During my career as a Realtor and a Broker I have heard the theory of rating your clients “A” Clients, “B” Clients, “C” Clients and “D” Clients. This is how this idea works; go to your database of potential clients and decide if you feel they are going to buy or sell now, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months or a year and over.

What you are supposed to do is to try and figure out and predict when the client is going to buy or sell. Poor predictions have cost agents thousands and thousands of dollars. Yet you are supposed to be able to know when your buyers and sellers are going to act, even when they don't know it themselves.

An agent I know attended a seminar where she was told to divide her clients into A's, B's, C's and D's. Then she was told to spend more time with the A's and forget about the D's.

This is a ridiculous idea. I know how often buyers and sellers change their timelines because real estate is an emotional business. Motivation changes from day to day.

After putting her potential clients in these four categories, I asked this agent what her plan was and she said she would be spending a lot more time with the “A’s: giving the “B’s” and “C’s” some attention, but the “D’s” she would just watch and not prospect so much.

Guess what happened? More of her “D” clients bought or sold than her “A” clients. As real estate agents, we can never predict what our clients will do.

I decided to do a little experiment. I took a group of agents and asked them to play the real estate physic network.

What were the results? The agents gave me a list of their “A” clients, “B” clients, “C” clients and “D” clients. I asked them to just pick out their top “A” client and their bottom “D” client. I took the top of the A’s and the bottom of the D’s, and we put them side by side and watched over a period of 90 days.

What happened was astonishing to me. The “D’s” outperformed the “A’s” by over 60%! We were all so shocked we decided to repeat the experiment. On the second try the results were the same. "D” clients outperformed “A” clients by 60% again.

We have repeated this experiment over the years, and the results are very clear. Do not assume that you have the right or the ability to predict your potential client’s timelines. The only one who can do this is the client.

Treat Your D’s Like A’s

I recommend is that you treat all your clients as though they were “A” clients. Give everyone exceptional service. Contact all your clients on a regular basis and give each of them, including “D’s”, "A" service. The secret to success in the real estate business is being in the right place at the right time. The more opportunities that you give yourself, by not limiting yourself, with your database, the more success you will have.

So remember, never play the Realtor Psychic Network.

Published: February 12, 2002

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