Understanding what you don't know...

“Sometimes it proves the highest understanding not to understand.” (Gracian) BG was a 17th century Spanish Jesuit who is known for his witty maxims and a writing style called conceptism.

I could start out by saying, “I don’t understand”, but I think I do. Lots of times my wife will ask me something and I’ll take some wild guess and throw that back, to which she always says, “Why don’t you just say, I don’t know?” I don’t understand why I do that, other than thinking at the time that saying something is better than not having an answer. However there is another old saying to the affect that it being better to keep your mouth shut and have people wonder if you are ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubts.

In real estate, it is often the know-it-all agent who gets himself and his clients into the most trouble. There are lots and lots of situations that come up or questions that are asked for which the best answer is’ “I don’t know, but I’ll find out”; rather than blurting out some BS answer that is probably wrong and which may lead the client to make a mistake. There are also too many assumptions that can be made, conclusions that may be jumped to and “facts” that later prove to be false. I’ve had to be really careful not to go down those many misleading paths or to take my clients there. Sometimes the way to appear to be the smartest is to admit that you don’t know, but commit to do something about that.

One of the things that I’ve observed about the various managers that I’ve worked under in this business is how they deal with all of the unknowns in this business. No one knows it all, not even the manager who’s been in real estate for 20-30 years; however, most successful people in real estate seem to have developed good processes for evaluating the situations that are presented to them and then working through the various levels of law, ethics and business practices that are involved in coming to the correct conclusion. Some of the best that I’ve worked with have had to stop in the middle of a meeting about an issue and call someone else to get their insight on the issue. It is that ability to recognize their own limits, but to have thought out the process enough to know when and who to call that defines “wisdom” in my book.

So, when a client asks you that question that is seems you should know, but don’t; avoid the urge to BS the answer just to show how smart you are. Instead, show real intelligence and say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I know how to find the answer.” You’ll be glad later that you did that and so will your client.