Send To A Friend:
Facilitate or Advocate
Created: 6/17/2010
May 22, 2010 – This writer usually serves up an article right from the spreadsheet, and gives readers the truth “By the Numbers”. Once in a while, we might want to think about some different, less technical aspects of the real estate profession. Especially in these challenging times, it is worth thinking not only about what our objectives are, but how we approach them.
There is a range of approaches to accomplishment in this profession, just as in any other. Leaving aside the obvious aspects of running a business profitably and efficiently, keeping track of details and offering success to our clients, how do we relate to the people we must work with while we uphold the best interests of our clients?
The way I look at this question, it is a balance between facilitation and advocacy. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate an agreement between a willing buyer and a willing seller. In other words, to create a meeting of the minds about value and translate this into price and terms. In doing this, our clients depend on us to use our experience to supply answers and solutions to the challenges that inevitably arise in each negotiation or transaction.
We are sometimes called upon, or simply called, to turn up the heat and take a strong position of advocacy for a particular interest of our client, whether it is price, timing, allocation of expenses or some other aspect of a transaction. It’s important to be conscious of just how we execute this advocacy and do our best to avoid internalizing any sort of emotional or inappropriately competitive aspects, or reacting to those of other people. The minute we start putting our own interests into the process, we begin to lose sight of the best interests of our clients.
The more effectively we are able to externally examine and discuss these emotional aspects that are inherent in every negotiation, the more clearly we can keep sight of the objective we set out to accomplish. Facilitation and advocacy are two of the many tools in a Realtor’s® kit and it’s important to know which one to put in our hand at a given time. It’s even more important to choose the right one to lead off with.
Are we going to come out smiling or come out swinging? If we want to work with good people, we want to be good people to work with.
Paul Sieving is a Realtor® with CENTURY 21 Gold Dust Realty, a former Director and MLS Chair of NCAOR, was Board Chair of the
