Consultant Estate Agent Parallels

Even today, comparatively large purchases often see companies seek the views of a middleman. Such resource is specifically brought in, perceived as having expertise at that time absent in the firm and expected to serve duties ranging from needs analysis, initial vendor screening and presentation chairing. In solution sales speak, I’m referring to Consultants.

I am yet to meet a salesperson in my arena that likes dealing with a consultant.

There are several reasons for this. Such bitter experience hales from such as:

• a hidden agenda, usually having a pre-selected ‘favourite’
• tend to gravitate towards ‘technical’ minutiae rather than big-picture strategy
• focus on day one rather than lifetime cost/value issues
• further Consultancy fee desires (eg: implementation support) can cloud purchase process
• they become the worst type of gatekeepers
• they nearly always shy away from any responsibility of decision recommendation

And this is by no means an exhaustive list (for instance I could do an entire blog ranting against all the angles of corruption I’ve suffered knowledge of and lost deals through because of my refusal to play along).

So I was reading about how estate agents never really help the buyer. Not news in itself of course, especially for any UK homebuyer and was tickled by the parallels emanating from an early comment:.

“your initial conversation with the estate agent is an important one”

A list of stances to get across hold significant resonance; price expectations, lack of desperation, strength of position, calmness, emotional distance, establish negotiating currencies. And a further point I liked was the amount of research you could do before this vital first meet. For websites with similar house price facts, read all the background you should glean from purchases by the prospect and their competition that you can uncover from inside the organisation with a bit of diligent digging.