Commissiatosis is a sales agent's disease commonly known as "Commission Breath," by homebuyers and sellers. Commission breath destroys relationships before they can be nurtured and sales before they can be closed.

It is a disease of the attitude that begins in the heart, travels to the mind then spurts out of a sales agent's mouth. It can be financial deadly to the agent if not cured immediately, because it costs sales that could otherwise have been made.

Commission breath destroys trust, builds sales tension, and costs real estate agents millions a year in commissions they should have pocketed.

What is commissiatosis? It is the bad breath of any agent who is thinking more about his or her own bottom line than the clients' needs.

Are you susceptible to catching commissiatosis?

The symptoms:

• You start out gracious and caring, because you want the sale.
• Your motive isn't to meet their need. It is to meet yours.
• You ask for trust rather than earn it.
• You ask for loyalty before you build trust, establish needs, or present your services.
• You grow impatient if they don't buy the first or second home you show them.
• If they don't buy, you feel the prospects lied to you.
• Losing the sale is never your fault.
• Too many of your sales don't close.
• You talk more about making money than building your referrals.

The causes:

• Increasing financial pressure to make a sale.
• An unhealthy desire to "be number one."
• Greed.
• Too much debt.
• Pressure from spouse to make more money.
• Generally abrasive personality.
• Little or no empathy.
• No concept of "relationship" selling.

The effect:

• Increased sales tension between agent and prospect.
• Increased sales resistance from prospects.
• Feeling by prospect that agent doesn't care.
• Loss of sales agent should have made.
• Little or no rapport with prospects between sale and closing.
• Few or no referrals.
• Possible early exit from real estate as a profession.

Fortunately, commission breath can be prevented. Learn to think and talk in terms of your prospect's best interest and you will breathe a lot easier, every time, all the time. How? Ask the agents in your office who get referrals from their past customers. They know.

Published: December 18, 2003

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David Fletcher has been a Florida real estate condominium and new homes broker for 30 years with more than $3 billion in new construction sales. In 2008, Keller Williams Realty International named him a "Lifetime Achiever." Along the way he has chaired the Florida Homebuilders Associaiton Sales and Marketing Council, trained thousands of general agents and on-site agents to work together, and was a featured speaker at the National Association of Realtors. Recently he founded New Homes Niche, a builder-certified co-broker training system "to meet the growing trend we see in short sale buyers moving to new homes for a lot of reasons." Call David at 407 234 2349, , and visit his website.