Penang IQI Realty Head Of Team Aster Ng shares with Good Harvest on why an agent or negotiator should not take on more than one appointment at a certain time.
Let’s listen to what she has to say.

 

DON'T BITE OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW

I really like this American Proverb: "Don't bite off more than you can chew."
 

Ha, imagine me putting a very large piece of cake in my mouth so much so that I can't chew it all.
 

By right, I should be taking small bites and slowly eat the cake, which is true in many aspects of our lives. There again, this phrase is often used to discourage people from accepting or agreeing to more responsibility than they were able to manage. 

 

In fact, this just happened to one of my many female team members last week. 

I don't know how it came about but she suddenly ended up having more house-viewing appointments than she could handle personally.

Having caught in a seemingly frustrating Catch-22 situation, she desperately sought help from our fellow team members. 
 

I normally don't but this time, I was forced to step in to advise her to arrange all her appointments properly so as not rush "here and there".

This sweet young agent of mine subsequently explained that all those appointments came in at the very last minute. 
 

Granted, such nature of appointments are often and greatly beyond all real estate agents’ control.

Still, one should have tried to turn down these appointments in a polite way so as not to offend their clients wanting to view the properties at the time picked by them only to assign someone else to stand in for the job. 
 

Indeed, one of a real estate agent or negotiator’s roles are to show their clients around the properties that they are interested. 

Tell me, how would the buyer feel if having called the agent to arrange for the viewing only to find out that the latter had sent someone instead? 

Now, this one important question I want to ask is by not turning up for the appointment, how could she ever get a feel for how interested the viewer might be, especially having gone through to great lengths to convince the buyer to spare their time to view the said property?
 

Unless, they are good friends and relative or they wanted the property so much ... the buyer would have just given up on the agent instantly and engage someone else who is more concerned of their needs and preference in buying a property!
 

In this case, the call for reliability comes in when handling our clients, let alone the much-talked about "after sales services" which is quite an important value for a real estate agent too.

On the other hand, if the agent were to be present at the viewing, she would have a good sense of the level of interest and how much more there needs to follow up and close the deal.

Yet again, it somehow still depends on the real estate agent's experience and negotiation skills in this field. 
 

Need I say more?