Warning Label

It seems as if many products that you pick up these days have warning labels on the package.   Compared with the old days, this is a great thing as there are a lot of products that can be dangerous under certain circumstances.   In the old days, you never saw these and people got hurt because they didn’t know what they were doing with the product.

In some cases, the labels are there to warn about unintended consequences of use of the product, things that you might not suspect. In other cases, of course, the labels are there to protect you against the potential dangerous effects even when you use the product for its intended use.   You expect drain cleaner to be caustic because that is why it is effective.   The warning label is there to make sure that you don’t hurt yourself by using it improperly.

But what about services?   When you go see a doctor, you know what his specialty is.   If you have a heart problem, you go see a cardiologist.   You probably don’t question his competence.   But you probably selected that doctor carefully, on the basis of a referral from another doctor.   More specifically, you didn’t go to the Yellow Pages or go to Google and type in “Cardiologist.”

Yet when many people select a real estate agent or a mortgage lender, they don’t use the same intelligent procedure they used when selecting a doctor.   They go the Yellow Pages or they type in the appropriate word in a search engine.   What they get can be pretty random or worse, they may get referred to someone who paid the search engine for a high placement. Hardly a way to determine competence.   

Even meeting people face-to-face isn’t always helpful.   I know some fast-talking types people in the business who are terrific at convincing people into doing business with them.   They make a good impression, but I wouldn’t trust them to put a quarter in the parking meter.   I won’t do business with them either, not because they always lie, but because if they have to, they will lie. They just want to get their deal closed and collect their commission check. Usually you can’t tell that they’re lying until it’s too late. So I just avoid them, and so should you.

Let me share the thought that there are a lot of these people – and I mean A LOT – who ought to have a Warning Label tattooed on their foreheads.   It might say something like this:

WARNING

Do not rely upon information from this person.

This person may lie if it is to his advantage to do so.

If we had such a system, it sure would make it easier to pick out a trustworthy person to help you buy or finance your home.   You could immediately blow off the people with a Warning Label.   But we don’t have such a system, so what can you do to assure that you find the right person is to ask for referrals from friends, neighbors, and co-workers.   Ask enough people and you’ll find someone who has dealt with a hero.   That’s who you want to represent you. When you interview them, ask for references, and call the references before proceeding.   Then things will work out OK.

Be careful out there!