There was a cruise ship that broke down 3 hours before departure. In a panic the cruise line called out their "big guns" in-house maintenance crew who arrived with 15 mechanics and technicians that toiled away for 60 minutes.
No Luck, no repair.
In a bigger panic the cruise line Googled the best 5 Star maintenance crew and had them rushed out to the cruise ship. They arrived with all the latest high tech electronics and tools, digital this and computerized that, where they toiled away for 90 minutes. No Luck, no repair.
With 30 minutes before a fully booked boat was to depart for the Mediterranean, one of the lower ranking brass offered, "You know us locals always us this old guy that seems to work magic with boats, cars and engines, we should try him."
With nothing left to lose except hundreds of thousands in refunds, they helicopter this old timer out to the pier with only minutes to spare before they'd have to cancel the cruise. He walked onboard, alone with a small tool box. The CEO of the cruise line immediately threw up his hands in defeat at the sight of this old man, in coveralls carrying the equivalent of a lunch pail for a tool box.
The old codger ignored the CEO and made his way down to the engine room. He pulled out a stethoscope from his tool box, and moved it around the center boiler. He then removed a grease pencil and marked an X where he last had the stethoscope. Reaching into his tool box he removed a small ballpeen hammer, turned back to the boiler and tapped the X.
Suddenly the boilers all exhausted steam in unison and the engines fired up and the control panels lit up like Christmas trees. The engines were purring like kittens. The ship was seaworthy once again, saving the cruise line millions in lost bookings and refunds.
The repairman rejoined the CEO and smiled, "That will be $50,000 please."
CEO, "$50,000 dollars? I had some of the best teams in the state of Florida in here with all the latest state of the art technology that were charging half that! You want me to pay you for 10 minutes work and a hammer?"
Repairman, "And they were successful?"
CEO, "Well no, obviously not, we had to call you."
Repairman, "I'm only charging you $1.00 for tapping the hammer. But I'm charging you $49,999.00 for knowing where to tap the hammer."
You're not paying for the hour, you're paying for the years of experience!
You're not paying for the services, you're paying for the unique expertise when you hire a REALTOR®; granted you need to deliver above and beyond service, but our problem solving, negotiating and marketing strategies are the value people are paying for. And we need to know how to convey and sell that, otherwise all they see is a commission deducted from their bottom-line. We need to be skilled at relaying our Unique Selling Proposition that delivers a bigger bottom-line!
Any yahoo with a license can load the MLS and plunk a sign in the lawn; our value becomes the intangibles...until the $#!^ hits the fan, then suddenly we're worth our weight in gold ...or we're not!
If you do not know where to tap the hammer, all the leads you buy, branding you do or work you do get will eventually run out - because the market only has so many suckers and once the word gets out about your lack of skills, you'll be un-hirable. I saw it happen to biggest A-hole Broker in San Diego back during The Crash. He could have conquered San Diego, and for about 4 years he was...until the other shoe dropped on all his short cuts and poor service. Then he lost his license.
Our USP has to be what we sell to our prospects, otherwise we are just seen as commodities that "all do the same thing" so might as well pay the least for the same result. Agents hired affect the results, but consumers do not realize that until we coach them on it. You're not paying for the hour, your paying for the years and our years affect your bottom-line!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Photo by Matthew Barra: https://www.pexels.com
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com
Image by 13smok from Pixabay
Image by https://pixabay.com/ lilly cantabile-8561101
Photo by SHVETS production: https://www.pexels.com
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