Testimonials, Critics, and Barking Dogs
One of the things Elite Properties has yet to do well is gather testimonials. That doesn’t mean we don’t provide excellent service — I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the next step in the process, where you ask someone to fill something out that SAYS we provide excellent service, so we can show others that someone said something nice about us.
The traditional sales site is loaded with testimonials — they’re very effective because it’s better to have some third party person talk about you than to watch you talk about yourself.
Of course, every so often we have a client who wasn’t as satisfied as the rest. It’s gratifying to me that the number of these clients is low as a percentage of all the folks my agents work with, which shows me that they’re doing such a good job that I don’t hear a lot of complaints. I’ve also found that I’m better at working with such clients than I thought I would be at the outset, because a lot of it boils down to just listening to their concerns and then deciding if it’s something I can fix or not. If I can fix it, I do.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from the clients who love you enough to write a testimonial about you are the barking dogs, people who:
- Are not clients
- Are generally not even potential clients
- Are by and large (perhaps 90% of the time) anonymous
- Enjoy bashing Realtors®
I had some of these folks hanging around here at one time, and I didn’t like how they hung on my every word and popped up at the most surprising times — like a Jerk-in-the-Box. So I pretty much made it a matter of policy at both the moderation and software level not to engage them here, and that’s worked out well.
The reason I’ve started thinking about them lately is that Elite Properties now enjoy’s having on board our second Realtor®/Writer, Purva Brown, and Purva’s been getting barked at quite a bit recently.
It’s always seemed to me that trying to educate a bubble blogger about Realtors® is one of those Sysiphean tasks — like rolling a rock up a hill and then sticking your head under the rock as it rolls backwards.
Jay Thompson would probably know the right thing to do. Jay gives them what for without kicking them out.
Loving them would really be cool. What if I did that — not that I’m spiritually advanced enough for it, but I know the principle. “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” - Buddha, as quoted by the tee shirt.
Stranger things have happened. Maybe I should buy those guys some shirts.
