THE VALUE IS IN THE WORK YOU DO

by Sr. Staff Writer & Graphic Designer, Melanie Robitaille

With so much chatter surrounding recent changes to industry standards in real estate, it’s hard to make sense of all the noise these days. Many look for guidance but few step up on the soap box like Associate Broker, John Gillam out of EXIT Realty Home & Ranch in New Mexico and Colorado.

As a third-generation real estate professional with a background in social services, he’s actively engaged with the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), he’s in the arena, and he makes it his business to be in the know. His is a refreshing and authentic voice of reason and experience that both NAR and EXIT recognized when they aligned with him for his recent NAR NXT Up session and EXIT’s free ABR sessions earlier in 2024. Because of this he was also presented with EXIT Realty Corp. International’s Trusted Advisor award at their recent 2024 convention in Florida.

He sees things from a refreshingly positive, but realistic perspective of letting go of old ways in order to make room for several models and compensation structures that he believes will not only benefit the entire industry, but consumers as well, by being made available to everyone. He also believes it’s vital to take this time to identify where the industry wants to head in the future, but that decision cannot be based on any one type of market just because we’re experiencing it.

Known as the trainer of trainers, John holds both the Distinguished Real Estate Instructor (DREI) as well as the Gold Standard Leader (GSL) designations from the Real Estate Educators Association (REEA), which sets the standard for excellence in real estate classroom instruction. Two decades of training later, and seeing first-hand how different many states operate, even he knows there’s no one clear cut answer to the many questions out there right now, but he has seen a few things and knows these to be universally true:

COMPETENCY CREATES CONFIDENCE IN COMMUNICATION

Customers not only demand competency, John explains, but it’s part of NAR’s Code of Ethics to provide knowledgeable service that best represents the interests of the client. This means clear, transparent communication channels every step of the way so clients can see the job REALTORS® do.

“If our clients really understood what it is that we do and what we bring to the table, we wouldn’t have to worry about justifying our value. The second you feel like you have to justify or defend your value, you’ve already lost the conversation,” he said in his NAR session Shift Happens – Changing Gears in a Changing Market.

PUT CLIENTS BACK IN THE TRANSACTION

Ironically, many real estate professionals have been taught for years to make the process as easy as possible for their clients, only to have inadvertently skimmed over the hard parts he explained, saying, “When you make it seem easy to your clients, they don’t fully understand what it took to get to the closing table. We’ve systematically removed the consumer from their transaction, from their contract, and from their process. We’ve been allowing the public to drive what they think our job is when they don’t even really fully understand what it is that we do.”

INFORMED CONSENT

By putting the above two points into action, it ultimately creates a more informed customer and proper informed consent, something John said has been lacking. Poor habits can lead to clients being set up to fail when they’re not given explanations to better understand what something is and how it impacts them.

“A lot of us have gotten in this habit of sending stuff to our clients and saying, ‘Do you have any questions on this?’ And of course they don’t, because they don’t understand what it is. They don’t know what’s in front of them, and don’t know the questions to ask,” he shared.

PROPER DUE DILIGENCE TAKES TIME

Specializing in commercial and ranch real estate, John sees this slower market as a good thing. Due diligence is there to protect clients, but it takes time to do it thoroughly. Neither REALTORS®, nor their clients can afford to use the excuse, “the market made me do it” anymore and that’s what we’re seeing the result of now he explained, saying, “When I do ranch real estate, or I’m doing commercial real estate, no one questions me when I’m asking for 30 or 45 days to review, yet we do in residential. I’ve never understood why we make it okay in residential to push the timeframes.”

STOP CATFISHING CLIENTS

Getting to know your clients takes time, but it saves time too. You cannot promote the interests of your client if you don’t know what’s important to them, or where they’re going in the future. Losing sight of their needs, drafting contracts without them, and over marketing a property only leads to catfishing clients.

“If I’m really following what my ethical guidelines are, my buyer should always be excited when they come to the property because it’s meeting or exceeding their expectations,” John explained.

DIFFERENT MARKET. DIFFERENT APPROACH.

Back in 2012, John recalls sellers wanting to offer over and above originally proposed compensation just to get as many buyers as possible to their home. Ten years later, and these are very obviously different times that require individualized approaches, and he has a warning saying, “We have to understand how to work in real estate, not in a specific market. In the same day I might have a short sale and a multiple offer. If I have my mind set on how to do one and not the other, I have failed my consumer because the contracts can’t be the same every single time. If you’ve been taught to work from a templated contract, I’m going to beg you to please stop. Read your contracts, and re-read them to your consumers, because every contract should be different.”

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

"I think" isn’t "I know," and in a business where you can easily wear many hats it gets very precarious if clients don’t seek professional advice beyond that of their REALTOR'S® word. From 1031’s to title, John says the best thing you can do for clients is direct them to the right experts to give them the right answers.

Buyers won’t do all of the due diligence that we recommend. It’s okay for them not to, as long as they understand the potential consequences. But, if they choose not to and they didn’t understand the consequences, that’s on us and has been for the last several years. That’s why we’re seeing the liability that we’re seeing. That’s where our communication shifts have to start happening as we’re going forward.

DISCRETION IS ADVISED

Trust is tantamount in all relationships, and since real estate is first and foremost a relationship business, REALTORS® need to be expressing that their Code of Ethics dictates that anything learned in a trusted relationship cannot be shared or used against a consumer, without their informed consent. And that’s a standard of practice applied beyond just the transaction for a REALTOR®

“How ironic is it that to be a REALTOR®, we simply want you to be a better person. That if you say, ‘you can trust me, I can trust you.’ And that starts from the very first conversation,” he expressed.

Forward motion in real estate is going to take the realization that this is, as John calls it, “a symbiotic business,” where the ripple affects of poor practices impact the entire industry not just the reputation of one agent or office; that what affects the buyers can also come back on the sellers, and that your value isn’t just in the tools you offer or use, it’s in the very integrity you bring to the work you do.