Clients First: The Two Word Miracle

The Sad Truth

Why are lawyer jokes so popular? Why do medical malpractice rates skyrocket? Why do so many people think they can just put out a sign and sell their house when they wouldn’t think of performing their own appendectomy? The sad truth is that not all clients feel they are being put first. In rare instances, some clients are put last and, when that happens, everybody gets to hear about it.

Years ago, one of the women on the television show The View became very negative about Realtors. She must have just sold a multi-million-dollar property, because she ragged on her agent and on the industry in general, summing up her remarks with a reference to her Realtor’s unconscionable commission, which I’m sure on a luxury property was sizable. The next day, the then-president of the National Association of Realtors publicly demanded an apology. It bounced back and forth in the news, and the whole thing blew over in a day or two, but JoAnn and I remember it. Whenever a client is underserved or an agent is maligned, it saddens our hearts.

I want to believe that the media star’s agent who earned that “unconscionable commission” deserved every penny, that he or she works very hard and makes many arduous efforts that terminate in no commission at all, and that the agent takes good care of clients. But this client felt underserved—and this client was on television.

There is an old saying, “Please a hundred people, and one might say something good about you. Fail one person, and that ...