Happy Sunday Everyone:
I challenged myself in July to start putting on some webinars for my business partners. I’ve interviewed top producing Realtors in my market, talked about messaging in this environment, and most recently, mindset. I basically did the webinar on the class I taught in Arizona last month. Signing up to put on a webinar is not for the faint of heart. You have to come up with content, invite people you work with, or want to work with, hope people say “yes”, hope they actually attend after saying “yes”, and then hope you provide content that is worth their time. Being in sales, rejection is a part of life. For me personally, being mindful of others thoughts (blessing/curse for me), the rejection piece of sales, does not fit into the “water off my back” category. General rejection is tolerable, personal rejection, from those you know, is harder.
When you do these, you have to invite people, remind people, and then send out a final reminder before the event. The one I did 2 weeks ago on mindset; I received the following response from a business partner I’ve enjoyed working with for 5 plus years. We don’t talk often but have always enjoyed working together, including helping him on his own home. His text said “Hunter thanks for keeping me posted on your webinars. I haven’t had time to watch them and probably won’t make time in the future either given my day to day. Please remove me from your list for now”. He went on to talk about the amount of unsolicited info he receives from lenders etc. When the text came through, my head went into WTF mode. Is he kidding me? Defense mechanisms were on high alert. Initial thoughts were blow up the relationship, send a text back about the amount of unsolicited emails I get from Realtors, I’m on his newsletter list, I didn’t ask for that either, etc…Then I calmed down and simply replied with a much kinder message (too long for this) asking if we could talk next week for a few minutes by phone to better understand his text, of which he said yes.
We had our conversation last Tuesday. Caught up on how he was after his home purchase, how I was doing, and where his head was with being a Realtor. Basically, told me he was in a great place and had found some other interests, which are helping with him being a Realtor, but wasn’t interested in hearing about others, or a massive desire to grow his business beyond what he was currently doing (it was totally fair and made great sense). He then went on to explain he’s on a ton of lenders drip campaigns that are driving him nuts (which I understand), and he had thought my stuff was automated as well. Net net-we talked for a 1/2 hour. I couldn’t have been happier with our talk. He asked to be removed from webinars but to stay on this email list. Why am I writing about this today?
I’ve said it before, our team’s top rule in communication is we can compliment by email but we critique and resolve issues by phone, internal or external. A client or internal partner cannot understand your level of caring for resolution through email/text. Perhaps his text could have been written a little less harsh given our past track record but I could have read it with a little less sensitivity. I could have blown up a relationship by text vs. looking for resolution by phone, which I found.
The old adage of “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all”, should be changed to “if you can’t say something to someone’s face, or on the other line with them, don’t send it in email/text”. This has nothing to do with my Realtor friend’s text to me, but just thinking about the harshness in emails I see from people, and then they get on the phone and apologize. Email/text fights and following up by voice apology is the ultimate in passive aggressive.
I know I’m in the minority here, and text does serve a purpose, but if you need to resolve something or talk in depth, pick up the phone. I was talking to a Realtor yesterday, he picked up the phone, said he was busy, and to send him a txt. I’m thinking “I’m trying to help you structure a deal for your clients offer to get accepted and it’s complicated” but he wants me to send him a txt (he’s not on this distribution list). Voice notes, voice mail, etc…still have their place. I don’t think we realize how much time we waste trying to save time with txt/email.
I sense this might sound more negative than I want it to. My exchange with my friend is something I’m grateful for. It’s my initial reaction, the desire to fire back (to something I misread), by text/email, the sense to think twice, and then have the resolution it did, was worth writing about. I’ve seen it go the wrong way with myself and others more times than not. Its nice to on the right side of a learning lesson.
Side note-here is the recording of my mindset webinar. Feedback was solid. I think it helps for both mindset and business planning.
Recording Link:https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/_gq1q0aOUqyokaz_0aaETgQK_hYYu7tyOELewOCQie361u1QeMITxN18xrozM_Gq.7zyyyxxwjqfnUu9t
Passcode: DL%CSp0c