I had lunch the other day with a friend of mine here in Sarasota who is a real estate agent. I’ll call her Suzie (for reasons that will become obvious, I’ve changed her name). Midway through lunch she began to tell me the story of a situation that occurred with a new client last week. The previous Wednesday she’d contracted a bad case of the stomach flu that put her down for three days. On Friday morning, still flat on her back in her sickbed, she received a phone call from her friend, Clarice. The conversation went something like this:

“Hey, Suzie. I’ve got a new client for you. He wants to write an offer on a million dollar house.”
“Hi Clarice. Can we do it tomorrow? I’m sick in bed with the flu.”
“Nope. He insists it’s gotta be done today.”
“Well, can we at least do it late this afternoon? Maybe about 4 p.m.?
“Sure, I’ll set it up.”

Later that afternoon, Suzie dutifully dragged herself from her sickbed, gathered the necessary paperwork, and drove to the client’s house. They spent a couple of hours preparing a low-ball offer of Continue reading →