that I want to end this. On that note, Rob, for everybody that's joined us today, please understand it's okay to say no.

Rob Andress (23:40):

Yeah, it's total sentence, right?

Beth Andress (23:42):

A hundred percent. You don't have to be that yes person all the time. You're building your relationships based on professionalism and based on who you are, not based on the fact that you say yes, yes, yes, all the time. It's okay to say no. Take your safety into your own hands. Be the one that says, no, that doesn't feel right to me. No, that doesn't feel good. No, I'm not doing that today.

Rob Andress (24:06):

Hey, and you know what? With that closing off on, no, Beth, I want to thank you. That was some amazing stuff that we put out there today, and I hope those who listen pick up on some great things. And I want to thank you for joining us today, and I want to thank you for listening to us today. And if you find our podcast valuable to you, please leave us a rating. And if you think somebody that might find this information useful, please share the link off to them. And I want to thank Doug, our producer from Stories and Strategies for helping us putting up with us and putting on an amazing podcast.

Beth Andress (24:52):

You mean putting up with you? He doesn't put up with us, he puts up with you.

Rob Andress (25:00):

And with that, please have a very, very safe and prosperous day and we'll catch up with you again soon.