Today I got the opportunity to participate in career day at my kids' school, since they are in elementary school you really don't know how to prepare for that exactly. At least I didn't anyway. So the 4th graders were actually easier, they seemed to grasp the concept of what we did for the most part. They seemed to have no concept of what the average home price is in our area, I got everything from $2,000 to 2 Quadrillion dollars. And it seemed each class had the one kid who said he had the right answer, $163,000, in his pocket. But the funniest was when I asked them what they though an average real estate agent makes in a year. The most common was about $200. A few said a million, I like the way they think, and one even guessed within $2,000 of the right answer. But overall they almost to a kid said "My mom watches HGTV all the time...." I though great an entire generation of this coming up, good thing I am getting old I guess. I also was impressed at how attentive and realistically interested most seemed to be by what we do. I mean I had to compete with a police officer and a couple landscapers that I know of, so come on.
But during one of the second grade classes, I was struck with the idea. You know its actually easier to explain what I do to a kid than my clients. But why is that? Do we try to over complicate it? Do we try to justify it? Or do we lose focus on what it is to? So I said basically what I do for a living is help people buy and sell homes, the place where you live. And not one of them though that that was an un-needed role. They understood that it is a complicated and very large transaction. It makes sense to have someone help them do that, that someone is me, us, Realtors. Seriously is 7 year old kids get it, surely you can. Plus I learned another valuable lesson, when you lose their attention just give them a coloring book and create a coloring contest. So my future clients look out I am creating a coloring book.
