WATCH THAT DOOR!A Story by Elise Anton Who's behind it? There's a door. You are standing on the outside. You have just performed the perfunctory knock and your hand is on the handle. The person on the other side of it is the most important person in the world - for you - right now at least. You are here to pitch the next BIG THING. You have just landed the dream job and are going in to meet your new boss. The big loan you desperately need is to be decided on by this person. This is the publisher who asked you to come in and discuss the possibility of releasing your masterpiece to the world. Whatever the reason, the person behind that door is the make or break person, the big decision-maker, the final obstacle, the one who will decide your future. You are nervous, understandably. You need them, and despite the many internal pep-talks on the way over, the perfect grooming before the mirror, the agonising over the right clothes, the rehearsing of possible conversations and deflecting of any anticipated hurdles... still, you are nervous. Perhaps you have waited a
lifetime for this moment; this one perfect meeting which will change
the direction, the content and the context of your future. You don't know the person behind the door. You may have done the 'Google' thing; you may have asked around and received observations, opinions and advice. You may feel prepared to some degree, perhaps even confident that you have sufficient pre-knowledge about them to foretell the outcome. What you haven't done is trawl back through your memories for any instance where you have either wronged or assisted someone. Yeah, there's a lot to rake through. And that's only what you can remember. What about all those other small insignificant moments you've forgotten? What about them? Back in Real Estate, I learned a lot about doors - hell I knocked on plenty of them. Most were your average eager seller, motivated by any amount of reasons and ready to welcome me in. The pitch went smoothly, they signed the listing contract, and I left. Back at the office, on the big whiteboard, I'd notch up another potential sale, mentally calculating my future bonus. Two listings stand out. My very first one: Armed
with my folder of information - the step-by-step process I was to guide
the seller through - and nervous as all hell, I knocked on the door.
The house was in an affluent suburb and this was the fourth attempt by
our sales team to secure the lucrative listing. The woman had enquired
several times but always changed her mind at the end of each
presentation, begging for more time to think about it - an agent's worst
nightmare, for it left that familiar pre-taste of incoming defeat. I remember wondering why Steve - my boss - had sent me out. If three others had failed before me and these were all seasoned agents, then what hope had I, in my new suit and uncomfortable high heels and reeking of... 'newbieness'? The lady led me through
to the living room and offered a seat on the couch opposite her. My mind
was full of body positions and how wrong this one was, in terms of
closing a contract. I was supposed to be sitting to her right - on a
table - guiding her through the process as I flicked through the heavy
folder full of convincing elements. Too shy to suggest we
move to the dining room table, I battled on, spreading my information on
the small coffee table and upside down from my point of view. I knew
the pitch, I'd rehearsed it often enough, I'd done the role-playing in
the office. Man, I put that poor woman through almost three hours of sheer hell. I gave her the lot, a great monologue, guiding her through page after page, struggling all the while to read the upside-down text. She was polite. She listened. Half way through the first hour, I found myself wondering why she was willingly putting herself through this excruciating ordeal. I'd have sent me packing after the first ten minutes! I got to the end. I remember taking a long breath. Then holding it in, dreading the words that would surely follow, thinking of returning to the office; to the jokes and my boss's stern look. "Leave it with me," she said with a smile. We never left contracts behind. Number one rule: Get the signature or leave. DO NOT under any circumstances leave the paperwork with the prospective seller. She saw my hesitation. She smiled again. I left it with her. I walked down the short drive. Hand on the car door, I stopped. Walked back up the drive again, knocked on her door. She opened it. "I'm sorry. I blew it. This was my first presentation and I put you through hell." I had to tell her. I'd sucked; I'd been this automaton, reciting lines. I had failed to make that crucial connection, the rapport I'd read so much about. "You did just fine." "No I didn't, I-" "Go get yourself a coffee," she said. The one she'd made me had sat untouched, busy as I had been to convince her to sign... "I think you've earned it!" I returned to the
expected derision and yes, the stern look from Steve and a long lecture
about leaving paperwork behind. He put a BIG zero on the whiteboard. My
target for the month was six. I had 0 and I had three weeks to go. The next morning, the lady turned up to the office. I was called downstairs. She had the signed contract in her hand. "I have a friend who wants to sell two investment properties. Here are her details," she said, adding a business card to the contract she placed on the counter. I was dumbfounded. It must have been very obvious. "You don't remember me, do you?" I'd never met her before, I swear. I'd spent the previous three months either knocking on doors and giving out information about our office, or stuffing envelopes and other advertising material into letterboxes. That was considered pre-training before the hallowed stage of actually listing properties. "I was carrying some groceries from my car a couple of months ago. I dropped a bag and everything spilled onto the road. A can of tuna rolled under my car. You bent and half-crawled under to retrieve it. Then you helped me gather everything else?" I remembered! I'd been walking her street, a bunch of envelopes in one hand, the other methodically stuffing them into mailboxes. I'd seen her across the street and rushed to help. We'd talked for a bit, she'd asked what I did and I'd handed her one of the letters. "A word of advice," she said before shaking my hand and leaving. "Lose the big book. You don't need it!" I never used that heavy folder again. I made target my first month. Listed her friend which led to another friend of the friend... But one day came that other door. I knocked. A gentleman
answered and showed me through to the back of the house, where a woman
sat on one end of a table, facing away from me. He indicated a seat to
her left, and he sat opposite me, to her right. I didn't make
eye-contact with her immediately, she was reading through a document and
I in the meantime was getting pen and pad out, and sussing out the
seating arrangement. He'd been affable. She was clearly the one I would be directing my pitch to. We looked at each other at the same time. Oh I knew this
face well! A lot older, but one can never forget a woman scorned - or
as it was in this case, a sixteen year old girl whose boy friend I'd
'stolen'. I went through the
motions, but really, this was one listing that was never going to be
mine. Her husband listened and at times joined in, blissfully unaware of
the tension between the two women in his presence. She in the meantime
alternated between blistering looks and a disdainful smirk. A usual listing took
about three hours, allowing for the chit-chat and 'off the topic'
meanders which cemented the relationship between agent and sellers. I was out of there in under an hour. Her "Thanks, we'll get back to you," ringing in my ears, like a death knoll. No, I didn't get that listing. Back to the doors... I often told my sons when they were younger to treat each new person they met as though one day, that person may be behind a particular door. A door they may need - a door that may stand between them and everything. How they treated each person during this earlier time could one day come back to either help them or hinder them. Kindness and support are
remembered, as is disrespect and yes, any amount of hurtful moments
they might unknowingly or not inflict as they progressed through life. I
wanted them to treat people - no matter their age or current
circumstance as though one day they may need them. It heartens me
now when I see them opening a door for someone or picking up an item
dropped by another person. They do these little things automatically,
not because they must - as a precaution - rather because (I hope) I have
instilled in them that kindness and respect in the moment don't
necessarily remain in the moment. When someone was disrespectful or hurtful towards them,
I told them to look to the future, rather than react in the moment and retort
or retaliate with similar spiteful words and actions. Instead I taught
them to picture themselves ahead, seated behind that closed door... There will always be that moment of reckoning. Whose door are you knocking on today? Who's on the other side? Who is knocking on your door in turn? © 2016 Elise AntonReviews
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Elise AntonAustraliaAboutHello from downunder! I am one of those people who can just sit and write. It's like breathing for me. I've never shared and never published. It was my thing, my escape, my therapy... I have two so.. more..Writing
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