From the Book: Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff
Part 12: Let Others Be "Right" Most of the Time
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Is It Your Turn To Be Right?
Letting others be “Right” most of the time can be easy at times, but it can also be really tough as well. When we have goals that we’re aggressively pursuing, it’s easier to know when to let others be “right”.
Let’s say you have a goal to contact 20 seller leads in 2 hours, and your first 5 calls go great. You knock them out in 15 minutes; some answer and some don’t. You have one appointment scheduled. You’re goal is to get 3 appointments scheduled, so at the moment the momentum is on your side.
On your 6th call, the seller picks up and starts talking negatively about market values and how his home will never sell because people aren’t buying homes right now and the banks are not lending money. Based on your research, you know this isn’t the case and now you're 4 minutes into the call. What do you do?
Do you try to convince the seller of how the market is picking up and that the banks are lending, or do you casually agree with the seller by saying something like “I understand what you’re saying….” and then get off the phone?
The answer will depend on how good you are with handling objections. In this case the seller didn’t say “no” about selling, he’s just telling you why he thinks it won’t sell. This is just an objection for you to deal with.
We’re always going to encounter positive and negative people with misinformation. The key is to have a couple of “one liners” ready to get the conversation back on track.
If our one liners don’t work, this is when it would be a good time to causally agree with the seller, close out the conversation, and move on to the next call as opposed to spending 20-30 minutes hoping to educate the seller on the market.
Allowing others to be right in this real estate example is a lot easier for me than it is to let family and friends to be right when it comes to deciding on things like where to eat for dinner or what movie to watch. I can be pretty particular when it comes to eating (especially if I’m cooking), and I’m even more particular with what I watch, but hey, so is everyone else right?
In both the real estate scenario and the family and friend scenario, it helps to have goals. I have an on-going goal of not eating a lot of meats, fried food, processed foods, and fast foods. I also don’t care for overly violent movies and horror movies. These are some of my non-negotiables that I have “my one liners” set and ready to go, but depending on the situation I’m willing to keep them to myself.
At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s a perfect calculation that works every time when it comes to letting others be “right”. Some days we’re going to hit the mark and some days we’re going to miss it. I think the book offers a great way of helping us approach the situation.
When we find ourselves in a situation, we can simply ask ourselves “Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy”, because there is a difference.
Let’s make today a great day and and Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff.
~Matthew
