Why don't clients do what they say they will do?

It’s a refrain we hear often from agents, and it goes something along the lines of “they told me they wanted to lease 1000 m2. So I showed them about 20 properties available for lease around 1000 m2. And they ended up buying 600 m2 with another agent”
You can substitute different numbers in different places, and you can swap around the “buy” and “lease”. Or you can throw in the “they told me they would never buy in East Tamaki/ Wiri/ Papakura/Eketahuna , but they did” . And  it always comes back to a variation on the “they said they would do one thing, but they did another”.

Of course, often the problem is simply that we didn’t listen to what they were really saying. We heard the parts we wanted to hear, and conveniently were deaf to the part which didn’t suit our personal listings. And we didn’t ask enough questions to accurately qualify their real needs. After all, the client is the specialist in doing whatever it is they do, and we should be the specialist in real estate. The client should not be expected to know what they don’t know. I would be very disappointed if I went to buy a new laptop, or a new mountain bike, or even a new weedeater; and I knew more about it than the salesperson. Of course I sometimes am (disappointed in the knowledge of salespeople), but that is the subject for another rant – at another time. As a salesperson, it is our task to understand the client’s business, and needs, and indeed motivations, and then to be able to match them with a site which works.

But there is another element which also comes into it. It has been one of the deficiencies of the “focus group” model for some time. Product researchers get together a group of people to get feedback about potential new products, or variations on existing products, and come out with answers which don’t stand scrutiny in the real world. One of the most famous examples is New Coke. There was ample approval from focus tasting groups, but of course it didn’t make the grade once launched. Having been in focus groups myself, I have witnessed perhaps the biggest problem. And it is the same problem many surveys and user interviews come up with – people very often say what they think they are expected to say. Just read the article in Wikipedia on introspection illusion for a little more insight into how bad people are at explaining their own behaviour and predicting future attitudes.

And that becomes a problem when the prospective client says that they think they are expected to say, or even says what fits with their perception of their view of the type of building appropriate to their self image. Whether delusional or not!

So it becomes our task to align the reality of their present situation and what we know about their business, with what they tell us about their expectations and budget. And to make some sense of that in terms of the stock that is available in the marketplace.

It’s not simple. But then if it was, there would not be a need for our services.