Breaking Up With Difficult Clients

Real estate agents, we know you work tirelessly to expand your sphere of influence, maintain impeccable relationships with your previous clients, and provide valuable service to your community. This naturally leads to word-of-mouth recommendations, creating an organic source of new clients. 

With this dynamic at the forefront of your mind, you may find the idea of terminating an active client relationship unimaginable. Unfortunately, there are circumstances that necessitate your breaking up with difficult clients. In fact, many times your ability to do so skillfully will lead to the best outcome for both you and your client. 

Today, we’re discussing when and how to gracefully exit toxic client-realtor relationships. Speaking from our extensive personal experience, once you learn to efficiently identify clients who are a poor fit for your services, you will feel more in control of your work life. The result will be positive for your mental health, professional productivity, and ability to approach your work with enthusiasm.

Remember, your career is a marathon, not a sprint. Your approach to your job must be sustainable over many years. When you find yourself feeling dragged down after a short time, consider it a warning sign that something needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Types of Toxic Clients

Buying and selling real estate is a stressful time for many individuals. As a consequence of this pressure, you may have some tense interactions with your clients. If these moments are brief, and your client does not take out their frustration on you, you can both recover and move past this tension.

However, if your clients are abusive, disrespectful, ignoring your boundaries, or continually negative, it’s time to cut ties. When you feel a client is taking advantage of you, or speaks poorly of your efforts on their behalf, the potential income simply isn’t worth your enduring the hostile dynamic. 

It’s important to realize that some types of clients enter their relationship with you with entirely unrealistic expectations. Even though you are no doubt responsible, and establish likely outcomes early on, your client may not be willing (or able) to accept your expert prognosis. 

As a real estate agent, you can only help your client with the condition of their home, analyzing the current market, and setting the best price given the two previous parameters. When you determine that a client is balking in the face of this reality, red flags are waving.

Finally, there are the black holes of the real estate agent’s career: the unmotivated time-wasters. When clients are merely curious about the market or using you as a way to explore options they have no intention of pursuing, you are going to wind up doing an enormous amount of work for no compensation. With experience, you’ll develop a radar for these clients, and will be able to sidestep them with ease.

How to Cut Ties Gracefully

After reading through our guide to identifying toxic clients, you have likely realized that you have had or currently have one such difficult person on your hands. The good news is that it is possible to terminate your professional services without torching your reputation.

First, it’s vital that you communicate with your difficult client in writing from here forward. Proceed with honesty, brevity, and firm boundaries. Take this opportunity to state, politely but clearly, why you are choosing not to work with this client. If you believe they may be better served by another agent, do say so. If you believe they must adjust their expectation or approach to find success in the market, briefly explain your logic.

Secondly, you may find that your client would prefer not to let you move on. They may be happy working with you. However, just like in any other type of relationship, it’s absolutely fine to end a connection because you’re unhappy—even when the other party does not want you to.

Thirdly, keep your ultimate goal in mind. You are crafting a long-term career that you expect to span decades. Your time is literally your income. Being able to identify clients who are not serving your goals will make the difference between you barely scraping by or achieving outstanding success. 

The Takeaway

While it’s undeniable that learning to terminate your working relationship with negative clients will be challenging, the outcome of doing so successfully will be a win/win dynamic. Your clients deserve to connect with an agent who is able to meet their needs, and you deserve to work with clients who are positive, realistic, and polite. 

Every time you release a difficult client from your roster, you make space for yourself to devote your time and energy toward creating the caliber of client roster about which you can feel happy and proud. 

If you are a new agent who notices yourself struggling to set boundaries, determine whether or not a client is problematic, or let go of clients you can’t work with, please reach out to your real estate mentor. It’s important to refine your interpersonal skill set early on in your career; doing so will position you to achieve success years earlier than you would have otherwise.