If You Want Something… ASK!

My wife, Renee, has taught me that asking is a great way to ensure getting something. The old expression, “If you don’t ask, you won’t get” still rings true. In fact it’s truer now than ever before.

Fifty years ago, asking for something might have been considered tacky or “gauche.

As each decade peeled away layer of class to expose the baser mentality that obviously exists today, it seems that we no longer have the same reticence about asking for things… things such as kickbacks, which we may or may not recognize as being unlawful.

Today, in many cases, the buyers expect not only to be rewarded handsomely for any referrals given, they expect a sales persons to give away up to half of his or her hard earned commission to them for the honor of buying them a property.

So, what happened to “If you want something… ASK”? It’s all based on good taste, fair play and loyalty.

It’s all based on asking for something you deserve without looking as if you’re without honor. Ask for a discount on a floor model if the store is out of new products. That’s okay. It’s expected that the store will give a discount, so if they don’t offer, ASK.

 If you need, ASK. Nothing wrong with asking if it will help and someone is willing to help.

If you are asking and it will cause someone hardship to provide what you want, think about it. This is no longer about asking for help. This could be considered in poor taste at best and at worst a form of extortion. (Perhaps that’s too strong a word. Perhaps another word would fit better... bullying)

In any case, the pervading and now prevailing mentality is that we seem to feel that we are entitled to ask for something to which we have no real right. We feel that the other person either doesn’t deserve as much so it’s okay to ask for something back or that we are providing something as some kind of non-entitled reward.

And if they ask (demand), and if we agree, then it’s not just their problem, it’s also ours for not standing up for ourselves. In this case the justification is that the onus doesn’t rest with the person asking, it rests with the person complying.

So, let me ask you this…

If I sense that you are in a state of need and I say that I will give you my business but you must give me back half in cash in the end, or you must not charge me tax, or you must do something for me for which I will not pay you (a contra) and this is the only way in which I will give you my business… would you say that I am putting your back up against a wall, putting a gun to your head, attempting to extort something from you, stealing from you what’s rightfully yours?

And in a case like this, could we agree that ASK is really not about asking at all? Could we consider that in cases such as these ASKING could really be considered DEMANDING, maybe EXTORTING, maybe BULLYING?

When I was in high school, many years ago, the word bully was not common. In fact I didn’t experience it at all back in Montreal, in Outremont High or in University. I found it here in Toronto when my kids started school. And now I see it everywhere. I see it in the workplace. I see it in the Real Estate Industry. And the problem is that grownups are the ones practicing bullying and the grownups are condoning it by bucking under and letting themselves get bullied by sellers and buyers.

I fight against it daily. I educate the agents in my office in how to deal with it. I provide my agents with tools and systems to combat this behavior. And sometimes I feel that I’m winning the battle because many of my people are bringing in the higher commissions and some of them are not giving up hard earned money to their buyers. It’s an ongoing battle for territorial rights, as it were. It’s them saying I feel a sense of entitlement also… entitled to earn what I deserve to earn and YOU  have no right to ASK to take that away from me, because that’s not ASKING, that’s BULLYING.

So, to the ones I have helped to understand the difference -  to the ones who are succeeding in standing tall - KUDOS to you.

Keep it going.

You see that it’s working.

You’ve let go of your limiting beliefs and you’re benefitting from that.

But here’s what I want from you.

And please understand that I am not demanding. I am only ASKING… help others to also understand.

Share the wealth.

Sam Green B.A. Broker of Record / Career Coach