 Okay, what if a property owner signs a listing agreement with you, you go through all the motions of putting that property on the market, you pay for marketing, you pay for professional photography, and then three days later that seller calls you up and says they found their own buyer, they no longer need your services, and they want to cancel the listing agreement. I want to talk about should your broker let you out of the deal, okay? Do we want to charge a cancellation fee, do we want to fight the owner and spend the time holding their feet over the fire? Do we want to really try to maintain that relationship or not? I mean they're leaving you to go do a deal, they're cutting you out, so do you really want to continue maintaining or even trying to cultivate or nurturing that relationship? What is up everybody? This is Ricky Caruth with Remakes of Orange Beach and Zero to Diamond.com. The sole purpose of this YouTube channel is to reduce the failure rate in the real estate industry and according to 8,000 real estate agents that are in my free coaching program, I'm providing more value than any other coach out there. And all I'm doing is sharing my exact low pressure simple system that has enabled me to sell over 100 properties a year since 2014 as a single agent in South Alabama. There's a free course, action plan, live training sessions twice a month, all that could be found at Zero to Diamond.com. So let's dive into today's topic. So in the Facebook group, the Zero to Diamond Facebook group, there was a post about this and there was a lot of comments and it seems like there's a lot of division on how people really feel about this situation. Should you let the owner out of the contract? Should you hold their feet over the fire? Let me read you this post. This is from Chris Hubbell. I just had a listing ask me to take their listing off the market because they found a buyer no longer need my services. I was just thinking, let it go. It's time to get back for future deals, thoughts and exclusive right to sell was signed. And as you can see, there was 148 comments. So before I dive into exactly how I handle these situations, I wanted to clarify what Chris said there. He said something about letting it go so you can get back to future deals. This is part of the Zero to Diamond philosophy and how it really built my business and I wish somebody would have taught me this a long, long, long time ago. It took me a really long time to realize this and to really, really understand this concept and to start executing it and it's been huge for me. Losing deals are going to happen. There's no way around it. So what you can do is, is you can sit around and talk about it or you can figure out the positives and the actual opportunities that lies within losing a deal. When you lose a deal, a couple of things happen that's very positive. The first thing is that you learn something. You figure out what you learn, but the second and most important part of losing a deal is the future time that you get back that you don't have to spend on that deal anymore. So many people are missing this part of it and they're spending that future time sulking about losing the deal when in fact they could take the new knowledge that they learned from losing the deal and the future time that they got back from losing the deal and go get or initiate five more deals. You can take that time and go initiate five more deals in the same timeframe that would have taken you to close that deal. I think a big part of success is learning how to be most efficient with your time and compounding your efforts. So that's just another little rickieism I wanted to throw in there. But getting back on the subject at hand, I want to talk about should your broker let you out of the deal? Do we want to charge a cancellation fee? Do we want to fight the owner and spend the time holding their feet over the fire? Do we want to really try to maintain that relationship or not? I mean, they're leaving you to go do a deal, they're cutting you out. So do you really want to continue maintaining or even trying to cultivate or nurturing that relationship? So I want to cover all these key points and more. I'll tell you right now exactly how I handle all these situations and I always have handled all these situations. But if I was an agent like you, I would go ahead and click that like button for me. Okay, just to throw it out there on the table and go ahead and let you know exactly what I do, I tell owners whenever we're signing the listing agreement or I'm trying to get them to sign the listing agreement or whatever the case may be, I tell them straight up that they can cancel this listing agreement at any time for any reason. Okay, and that's exactly what I mean and I'll stand behind it. Some owners want that in the agreement and I will write it exactly the way I just said it. This owner can cancel this agreement at any time for any reason. Some of them just trust me, okay? They know that I'm going to stand good for my word because I do and always have, so my reputation is everything to me. So if I tell somebody I'm going to do something, I do it. I think that's another big key to success is doing exactly what you said you were going to do when you said you were going to do it every single time. When you do what you say you're going to do, people trust you. People want to do business with you and they know they can depend on you. Now why do I do this? Why