Episode 64: Client-Agent Chemistry with Kenny & Bran
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Hello and welcome to The Thoughtful Realtor podcast. This is a podcast where we sit down for insights, stories, and conversations about all things, real estate, running a real estate team here in California, and how we find our way as leaders and business partners.
I'm Kenny Gong, one of the founders and partners of Willowmar Real Estate.
And I'm Bran Bunnag, a partner of Willowmar Real Estate. For today's episode, we're going to be exploring something truly important to realtors: the right clients. Just like in friends and partners, not every client is a complimentary fit for every realtor. One of the things I've heard a lot over the years is “Every pot has the right lid, but not every lid is for every pot.”
The Right Client-Agent Fit: Vulnerabilities and Shared Values
Absolutely, and we wanted to talk about the things that we can do to make sure that the client-agent relationship is the right fit so that all parties are working together and the client ends up truly with the most satisfying experience. So we're going to dive right into it. Let's first talk about why, Bran, it's important to find the right fit between agent and client.
What are some initial thoughts that you've got?
Well, I think we've all heard this before that the right client-agent fit–I mean, really why real estate and representation is so important–is because it's a big financial investment. And I think that what's underestimated is that it's also a large emotional investment. And so I think that when it comes to that partnership of an agent and a client, you have to think about both of those pieces, both the more tactical financial piece as well as the softer emotional pieces as well.
And I think that when there's a strong fit, it creates trust and synergy which makes the process smoother, faster, and also more enjoyable, and we want this to be ideally a confident, empowered, and enjoyable process for our clients. I think that also, on the more emotional side, a good fit means that the client is feeling heard and understood and that allows us as agents to tailor our advice.
Be realistic and make sure that it's custom to what the client actually wants for themselves. So I think that it's about creating a partnership where both sides feel very confident and aligned so that you have that trust to make it more easeful going forward.
Yeah, it's such a huge process and such a huge life milestone that can be incredibly stressful. And one of the things that I've always found as part of that stress is that vulnerabilities can come up, right? Vulnerabilities come up whenever anyone is talking about their finances, whenever they're making these huge life decisions, vulnerability comes up.
And I think that's what's so crucial is having the right people to hold those vulnerabilities in the proper way that feels, like you said, trusting. That's the piece that really, to me, gets me is that you need to have the right people to hold those vulnerabilities and the right people to share the highs and the lows with, because you're not going to want to share your vulnerabilities and your lowest lows with just anyone.
So having that right relationship, just like any relationship is so, so, so crucial especially when it comes to something so high stakes, so stressful, and ultimately something that will be a huge milestone over the course of your entire lifetime.
A huge milestone. And I think what's so underestimated is when you're purchasing residential real estate, I always say, you're not purchasing a box. You're purchasing for a reason. And so oftentimes when we get brought into the process or into the conversation, what we're hearing is we just got married or we're having kids, or we just got a new job, or we need a bigger house because we want our aging parents to be able to live with us.
So that's how we're thinking about it. And so it is an extremely vulnerable process and having someone to support that is so important, as you said.
Yeah, absolutely. And also on the other end, those are the really positive, exciting life milestones that folks go through, and we're on the other end. We are sometimes the first people that find out about divorces or the first people that oftentimes find out about deaths in someone's life.
And those moments are really special in both, you know, wonderful ways and in challenging ways, because that's something that we hold really dearly to our practice is being able to hold people wherever they may be emotionally and being able to navigate that with discretion.
With true emotional holding, like all of that I think is really, really important, because people are going through things and I think to be part of that, to be partners with people who are going through those things, is such an incredibly special and really noble experience that is crucial to our jobs.
And on that note, we're unfortunately hearing that a lot you know, in a different regard currently with the fires in LA and so many displaced so suddenly, they're moving to other parts of California where the people that they're choosing to work with will need to hold that, what they're going through and, and help navigate them through that. So there's just a lot of support.
Yeah. You know, I've also been thinking about, you know, this is a little bit separate than sort of talking about the right clientele here, but the fires also really reminded me how our job is so entwined with people's sense of self and sense of identity and sense of community. Their homes are reflections of who they are.
Their communities are reflections of who they are and what they value and what they consider matter most and and all of this is fundamental to how we approach this work, right? It's to be sensitive to those things, to understand that this is, as you said, this is not just a box. This is truly home. These are places that then are imbued with such importance, significance, and emotion; and that is something that I think is important for us to be on the same page with our clients.
