Kirkpatrick & Co. isn’t for everyone – here’s why.
Fit is everything, from riding boots to company culture. Maybe you’ve bandied the idea of “fit” around the interviewing table a time or two, trying to parse if a candidate will meld with your team. You know just how hard it can be to determine.
The thing about fit is its mutuality. Both parties make the whole. We know this firsthand. It might sound strange – but we turn as many clients away as we take on. Everyone is the happier for it.
In his Investing in Thoroughbreds tome, founder Arnold Kirkpatrick discusses the importance of choosing one’s advisors carefully. Here, he is talking equine advisors like bloodstock agents & trainers, but the principles are the same for real estate:
“Many highly successful business people have taken a terrible beating in the horse business because they were either too careless in the selection of their advisers or, worse, decided that they were smart enough to go it alone…Most of these people would no more think of hiring someone to drive a $75,000 tractor-trailer rig without a thorough background check then they would think of trying to swim the Pacific Ocean. Yet, they’ll give a half million dollars to some guy to buy and train the most expensive and fragile animals in the world and all they know about him is that they met him in a bar someplace and he said he was a horse trainer.”
Arnold goes on to reveal the most important quality in an advisor: compatibility – or as we say, fit.
“If you are going to do things right and your advisor is going to do right by you, you’ll be spending a lot of time with him. Further, since one of your goals is to make this a pleasant experience, using someone you don’t like wouldn’t make sense… Pick someone with whom you’d like to spend time even if it weren’t for your horse business.”
We’d recommend any person buying or selling real estate be just that choosy, too.
So, how can someone know if Kirkpatrick & Co. is the right firm to represent their interests? Let’s start a conversation.
