When You Shouldn't Work For a Client

In any business where you rely on clients as your source of income there will be trials and tribulations as well as good experiences that you're happy to have been part of. Much of this dichotomy is due to the clients that you work with; some clients you will mesh with and some you won't. Real estate, due to its reliance on working hand-in-hand with clients can be especially trying in this regard.

Some clients might just need some extra nudging to get them moving in the right direction; they might just be new to the concept of real estate or have suffered with poor experiences in the past. Sometimes clients might think that they know more than you and just need a little reminder that you're the professional that they hired to do the job. Some clients might be apathetic about readying their house for sale or even just not understand why it's in their best interest to proceed a certain way. These kinds of clients can generally be worked with if you don't mind a little extra hand-holding to get the process rolling.

There are, however, some clients that you're better off terminating your work relationship with than trying to struggle through.

Clients who have completely unreal expectations are one such class of client that are often disproportionately difficult to deal with. The client-agent relationship needs to be flexible, with everyone involved working together to complete the process. This flexibility includes clients being willing to take less for their house than they'd like due to economic conditions and being willing to stage or have their house staged professionally. If this kind of client isn't willing to back down, especially when home values have fallen, they might not be worth holding on to.

There are many other reasons that clients might not be people that you can work with. If your clients want you to do something immoral, like withholding information that needs to legally be disclosed to buyers, you probably want to terminate that business relationship.

If clients won't take your advice about how to make their home more appealing to prospective buyers or otherwise have a lack of commitment to the selling or buying process you likewise might want to sever your realtor relationship with them.

The most extreme type of client that you might run across that you should definatly not work with are any clients who make you feel unsafe, are disrespectful, or are abusive in any way to you or people around you. It's better to just end the business relationship at once and move on with these types of people.

Any time that you terminate a relationship with a client make sure that you're pleasant and neutral; don't make it a personal issue or burn your bridges. If the business break-up goes poorly, a disgruntled ex-client can spread some pretty nasty word of mouth anti-publicity.

Make sure you spend the time talking with prospective clients to make sure as best you can that they'll be someone you can work with. The more time that you spend weeding out the bad apples, the more pleasant your experience with the good apples can be!