So to bring it back to the right client-agent fit, you really want to be able to have someone who understands where you're coming from, what your values are, even if they aren't the same values necessarily. You want someone who ideally [has] shared values there, but even if not, you want someone to be able to understand and be able to work within wherever you want to go.
Part of our jobs is to retain values, but also be flexible and meet the client where they're at. That's what we bring to the table. And also we do want it to be a mutual fit, right?
The Elements to Having Synergy Between a Client and Agent
So let's talk a little bit about what makes up that right fit. What are some things that come to mind for you, Bran, about the kind of people and the kinds of interaction that make up the right fit for a client-agent relationship?
Good question. I think for me, the best, most synergistic are those that are built on a foundation of mutual respect. And I like what you said about sharing values. I think, yes, that is important, and also comes down to empathizing and understanding the other person's values and which then comes back to having that mutual respect.
So the mutual respect, clear communication, and alignment of expectations–which I think is our responsibility as agents to help facilitate that–I find that the right fit. It often comes down to, I would say, more of a shared energy. So for me, that is clients who are positive, they are decisive, they're appreciative, and that is what tends to bring out the best in me.
And then on the flip side, I love working with clients who value excellence in me and they, you know, they hold me to a high standard and at the same time they're open to trusting my expertise because they know that I'm living up to that standard. I think mutual energy and mutual respect is so important.
It's a two way street. The importance of that sense of mutuality, it's paramount. It really is because that's also what makes a good experience for all.
As professionals, we are service providers, right? And also as professionals, that means that we have to expect the same respect that you were talking about, the same trust and the same communication from our clients to make it a partnership.
Yes, we're service providers, but this is a partnership. And in any relationship, any true partnership in your life, there has to be a give and take, there has to be mutuality, there has to be some sort of shared understanding that you really are on the same team, which requires some sense of shared working relationship.
Energy, like you were saying, I think that's such a huge one too, because as empathetic people, oftentimes we are feeding off of people's energy. And we want to give the same kind of energy that we're receiving. So when there is positivity, when there is appreciation, when there is enthusiasm for the process and realistic expectations on the process, it allows us to show up in that same way.
And that's also something that's really hard to ascertain a lot of times. You really got to get to know people. And that's why also, I think it is such a huge important thing to prioritize this kind of fit feeling because it's an investment, right? We are all investing in that relationship in order to make it what it is.
It is. It's definitely an investment on both sides.
The First Question to See If It’s the Right Fit
So what are some questions that you ask or that you hope your clients ask to identify whether the fit will be right?
It starts with asking a lot of why’s [and] “This is what we do,” in the consultation. And I place a lot of weight in our homebuying consultation, our homeselling consultation, because that is the first opportunity to understand and to listen. I think that sometimes we're trained to come to the table with “Here are all the things that I can do to provide you value.”
But I think that that's a wasted opportunity and such a big mistake to set things off on the wrong foot because ultimately we're here to service the client and in order to do that in a genuine way, it's by understanding where they're coming from.
Of course it's the “why are you making a move?” and understanding the emotional aspect. And oftentimes, just straight up asking:
Have you worked with other agents in the past?
What worked well? What didn't work well?
What are your expectations for an agent that you think you'll work well with?
So understanding them, understanding their story, their background, why it is that they have chosen to make the move at this time, their motivations, their timeline, and then also an experience that they've had with agents–or even if they haven't, what have you heard from friends or family members who have, and what do you think is important to you?
I think that we always come up with all of these analogies to help our clients understand what type of relationship they should be thinking about. It's your professionals that you work with on a day-to-day basis–your doctor, your dentist, maybe you've worked with an attorney, your therapist. What is it that you have experienced in the past that you've really appreciated or that you've found that you need more of?
We're here to take that feedback and up front, we would like to know if that's something that's going to be in alignment or that we'll be able to achieve with you. It gives us a lot of insight into where they're at mentally, emotionally, and also what their expectations are.
The communication aspect, I think more tactically, that's something that we want to get ahead of clients these days. They use all means of communication. I had clients that start DM’ing me on Instagram and I say, “Let's move this to text message,” just in case they don't get the notification.
You never know what their preferred platforms they're using, or if they're more introverted versus extroverted, if they prefer to do everything over text, or if they want me to pick up the phone and call them. I think that goes a long way. We all know that communication is so important.