would I let sellers out of a listing agreement? I'm paying for pictures. I'm paying for marketing. I'm putting forth effort. I'm doing all these things. I'm risking a lot just to let them walk away from the contract? Yes, why? Because I want them to feel completely in control. I want them to know 100 million percent that I'm there for them. And I want to help them with whatever the case may be that they want to do, okay? See, here's something about it that you guys might not be thinking about. And that's if, what if it's an emotional situation? What if they get in and two weeks later, they get very emotional and they realize this is too sentimental of a piece of property. We just decided we don't want to sell it. Or we really just want to leave this to our kids. We've thought about it. Or maybe just the pressures of selling. Maybe there's just too much stress with showings. And what if we get an offer? What's gonna happen and all the anxiety that goes behind that? You never know what mental state people are in and how putting a property in the market is going to affect them. So that's one scenario. And then there's the other scenario where they found the buyer and they just want to cut you out of the deal, okay? Let's talk about that scenario for a second. Let's say the seller calls me a week in or two weeks in or two months in. And says, I found the buyer and I'm just gonna handle this deal on my own, okay? My first reaction is, okay, great. You found a buyer, that's awesome, okay? Here's your options, Mr. Seller. You can either just cut me out. You can go do it on your own if that's what you want to do or you can go ahead and let me handle the paperwork, the title, the inspection, the financing, all the different things that are involved in the transaction. And I can just lower my commission and I can do a very discounted commission. And I can handle the deal for you, okay? That's just something that you can throw out there that can keep you in the deal. It can keep you in the situation where you can help everybody, accomplish what they're trying to accomplish, and still get paid. And keep in mind, out of all the listings that I've gotten, let's just say I've gotten 2,000 listings in my career, I've only had a couple that this has happened to. And to be honest, I believe those two actually did let me handle the deal for a discounted commission. I think I may have had maybe one that actually completely backed out and decided they wanted to sell it on their own. Now, have I had a lot of people just say they didn't want to sell? All of a sudden, yeah, I've had lots of those. Let's just say maybe 10 to 15 of those. Still, a very, very small percentage of the listings that I've gotten over my career and here's the big kicker right here. When you handle that situation professionally and you make it easy for them to get out and you don't act a fool about it, they have this really high sense of comfort with you, right? When you go through something like that and they're probably thinking, they may be a little bit stressed out and scared to tell you that they want to back out of this thing and then you handle it so nonchalantly and so easy to work with, they really feel comfortable with you. And A, it might make it easier for them to make the decision to let you handle the deal at a discounted rate or on the flip side, they're going to come back to you later, okay? They're going to come back to you later and they're going to refer people to you because of how easy and good you were to work with even through a hard situation. But Ricky, why would you even try to maintain a relationship that's really not even there, okay? They're breaking a contract with you to go somewhere else. They're cutting you out of the deal. Why are you even trying to maintain a relationship? I'll tell you why. Even in those situations, when you hand yourself professionally, there is a small chance, okay? A greater and greater chance, depending on the situation, that there is more future business to be had within that relationship. Referrals, repeat business, referrals over referrals, there's a lot going on there. But when you try to hold their feet over the fire, when you try to make it hard for them, when you try to go after them and really just point blank, just make things hard, there is zero chance that they're going to do anything with you in the future. And on top of that, what are they going to do? You're going to get a lot of bad publicity out of this. You're going to get some bad reviews. People around town are going to hear that you were just trying to get the money, okay? And what is that going to do for your reputation? Nothing good. Every situation that you encounter, you want to make things easy. You want to make things professional. You want to handle it in a way that people are attracted to work with you in the future, okay? Regardless if you think this is somebody you even want to work with, why would you even want to work with somebody who backs out of a contract with you and so on and so forth? I've never, there's a lot of people who say, oh, I fire clients. I've never fired a client. There's a lot of clients that I've had that are really difficult to work with, really difficult, but I've never fired them, okay? Because my sole mission is just to help people, okay? And I've never fired a client. I want to be easy to work with. I want to be fun to work with. And you know, personalities aren't