Clients First

Joseph and JoAnn Callaway are in the Arizona Realtor Hall of Fame - if there is such a thing.  They are a husband and wife team doing business as Those Callaways, and they have been doing real estate business less than 20 years.  They are big - really big - huge, in fact - and have been since beginning their business in Scottsdale.  They have recently published a book entitled Clients First - and it contains the secret of their success.  Their desire is to share what they have discovered - remove the secrecy - and in so doing make the practice of real estate better for everybody.  Amen to that.

Those Callaways were about 50 years old when they started in the real estate business.  Before that, they searched yard sales for rare books and then found a deserving home (no pun) for their finds.  They loved what they did, but it is hard to think what might have been a less lucrative business.

They say that they began as terrible agents.  And their story illustrates that, okay, maybe they made a boneheaded move or three as they began.  What is so heartening is their telling of their "aha" moment - the life-changing, career-changing moment from which they never looked back.  They decided that no matter what the cost, their clients came first. 

First - not just in words but in behavior.  Not just for Joseph and JoAnn but for every member of their 30+ real estate agent team.  Puttings clients first is a mindset - the true north - and although they have known and lived it since early in their business, the challenge has been in explaining it to others.  And that's where the book comes in - the book just published in September that is now in the hands of many thousands of real estate agents hungry for their same success. 

What does putting clients first look like?  Honesty, competence and caring.

By honesty, that means being truthful with clients - trusting clients with the truth - even at the expense of a transaction.  The clients' interests come first.  Always.  No compromise.  As the Callaways have trusted their clients, their clients trust them.  Those Callaways do not prospect.  They do not ask for referrals - they never have.  Their business comes from past clients.  And it is BIG business.

Competence is about being the best in the field - knowing the real estate contract inside and out, knowing the neighborhoods, knowing the market, developing systems that guarantee that every step in a real estate transaction - and there are a lot of them - is completed perfectly and on time.  To do that, they discovered early on that as perfectly as the two of them could work transactions, they could not work IN their business and ON it while putting their clients first.  So their team was born.

As for caring, let me quote from their book:  "When you put Clients First, the conversation is all about them.  Everything about you is what you can do for them.  The client becomes your obsession.  You are the client.  When you are the client, you have strength.  When you are the client, and the client misleads him- or herself, you have the strength to say so.  When you are the client, you know what is best and you say so.  When you are the client, you fight for yourself." 

Honesty, competence and caring.  That is what we want - and need - not just in real estate transactions but in every transaction in every part of our lives. 

I want my real estate clients to come first always, and to know that they come first.  They deserve it.