So finding alignment with the communication, understanding what their preferred methodologies are, that first conversation of understanding more about them, their motivations, their intents, and also how they prefer to take action, that helps to ensure that we're all on the same page from the get go.
Yeah. There's all of these questions that you're talking about that paint a picture–paint a picture of this person's, these people, their style, their motivations, all of those sorts of things. And part of what we do as real estate agents is we're oftentimes reading between the lines.
We're reading subtext, we're interpreting, and trying to really, really understand all of these things from what folks are saying generally. And also sometimes it is helpful to, especially for certain minds and certain brains to be really explicit about the questions. So like, what is your working style? Are there things that you can share about your working style, about your communication style that really works for you? And also sometimes those kinds of direct lines of questions can elicit some, some good conversation. You know, sometimes I like to even ask point blank, how do you like to make decisions?
Especially if it's two people, three people, that's a big question: who's going to be making the decision? Are there decision-makers that are not at this table right now [or] that are not in this conversation right now? Who else do we need to bring in? That will also kind of identify the right fit.
For me, it's really important to have the decision-makers in communication with me. And if there are decision makers that are not in communication with me, that means that there needs to be some adjustments made in order to make sure that I can help everyone that's going to be making the decision get to where they need to go. And so that's also a big one:
Who needs to make the decision?
How do you like to make decisions?
What does that process look like for you?
How do you like to navigate tough conversations? How do you like to navigate conflict, tough conversations, challenging conversations?
All of those things I think are really, really important here. And just to put it out there so that you can see where the conversation goes from there. This is so crucial because a lot of times when we're working with folks, especially couples or couples buying with family, or they're selling with family, a lot of times these are things that they have not yet figured out themselves. So it's really a wonderful, interesting, fascinating position for us to be in, to be able to be asking these questions–to say, you all have never made this large of a decision before together, so you may be finding out things about each other that you never knew before.
In this process or if you're with family, you may be having conversations with your relatives that you never had before that will unearth the years and years and years of whatever relationship baggage has been there in the past. So how do we navigate that? And seeing how people react to that also is really potent for determining whether this is going to be the right kind of fitting relationship.
Yeah. And I know your question here was about what questions do we want to ask in order to determine if it's the right fit? I will say that while I do put a lot of weight in the consultation, sometimes we can't determine that up front and it does take time for us to make that discovery.
What I found, which I think is true for myself as well, is that what I say is not necessarily what I do. I might have all of these ideations of what my personality is, how I make decisions, but that's not necessarily how I act. And so there is, as you mentioned, a lot of reading between the lines, and that's why we ask a lot of questions about:
Where did you grow up?
How close are you with your family?
Where do you work? What do you do?
We are trying to make that determination ourselves or at least come to some assumptions. And that helps us to navigate as well. I think that touring with clients is always so eye-opening to me.
I love doing private showings, private tours because–if anyone's ever toured with me, you'll know that I stay silent [and] I let you go through the home on your own–you know I'm not following you breathing down your neck, asking you what you feel about this or that. I'm often observing.
There's some clients who like to think on their own and they're processing on their own and they just stand in the room and they look around. There's some clients who will point things out to me. There's some couples who also go through the home silently individually or they're constantly collaborating with each other. Everybody has their own way of going about things and I want to respect that. I think that oftentimes it's not necessarily about whether or not they will be a right fit.
If we're not seeing the right things, then we're going to go the other direction, but how can we show up differently to fit better with our clients? And for the most part, we try to do that. I think that's something that we are really good at as a team is our ability to work with various different types of clients because we have that empathy and mutual respect and understanding. And that does sometimes take time and so that trust sometimes is built over time.
The Evolution of a Client-Agent Relationship
Absolutely. I would love to talk a little bit about this where there's investment of time that goes into this relationship. Are there situations that you want to share where there were surprises about, maybe, in getting to know clients and in getting to see the evolution of that client-agent relationship.
Yes, those are my favorite and so rewarding. Kenny, you're so good at analogies. I'm sure you can come up with one for this. You don't already have one, but the evolution of it, seeing your relationship blossom over time and become more synergistic is so rewarding and so awesome.
So yes, I have a lot of those experiences and I can speak to one more recent one as an example. A client of mine–let's call him Ben–he first came to me and he was a referral from an out-of-network agent. In our initial conversation from the get go, it was about a specific property that he had gone to the open house for and he wanted to make an offer on it and he wanted to loop me in so that I could help him make the offer.
