"In times of adversity talents
are elicited that in other times lie dormant." --
Horace
The times demand
the salesman who can carry a message to Garcia. In 1898, at the
outset of the Spanish American War, President McKinley needed to
get a message to Garcia, leader of the insurgents. An aide said he
knew a man, Rowan, who could deliver the message, if anyone can.
The president sent for Rowan, handed him the message saying, "Take
this to Garcia."
I'm not going to
detail how Rowan put the message in a pouch strapped over his
back, sailed for Cuba, put in a rowboat off the coast in the dead
of night, barely avoided capture, spent 3 weeks in Cuba's jungles
to deliver the letter to General Garcia. My purpose is to impress
upon you that Lt. Rowan took the letter and didn't ask who is
Garcia, where is he, how do I find him, why do you want to send
him a letter, or why not send Joe.
Everyone in this
inspirational essay is now dead, but the message lives.
The selling of real
estate, probably more than any other profession, demands of a
person the extraordinary ability to "Carry a Message to Garcia." I
know of no other occupation where the disparity of income between
success and mediocrity is so great, largely because of this
exceptional ability or lack of it.
It starts when a
salesman is asked to secure a listing and he replies: "What
listing? I only work for buyers. Who needs a listing? Where do you
find them? Can Joe come with me? The World Series is on, nobody
lists this week." It ends with I didn't get the listing but I made
a friend, or after 30 days in escrow everything blows up due to
one person's failure to persevere.
When a client lists
his property he is asking you to "Carry a Message to Garcia."
Through thick and thin, over various hurdles and obstacles and
unexpected difficulties. The client starts you on a journey with
only a listing to guide you, and expects to meet you down the road
in 90 days or less with a check made out in his name. He doesn't
care if there are soils problems, title problems, or that 15 of 16
banks refused to make a loan.
Each week I meet
with other commercial real estate brokers. Times are tough. One
broker is now an attorney doing bankruptcy filings for homeowners,
another is doing home inspections, a third Environmental Phase I
Reports, and yet another is offering home mortgage workouts with
lenders. They're to be admired for their ingenuity and working
hard -- but they're not selling real estate.
Most salespeople in
any trade are like taxi drivers who want to be assigned to the
airport. If you wait in line long enough you are guaranteed a fare
when you move to the front. It takes that special driver who can
carry a message to Garcia to forgo the airport and seek out the
convention hotels, the grocery stores and other places where
people need a ride. The world cries out for the man who can take a
message to Garcia.
There is nothing
great about collecting unemployment or being on welfare all the
while knocking the system of government we live under. Poverty is
no recommendation for anything. All employers, brokers or sellers
of real estate are not rapacious or arrogant any more than all
poor people are virtuous. All of us want to survive the current
"depression": owners, stockholders, managers, supervisors,
brokers, salespeople and workers. It's in everyone's self-interest
however, when crunching the numbers that it's survival of the
fittest. This means retaining the best up and down the ladder,
those who can carry a message to Garcia. If the company fails
everyone in it fails.
You have to admire
the worker who never watches the clock, stays overtime, works
weekends, works without complaint when the boss is both away or in
the office. The person upon given a letter for Garcia quietly
takes the mission, without asking any dumb questions, and delivers
it. That man or woman never gets discharged, "laid off," nor has
to go on strike for higher wages.
"Civilization is
one long, anxious search for just such individuals," wrote Elbert
Hubbard. "Anything such a person asks shall be granted; his kind
is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted
in every city, town and village, every office, store and factory.
The world cries out for such people and they are needed and needed
more than ever today -- those who can 'Carry a Message to
Garcia.'"
