We all know someone who’s had a bad experience with their financial advisor, realtor, or mechanic. Maybe that someone is even you. When you hear stories like that, it’s easy to become cynical and think of every representative in that industry as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Working in Marketing, I’m on the receiving end of this stereotype pretty often myself.

The problem with painting everyone with the same brush is that it makes you blind to the good, honest, hard-working people that are at least as prevalent as the bad in every industry. Today, I want to share an example of someone like that.

His name is Farhan. He’s a Realtor who works in the Greater Toronto Area, here in Canada. Farhan helped my wife and I buy our first home, and he’s also helping us sell that home and buy our next one. Having heard many of the same stories and read many of the same articles you probably have around how to avoid being taken advantage of, I will admit that I was a pretty tough customer – literally – in our early conversations. I just didn’t want to trust anyone.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that Farhan wasn’t your run-of-the-mill real estate agent, though. The first thing we noticed about him was that he was extremely knowledgeable; and more importantly, he doesn’t hoard that knowledge. Farhan took the time to explain his process and approach to us, sharing examples and case studies and answering our questions along the way.

When we started seeing places, I was once again prepared to treat his commentary with skepticism (maybe I have trust issues?), assuming that he would just try and make a quick sale and move on.

He didn’t.

What he did do, was to take us carefully through every area of the house, highlighting imperfections and details that we as inexperienced buyers may have missed on our own. That was the moment when I finally let me over-active guard down and started to trust what he had to say. I was impressed – and continue to be – by Farhan’s transparent approach to his business.

His goal is for his clients to be 100% satisfied with the house they buy, and his viewpoint is that the only way to achieve that is to make sure that the client has as good an idea as possible about the condition of the home they’re looking to purchase.

Every house we visited thereafter, Farhan would point out both the nice touches and the flaws, to make sure that we were making a decision based at least in part on logic, and not just emotion.

When we finally found a place we were ready to purchase, Farhan sat us down and explained the strategy we would take to make the offer. He didn’t stop there, though; he also explained why he believed that strategy was the right approach in that particular situation. That strategy worked, by the way – we beat out four other bidders to win our first home, and we got it at a price we could afford.

When the sale closed and we moved in, Farhan was also kind enough to send us a house-warming gift as a token of thanks. Now I’m not the most experienced at buying and selling homes, but I know that’s not something every agent does. It’s the little things like those that are the reason why Farhan and I now keep in touch outside of the agent-client relationship. We’re friends outside of the agent-client relationship, because he’s one of the good guys.

And he’s not the only one. Every industry, whether it be real estate, investments, auto repair, contracting, or whatever else has people like Farhan. If you put your biases aside and take some time to look and have a few conversations, you’ll meet them.

Wrapping it Up

Bad experiences in industries like investing, contracting and auto repair unfortunately aren’t super-uncommon. There are some shady folks out there, just as there are in any industry. Just remember though: they’re not all like that. Sometimes that wolf in sheep’s clothing is working not against you, but against the reputation of their industry.

When you find that trusted partner who will actually put your best interests first, make sure you take care of them. Stay in touch. Get to know them. Send them referrals. Help them be as successful as they can possibly be, knowing that every client you send their way is one less that some scumbag out there gets to prey on.

By the way – if you’re in the GTA and want to contact Farhan, you can find his contact info here – tell him Jason sent you 🙂 I don’t get paid for referring you or anything; I just believe in helping good people win in life. Also, I want to rub it in a bit.