I've sold Real Estate for over 12 years. First in N.Y. and now here is Florida. I can remember back when I first started in this business and my broker was explaining the in's and out's and also showed me that there is more than just dealing with buyers...sellers and other Realtors®. She told me that when I call up for showing instructions that I need to speak slowly and clearly so the other agent can understand me. She also told me that when you need to leave a message that you should document your call so when the agent returns your call you will know which property they are calling you back for.

Since I started practicing my Real Estate career in Florida I noticed something that seems different here then in N.Y.. It's called courtesy..etiquette and also knowing what the heck you are doing. Well I keep finding out that there are still agents here that think they know what they are doing but really don't. This is simple...when you are making your list of properties to show.... you should be able to communicate back with the right information.

I was laughing because I started to think about Broker Bryant's post Please leave a message after the beep.....or NOT! It mentions simular things about getting phone calls and messages.

Today was just another day in the life of the listing agent listening to nonsense on the other end of a call. I was on the other line while an incoming call was coming in. I went to pick up the call but the call already wnet to my voice-mail. Within 5 minutes I began to listen to the message...now mind you I was on my cell phone at the time the call came in and sometimes calls get garbled and you just simply can't understand the call due to interference. But in this case the call was clear but the agent left me such a fast message and so unclear that there was no possibility to understand anything other then part of it that said showing instructions.

Luckily my phone saved the number on caller ID and I was able to call the agent back. Someone who picked up the phone asked me who I was calling for...I explained the situation about being unable to understand this caller other than figuring out from the low masculine voice that it probably was a mail voice. Well that surely narrowed down my choice by 50%. I finally got to the right person and when I told them I was returning the call...the agent could not remember which property they were calling me about. I even went as far to mention all the listings Ihad and the areas they were in just to stimulate his memory. After about 15 minutes with this guy on the phone he was like.....uh...uh ...um....uh ...I'm not sure I'll have to call you back.

Two hours go by and the agent calls me back to give me the property address and then starts asking my to map out directions for him to get there. First of all I don't mind helping people to a point but I'm not a tour guide like they have in Hollywood selling maps to the stars and besides...if the agent would look at the directions in the remarks section they would see how to get there very easily. I told him to try map-quest...uh ...oh....uh...I don't have a computer in front of me to look it up.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!.....Here I am trying to get every agent into see all of my inventory so maybe we can sell something and I make all the effort to try to help this agent but to no avail...this is what I get back....nothing...no respect...NADA!

I think Realtors® that are representing both our industry and clients should really spend a bit more time doing their homework.

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