As I told Reid the other day, I thank almighty God for a peeable back yard.
Which reminds me of my first real estate deal.
I represented a guy down in Fountain Inn who was looking for a "double wide out in the country". Well Fountain Inn is the Shangri-La of double wides out in the country, and, as it happened, I found the fellow the perfect set up: An 1800 square foot, brick underpinned palace perched on 3 wooded acres. Why it was the finest tin-dominium in Laurens County. At least he thought so. As it was, my client was a good ole Fountain Inn born and bred country boy, devoid of any city slicker pretense. After a while, I grew pretty familiar with his laid back demeanor and a little of my own mill hill refinement just couldn't help but ease it's way into our conversation. We were standing out in the back yard, checking out the lot, and before I could stop myself I said: You know, you've got a lot of privacy here. This is the kind of back yard you can whizz in any time you want to. Well, needless to say, that went against everything I learned in Real Estate School; but after hanging around with the guy all day, I knew he'd appreciate the comment. We both had a good laugh and two hours later I had my first signed contract. Sometimes you just have to be yourself.
And again, thank Heaven for the leaf and the piddle.
2 comments:
Real Estate school doesn't cover the "good ole boy" theory of being able to read people and how to just be yourself. You have made one Fountain Inn boy a proud new homeowner and a free-pee-er! Excellent!!
During my days as a banker, I received much corporate instruction on how to interact with clients. That worked fine as long as you wanted to come across as a bland, unimaginative, uptight, pre-programmed minion with the speaking style of drying bread.
Much more enjoyable were the clients who were relaxed and down-to-earth, to whom one could say, "Hold on a second there, Elvis, while I run out and grab your file," even if the client's name wasn't actually Elvis. (But most of them actually were named Elvis, now that I think about it.)
Great story, Larry.
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