Who do you work for?
Who works for you? Who should you be working for? Who should work for you?
Are you working for your broker, or are you working for
yourself and your family? Are you working for your creditors just to get
through each month’s bills, or are you working for your future?
Who is working for you? Are you? Is your broker? Are your
mortgage lender, title rep, home warranty rep, insurance rep working for you?
Are they focusing on how they can make your job easier? Are they focusing on
how they can make you look like a rock star to your clients? If not, why not?
As an independent contractor, you are in business for
yourself, maybe though not by yourself. In our industry it seems that many
believe that they work for their broker, and frankly many brokers feel they
that the agents work for them as well. It seems to be that often in our
industry that the Broker believes that they hire agents to work for them and as
conduits to the agent’s clients to bring those clients into the broker’s firm.
It is amazing how many agents seem to buy into that thought process.
Who should be working for you? How about after you, first
and foremost your Broker should be working for you, aren’t you in fact their
client? If not you should be. Shouldn’t your success be something that they are
striving to help you achieve? Shouldn’t
your relationship be that you are in business for yourself, but not by
yourself? How should that look? The Broker’s corporate culture should be agent centered;
from the Broker down throughout the staff should see you as their client they
serve.
What is amazing is how many are working in situations that
really don’t serve their best interests, and even if they are made aware of it,
decide to stay knowing it isn’t really serving their needs. Why would they do
it? Many people, even who are independent contractors and are in business for
themselves, still see themselves as employees and have employee mentality. They
fear taking a risk, fear losing friends, fear making a change of any kind.
There are a lot of people who prefer staying in a situation that isn’t good for
them just because it is known and comfortable. Are you doing it out of loyalty? Have you
asked would they take care of me if something happened? Will they pay your kid’s
college, or your retirement? If not, why be more loyal to them than you and
your own family’s future?
This is like the story of Jeb and Clem who were sitting on
Clem’s front porch rocking while Clem’s old coonhound kept moaning and
groaning. Finally after listening to this dog for a couple hours, Jeb asked, “What
is wrong with your dog?” Clem said, “He’s
fine, he’s just lying on a nail.” Jeb couldn’t believe it, “Why doesn’t he
move?” Jeb, “It doesn’t hurt enough for him to move, just enough to complain
about it.” Isn’t it amazing how many people are like that old dog?
This is not a new way for people to behave, in the 1850s
Harriett Tubman was risking her life to keep going into the South and leading
runaway slaves into freedom through the Underground Railroad. Of course it wasn’t
underground and there was no railroad involved. It was moving by night walking north
going from safe house to safe house. She carried a gun, but not so much to
defend her and those she was escorting, but to either warn or shoot those who
she was helping to escape who wanted to give up and turn back. She couldn’t
have someone go back that could tell her routes and contacts. There were those
who wanted to return to the “known” of slavery if she would have let them.
Even in the story of Exodus there was a reason that the
Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. Keep in mind that the desert
wasn’t that big; in fact it could have been walked across in a matter of
several days. However, the Israelites and Moses wandered about for 40 years,
why? It was because the Israelites kept wanting to go back to Egypt and to
slavery where they knew what to expect and were used to it, God decided to not
let any of them with “Slave” mentality into His Promised Land, he waited until
that generation who had allowed slavery to be a mental state to die off before moving
their children into the Land of Milk and Honey.
Hopefully none of us will be like that old dog, or one of
Tubman’s or Moses’ followers who chooses to stay behind in a known lesser life
rather than race for freedom and opportunity.