That in itself is an opportunity to read between the lines of, okay, so this individual I don't know how many open houses he's been to, but all he maybe thinks of an agent being good for is making an offer. And that's not what we're all we're good for. So in that conversation, I had to encourage us to take a breather, take a step back. We have some time, offers aren't due for another week. Let's take this time to learn more about each other and for me to understand more about what it is that you're looking for, because I can't in good conscience write this offer for you if I don't know if it's the right fit.
So in order to do that, we need to go 10 steps back and figure out what's important to you and what's your budget and are you pre-approved and et cetera, et cetera. So that was how it started off and we had conversation after conversation where he was hesitant to move forward with an agent and he kept telling me, “I'll loop you in if there's properties of interest.”
And sure enough, he did. So I knew that he was meeting other agents at open houses and there were plenty of agents in his network, but he kept coming back to me to ask me my thoughts on properties. It takes time, and that was one reason why I felt like we needed to have resets.
But again, like I'm missing a lot of the context of like, “Have you toured other properties? Why are these the ones that you're pointing out as properties of interest?” So finally, after like three or four rounds of him having interest in a property and us almost writing an offer, I said and–this was at a time when BRBC wasn't enforced–so I sat him down to understand, “I want to work with you from start to finish. The way that I work is that I am a full service agent and I don't want to just be brought in piece-by-piece because I need to understand the holistic story and I want to know that this is.”
And so I told him more about the buyer agency representation, what that means and that that's how I would prefer to carry forward if he does want to work with me and in that conversation discovered a lot. Calling out the elephant in the room really helped to shine a light on the fact that his hesitancy was coming from not wanting to feel pressure. Whatever experiences he's had in the past or whatever he's heard about other agents made him anxious. “I don't want to work with someone who's going to pressure me to purchase the property. I want you to know that. There's a possibility that I don't buy a home, but I have a lot of interest.”
And so that was hugely enlightening to help us have a conversation around the fact that the way that I work is that's not what I'm after. My goal isn't for you to purchase a property. It's for you to feel confident in your move whenever that happens and however that happens.
I have no attachment to the outcome of you purchasing a home. Of course knowing that that is your goal, if you tell me “I need to get into a home within three months and I don't care what that looks like, I just need one,” then that's a different conversation. And I'm gonna help you navigate to make the right calls if that's the choice that you want to make. But in this case, knowing that there's no rush, “I want to find something that fits for me and if it doesn't happen, then it doesn't happen,” then I'm all on board with that.
And if the only outcome is for you to discover after a year that you want to wait to save more money in order to be able to purchase a property that fits your needs. then that's a great outcome for me if we can achieve that together. So helping him understand that, I think that conversation really broke through that sense of mutual respect and mutual trust, which then made things so much smoother going forward because it then allows me to do my job and for any guidance, any expertise to be met with trust.
Yeah. You know what I'm taking from this wonderful example that you're sharing, Bran, is that a right-fitting client-agent relationship is exactly that a relationship, right? A relationship, and a relationship means that there is this shared understanding of truly the holistic goal of where we're trying to go, and whatever that looks like, whether that's two years of our search process, whether that's three months, whatever it is.
Having that shared understanding, that's the juiciness of what the right fit is, is that there's this like shared commitment to being in relationship and to showing everything to each other so that we can actually really, really get you to where you want to go versus I think what you're talking about here too, is like, you don't want to take someone to a place that they actually don't want to go.
In order to actually understand where they want to go and where they don't want to go, you have to have these really open, honest conversations. It’s not just, “That's a beautiful home and I would like to make an offer on it.” It's like, why is that actually a home that you want to be in a community that you want to be in beyond just the finishes?
I think that's the really good juicy place because no matter if someone is super analytical or super emotional. At the end of the day, the reasons that they want to purchase a home, a primary home is so filled with all of these things that we talked about, which is that emotion, that story, all of that stuff that is not just, you know, doing a checklist.
There's so much more to the checklist and we can't unearth what's on that, what's beyond that checklist, unless we actually have these, these deeper conversations. And I think your story really exemplifies that. Yeah, it's just such a good example of what that can look like.
First Impressions
When you're talking about getting to know people and that taking time, it immediately makes me think about how first impressions are important. But they're not everything.
