dothanhomesearch.com

By: Charles Woodall
Managing Broker

http://www.dothanhomesearch.com

This post will be somewhat of a rant, so proceed at your own risk. Although it is not really my cup of tea to admonish people for not doing what they say they will do (I simply choose not to do business with them), I hope anyone reading this will understand that to be successful in business, you have to follow through and do what you say you are going to do. Doesn’t that sound simple? I choose to do business with people that take their business seriously and follow through with their promises. I am fairly certain that is how folks that I have done worked for in the past (home buyers and sellers) perceive me.

First, a bit of background. I had a business situation recently where I had two separate?projects to be performed in?our office, and decided to contact contractors I either knew personally or had used in the past for each project. The nature of each project is unimportant, but the cost of each would run anywhere from several hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars. The point of this entire post is to highlight the differences in how each of these contractors chose to handle the potential business I was sending their way.

On the first project, I called and left a message with a contractor that I have used in the past. He called me back within two hours. Unfortunately for us, he was already committed on the night I needed, so he could not do the job. He apologized and asked that i give him another chance next time. I thanked him for calling me back and told him I would. He apologized again, and I thanked him again and moved on to another contractor. This guy called me the next day to recommend a competitor of his since he was unable to help me. Do you think I would hesitate to use this person in the future? Certainly not.

The second project was the more expensive of the two. I called a “friend” who happens to own a business in this field. This is?someone that I have known for many years, and I was to know if he was interested in looking at the project. Again, this is someone who has done some work for us in the past. I called mid afternoon, got his answering service, and left a message. He called me back the next morning, however I missed the call due to a meeting.?We played phone tag until late that afternoon, when we finally spoke?about the project. After a few minutes discussing what I was looking for, he said he would come by the office the following morning to take a look. That was two weeks ago. He never showed. He hasn’t called back. I certainly am not calling him.

I warned you in the beginning this was a bit of a rant, but it annoys me to no end when business people don’t do what they say they are going to do. If you can’t do something, or if you are not interested in the job, just say so. People will have a lot more respect for you when you just say “I can’t do it” or “I’m sorry, I just don’t have the time”. I have turned down home sellers in the past when I didn’t think I could help them, but I told them that I wasn’t the person to list their house. I have chosen not to work with home buyers for different reasons, but I let them know why. If someone takes the time to recognize me and ask me if I can help them, I will show them the courtesy of at least acknowledging that fact. If I can’t help them, I will thank them and move on. Is that really too much to ask?

Business people measure success in different ways. To me, success is having happy clients, a good reputation in the community, and a profitable business. What’s your definition?

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