25 Things My Clients Know

50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew | Remarkable Communication One of my favorite posts floating around online about customer service is from Sonia Simone titled "50 things your customers wish you knew".

It is quite the opposite of what many business books teach and tout about mission statement, features and benefits etc.

The full list of 50 can be found here.  I left 25 or so that I know my commercial investment real estate clients certainly represent.  No insults intended; just a bit of psychotherapy.

Client speaking/thinking:

1.  I don’t need you to be perfect, but I do need to know I can rely on you.

2.  Telling me what you don’t know makes me trust you.

4.  You don’t need to do all that much to be a superhero. Just do exactly what you say you will do.

7.  I don’t mind spending the money, as long as I feel I’m getting real value.

8.  My life is really stressful. If you can reduce that stress, you become immensely valuable to me.

11.  My life is very complicated. If you make it easy for me to just buy a simple all-in-one package that I can use without learning anything, I’ll take it and be grateful. (I’ll even pay a premium for it.)

12.  I want to trust you, but it’s hard for me to trust anyone.

13.  Once you’ve won my trust and loyalty, the truth is you can screw up once in awhile and I will forgive you. If I don’t think you’re taking me for granted, that is.

15.  I spend an awful lot of time being scared to death.

16.  The wealthier I get, the more I like free stuff.

18.  I’m lousy at admitting I was wrong, but I respect you when you do it.

22.  Our relationship isn’t equal and it never will be.

24.  I don’t have any interest in your excuses. In fact, I usually don’t notice them at all, and if I do, they annoy me.

27.  I only like to communicate over the phone/Web/mail and I hate when you try to make me communicate with you over the mail/phone/Web.

28.  I want to buy your product, but I need you to help me justify it to myself.

29.  There’s something in my life I’m afraid of losing. If you can make me feel like you’ve protected it for me, my gratitude will be intense and eternal.

31.  I want you to do the hard work for me. Even better if I can get all the credit.

34.  I have the attention span of a goldfish. Go too long without contacting me and I’ll simply forget you exist.

35.  Money is no object when it comes to my obsessions.

38.  It infuriates me when you answer the phone while I’m talking with you face-to-face.

39.  Embarrassment scares me more than death.

46.  I want to tell you everything you need to know in order to sell to me, but I’m lazy. Make it easy enough and I will. (Especially if you flatter me a little.)

47.  I don’t know what I want most of the time. You need to figure it out for me.

48.  I mostly daydream about making life better for myself, but I’ll take action to keep from losing what’s mine.

49.  I believe that most of what’s wrong in my life is someone else’s fault. Let me keep that cozy illusion and I’ll believe anything you say.

50.  It really is all about me.

Yes, we are trained in business school to pitch ourselves and sell us and our product/service.   Really it is not about the product service, it is about the customer/client.

Change the perspective from me to you; or maybe keep it on me (meaning you).  Right?  Got it?

credit:  50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew | Remarkable Communication.

Broker BS or Good Salesmanship?

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NNN-lease-propertyI had inquired about a portfolio of net leased reatuarants. The NNN deal is listed by "one of the big" firms and I received back an email with this below the property information:

As I stated earlier, if your clients like the deal it will be getting done at list price. Take a look at the comps, because they do a solid job of justifying our cap rate.
Let me know, if you have any questions. They would need to have an offer in by this coming Monday at the latest.

Cheesy_salesman_1024x1024In my eyes, at least 75% of it is BS. Yes, it could be called good salesmanship and trying to get the highest price for the seller; which is fine, he is doing is job then. However, in my experience, this is classic false urgency. It's like when I submitted an LOI on a Walgreens in Pine Bluff Arkansas in Dec 2012 and they say they have 6 offers above list price and it will close before end of 2012 all cash. Sure. It has been back to market at least three times since then and may even still be for sale today.

Yes, the net lease market is hot. But my clients are smart, know what they want and if they like it they will act fast and make an offer based on their underwriting. If we wanted your input we would ask.

More power to the broker if they have several offers at list price by Monday however I suspect I will see that deal at least 2 or more times in email blasts etc.

HELP! Millionaire client needs money to pay hotel bill

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Below is an e-mail received by me and several others from a client of mine. Note that my client is a very high net worth real estate investor. I thought it was worth reposting as I laugh everytime I read it. Obviously, his yahoo account had been hacked.

How are you doing? This has had to come in a hurry and it has left me in a devastating state. I,Terry, and Joey had a trip down to Spain unannounced some days back for an important program, unfortunately we got mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash, cell phones and credit cards were stolen from us but luckily we still have our passports with us.

We been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves tomorrow but we am having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills. Please we really need your financial assistance..Please, Let me know if you can help us out?

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

I guess people fall for these and the Nigerian Money Scams, otherwise they would not go through the time and effort.

An, no, my client nor the recipients fell for it.

What? That's the lease price?

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$2,630 psf That's the sale price per foot right?

Nope.

That's the lease price.

And I thought Walgreens paid a lot per foot for their NNN leases.

causeway-bay-pradaBased on below, how much would the building be worth if I rented a 1,000 sf building in Hong Kong Causeway Bay to Prada for the going rate of $2,630 psf? Let's assume NNN rent and going cap rate for such a primo location is 4% (which might be high!)

Annual rent: $2,630,000

Value at 4 cap: $65,750,000 for my 1,000 sf space

So... $65,750 psf to buy the space.

Makes Walgreens $300 to $400 psf look like a steal! Or Aspen at $1,000 psf is also a steal.

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