Sometimes, if I meet someone and immediately there's energy, there's chemistry, we're bantering, we're making each other laugh, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But then when you're actually in a relationship with them, you realize what the actual relationship is. You realize what the actual dynamic is and it may not be the right dynamic, right?
And there's other times, it’s the opposite. There's a set of clients that come to mind where I did not get a good, initial impression of them at all. In fact, it was like a poor impression. There was no engagement. It felt like they were actively ignoring me and trying to get as far away from me as possible. Meeting them at an open house and then I was like, okay, that's fine. You do you, we are not each other's people. That's totally fine. And when they left the open house, we did exchange contact information, but I thought it was very perfunctory. I was just like, okay, here's my card. I get out of my open house.
Have a nice life.
Have a nice life. Exactly. And you know, lo and behold, they come back, they reach out to me. We set up a buyer consult and in that buyer consult, there was a little bit of warming up. There was a little bit more there. And then suddenly, years later, they've transacted with us like five times.
Those are the things that are also really good reminders that it's not always about the first impression, and the client-agent relationship, the client fit sometimes takes time to really gel and mold. And that's all part of it, right? Like we're all humans bumping into each other, bumping into other humans.
And how do we be present with those and also continue to build discernment about how we kind of figure out who we want to spend energy with, and also have some fluidity and some looseness when it comes to that? We may need to shift based on whatever first impression we're getting.
And all of that, I think, is also part of all this. What we're talking about and all of these things are constant [and] interesting that I think are all just things that we also want to gain more skillfulness around, gain more looseness around, and really understand because this does impact a lot of things. Like we were talking about, this is a very big process for people. This is a big life milestone, and so how do we take all of this so that at the end of the day, people have the right experience?
And what I love, Kenny, about the example that you just gave is that it's not like we're changing who we are, or molding ourselves in order to be a better fit for our clients. We're still the same person, we still have the same values, and we're sticking to those values. That's part of the reason why sometimes we'll meet someone at an open house and we will let them go, we'll connect with them, and mentally we'll say, “That's fine.”
If I don't go after them because I also want to respect who I am and if you weren't feeling that connection at first, then that's absolutely fine that you respect that. But also being open to developing that relationship because we also understand that everybody has certain mannerisms in different situations or certain things that they're going through at a specific time. So you can't make judgments based off of one interaction. And I think that the trust that you built with them over time, it's not because you changed. Your views or what you were communicating, it's the same story and you're just building, you're giving them more of a sense of who you are and that allows them to build a deeper connection.
Conclusion
Absolutely. All right. I think that this has been such a wonderful conversation. Let's do a little wrap up, Bran. So if you were to filter all the things that you shared today and all the other things that maybe you haven't shared yet today, what comes to mind about determining whether any relationship, high stakes relationship, in our lives is the right fit? What are the key takeaways?
Key takeaways. First is that it takes time, so you can't expect to make that call within one conversation. Second is mutual respect, mutual trust, and that comes with developing that understanding and taking the time to care about the client and put them first and asking the right questions.
Yeah, and I'll just add to that. It's the importance of getting in there, the importance of just being in that relationship, investing the time and being really proactive in discerning if you can, if there is mutual respect.
And I think just allowing yourself to be really engaged in that process of figuring out whether this is the right relationship. Relationships take work and just like any other relationship, you are every day choosing to be in that relationship. It is an active choice to be in that relationship. So with any of the relationships that we're in–with a client, with loved ones, with any other high stakes relationship–,it does feel like: how are we constantly checking in and choosing this relationship?
Because we have checked in properly and it still feels like it's the right one. It's the right nourishing one. It's the right one to get us to where we want to go. It is the right one where there is mutual respect, mutual trust, shared communication, shared value, enough shared values that there's something there that is still compelling about that relationship. So actively choosing that is something that I'll add.
Okay, that's it. Thank you all for tuning in. We are so, so, so honored to have so many amazing clients that have felt like the right fit, many of whom maybe are listening to this very episode. And we're also still so grateful for the relationships with our clients that we get to just choose every single day.
We'd love to hear from you about your experience finding the right fitting partners for real estate or any high stakes partnership. Let us know what it was like working with them. You can find us at willowmar.com or Instagram at @thoughtfulrealtor and reach out to us directly. And if you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and leave us a review.
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And so until next time, bye!
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