Working Together: How Buyers, Sellers and Brokers Get Better Results

From the Mendy Realty archive, first published by Mendy Lipsker.

This article is about doing business with other people in the business. I have found a great advantage in working with other companies.  A lot of people are trying to grab the listings for one company or another, and looking at other companies as their competition.  I see other companies just the opposite.  I believe they can be my allies, my partners in doing a real estate transaction.

In an office there are agents all selling real estate.  The agents in the office look at the person at the next desk as their competition, so are really in that competitive mode frame of mind.  To be successful, however, you need to be in a creative mode rather than in a competitive one.  If you are sitting in the office and the one at the next desk is your competition, you are going to be competing with them so the relationship between you cannot be good.  You can pretend that the relationship is good, but it won’t be.

A broker who has agents in their office, who are competing with one another, can’t function in a professional and normal way.  I think if you work with other agents and offices, you increase your chances of success.  Rather than work against someone in another office who has the same listing, work together.  Maybe one of you has another way to approach the buy/sell, so you work together.  We are stronger together than we each are on our own.

There are many, many advantages to collaborating with someone, whether I’m on the selling side or working with the buyer.  When there was true transparency, and not one person trying to outdo the other, we were each successful.  If one is in that competitive mode then he can’t communicate honestly and do a real deal. My buyer wants this, my seller wants that, and everyone is trying to represent their buyer/seller in the best way. We can better serve both our clients by cooperating.

My Mission Statement for my company is really to try to work with the agents in our office and with agents from other offices.  I really find myself to be more on the selling side than on the buying side of the business.  Representing sellers is my niche in the business, but I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum, and if agents and brokers cooperate with one another, it is better for everybody.  I’ve found when people are in competitive mode, everyone suffers.

The more people are in the creative mode, the more people are successful.  Everybody brings to the table some special thing and working together can be amazing.  In my first article, I said it was like an artist creating a painting, where all colors and all shades are important.   In the same way, all personalities and all talents of agents and brokers contribute to the most successful real estate transactions.  With the creativity of other agents in my office, we create successful deals.

Anyone is welcome to join our office if they like the way I do things, even people working in another office or brokerage. I’ll give them the respect they deserve and together we will put together great deals that reflect well on both of us.

Would you like to work together instead of being in competition with one another?  Are you tired of butting heads with other agents?