I saw the quote online this week “If you do something well, never do it for free.” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud because that’s what most of us in CRE do on a daily basis. We do work for our clients for free – with the hope of a commission at the end of the project.
If we do a crap job, we get nothing. If someone else comes along that offers to do it for less, we get nothing. If the client simply doesn’t like us, we get nothing. This is what we signed up for – our risk as well as our reward.
But how many of us are taking it to the extreme? How many of us are putting 100% of our money where our mouths are? Why aren’t we putting down the savings we achieve and living up to them? Sure, we are at the mercy of our client’s sanity and rationality but how is that any different from any other project we would work on?
Sometimes tomorrow’s standard is today’s insanity.