always gonna match up. I just do my best. But Ricky, what about the broker? Isn't it his decision to let that client out of the contract or to drop or release that listing agreement? I'll tell you right now that if my broker doesn't allow me to run my business the way that I think my business should be run that will enable me to help people, that will enable me to build a future for my family and so on and so forth, I will leave that brokerage so fast that it'll make their head spin. I'm gonna be with a broker that understands the way that I'm trying to build my business, which is relationships over transactions. Do I charge cancellation fees? I've never charged cancellation fees. I've never put it on the contract to charge cancellation fees. I absolutely do not want to charge my clients any kind of fees extra above and beyond what they already have to pay, okay? Commissions are already really high when you think about it, okay? And yes, we get paid for what we do. We are worth that commission, no doubt. But the amount of commissions is such a rate. Why would I try to throw anything else on top of that? And if somebody wants to back out of a contract because they were emotionally attached to the property besides it's too stressful, why would I charge them something for that? Sure, I have costs involved, okay? But I gotta understand that's a risk upfront, okay? And at the end of the day, if I let them out of the contract, I have to chalk that risk that I put up for the pictures and the marketing and the efforts. I have to say to myself, okay, I invested that into my business, okay? I invested that time, energy and money into this relationship. I invested it into my reputation around town because if I charge them a cancellation fee, that person is probably gonna tell their neighbors, hey, don't sign with Ricky, you know, because if you decide you wanna back out for some reason, he's gonna charge you a cancellation fee. Do you really want that kind of reputation around town or do you want a reputation of sign up for Ricky because he'll let you out of it at any moment, okay? Sign up with Ricky, sign up with Ricky. He's super easy to deal with. He will help you. That's the kind of reputation I want. So you have to make a decision and all these little things add up to be something big over time. Sure, Ricky, I mean, when you're making a million dollars a year, you can let listings go and it won't really affect you. I really resent that Facebook comment that was under the feed and I replied to it. And what I said was basically that, listen, man, this is my mindset from day one. This is how I've been from the very beginning when I didn't even have a listing, okay? And this is why I'm where I'm at because of this mindset. And to take it further, I'm not way above you, okay? We're on the same playing field. I start over at zero every single day and tomorrow is January 1st, 2019 and we all start the year over at zero. I am just as hungry as everybody else, okay? I may be way ahead of a lot of you but there's a lot of you probably that are watching that are way ahead of me and I'm telling you right now I'm coming for you. I'm trying to catch up and what I'm doing is is I'm out working you and every time you're on vacation or every time you're watching a Netflix or every time you're doing something besides working, that's when I'm closing the gap. So please don't come at me like because I make a million a year that that's why I think the way that I do. No, that is why I am where I'm at. As far as chasing some of these sellers for this commission that you think you're owed, okay? That is a complete waste of time. You're gonna put all your time and energy, okay? We talked about losing deal, taking that time that the future time that you got back from losing the deal and using it positively to find five more deals, okay? But what you're doing in this situation is you're not only taking that future time that you got back, you're taking even more time than that to go after this deal to try to get this commission and what does it do? You're chasing this negative situation. You're taking so much time away from more business that you could go out there and get. Let me tell you right now, business is 100 million percent unlimited for each and every agent forever, okay? Regardless of market ups and downs. Business is 100% unlimited. It's just up to you to get out there to find your source of prospects and call them every single day as many of them as you can, asking them what in the world you can do to help them. Do not spend your time chasing negative situations. It's gonna do nothing good for your business. It's gonna bring you bad publicity. It's gonna take time away from other people that you could be helping and it's gonna put you in a negative state of mind. Do not do this, okay? If someone decides that they don't wanna sell the property more, be professional and let it go. I know a lot of us are divided about this subject and how we should handle these situations. Please comment below and let me know how you feel about it. If you made it this far and you haven't clicked subscribe, please do so. I'm putting out four videos strictly for real estate agents every single week and as of right now, I still answer every single email, every single message on Instagram, Facebook and all the other platforms. So reach out if there's anything in the world I can do for you. Until next time, we'll talk to you soon.