Wherever You Go

In 2009, when I was flat broke, I had an idea.

Be cheaper!

I wasn't making any money selling houses (nor was anybody else), and I was chewing on the idea of cutting my prices to get more clients.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea.

After a few weeks, it seemed not just a good way but the only way to solve my problem.

Lower prices would undoubtedly have the clients rolling in droves.

Convinced this was the answer, I started thinking of all the other problems it would solve.

Like my paperwork problem, for instance.

Confession: despite my repeated claims to the contrary, I'm not the most organized person, particularly where paperwork is concerned (right, Dee?)

In 2009, before I had help, my paperwork was a hot damn mess.

So this is how "charge less to get more clients" morphed into "start a discount brokerage where all the agents charge less."

The rationale was that 1)clients would come in droves, and 2)starting a new brokerage would be a clean break from the "old me" who was disorganized to the "new me" who possessed supreme organization skills on a Marie Kondo level.

I spent weeks designing this new brokerage. By which, I mean I dreamed about how awesome it would be and wasted property owners' time looking at spaces I couldn't afford to rent (remember - the base problem here was that I was broke - reeling from nine months where I'd earned only $1,400).

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that my time would have been better spent straightening my paperwork.

Opening a discount brokerage was a pisspoor idea.

But thinking about it sure felt good!

I could see the fat stacks of cash lined up beside the impeccably arranged rows of super-neat paperwork in color-coordinated files with every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed.

It would have never worked.

I want to say that I came to my senses and realized that the idea was fraught with problems.

But it was more like a divine intervention of sorts, in that my cash flow at the time was as pisspoor as the idea itself.

I couldn't have afforded the fees even to change brokerages or have new business cards printed, much less rent space.

It was all a pipe dream.

Escapism.

It was mental masturbation, daydreaming to escape the reality of my situation.

Having no means to push that idea forward forced me to find ways to improve my lot that were within my grasp.

The solution was to go in the opposite direction.

I raised my prices and started charging more than other brokers.

I'm glad I did because starting a discount brokerage at the time was a terrible plan. Many other folks had the same idea; only a few are in business today.

It seems obvious now, but for the bright glare of the morning sun over the greener pastures on the other side of the fence, I couldn't see that more "regular" customers during a time when houses weren't selling wouldn't fix my problem.

In fact, the cost of carrying excess inventory would have contributed to it.

Most sellers, at the time, were pipe-dreaming too. They wanted to sell their house for what it was worth before the crash.

What I needed wasn't more "regular" clients but more "motivated" clients; those folks didn't want a discount.

They wanted results.

They were happy to pay more for better service.

And, as far as the paperwork goes, despite opening and closing one brokerage and then opening another, it's just as disorganized today as it was back then.

Looking back, it's clear the problem with my income wasn't the market, and it wasn't my customers. The problem with my organization wasn't my current firm; opening a new firm a few years later didn't fix it.

The problem was me.

Now, when I catch myself plotting to escape a problem by running from it, I look in the mirror and remind myself of this inescapable fact:

Wherever you go, Richard, there you.