That's beyong stupid.
When I was running my business, I told my employees that if someone showed up cash-in-hand, they were to drop everything (except another customer with cash in hand) and get on that prospect--and if the money in question exceeded a certain (relatively low) amount, they were to get me out of my office immediately. (One important rule of small business that a lot of small business owners ignore: customers with a substantial amount of money deserve--and should rightfully expect--to do business directly with the owner. It shows respect, and it ensures that potential problems are identified and worked around quickly.)
I never lost a hot prospect for lack of action. Lost a few because a competitor was able to come up with something that met the prospect's needs more cheaply, more rapidly, or both--but not because my team let moss grow under our feet. And later on, I got some of those prospects back in the door when they needed more than their previously contractor could deliver--and they remembered how we'd worked to earn their business the first time out.
You NEVER blow off a customer with money to spend. Carrying a lot of money around is hard work. You try to relieve that customer of the burden of carrying all that money and give him a quality product that meets his needs as fast as you can.
I just cannot fathom what was going on in your case.
Poor time management, mainly. The "I'll call them later" concept. Then they forget...
"I just cannot fathom what was going on in your case."
I couldn't figure it out either. There were at least four agents who blew us off. My wife and I moved to Saint Paul after closing on our house in California. We were staying with her parents, and wanted to find a house as quickly as we could so we'd be out of their hair and in our own place.
We weren't all that picky, really, either. We started looking the day after we got there in our moving truck full of everything we owned.
We started by going to open houses and just driving around looking for For Sale signs in neighborhoods we were interested in. This was after a long time studying back in California on the web.
When we would tell an agent at an open house that we were determined to find a house that week and had cash in the bank to pay for the house, I expected every agent to pounce on us and get us the house we wanted. I was shocked when that didn't happen. In fact, I was shocked at the whole real estate business and how stupid most of the people we encountered were. We sold our California house ourselve, letting the title insurance company handle all the paperwork.
What was even stranger, I thought, was that even when we had made an offer, and the good agent was doing paperwork, nobody in her office seemed to know what to do with a cash sale. The forms just didn't match with that concept. I had to suggest that they put the selling price in the down payment line on the form and zero in the amount financed line. Very strange, indeed.
Odder still was the slowness of the title company in supplying us with a dollar value to put on the cashier's check. 24 hours before closing, I had to call the title company and yell at them to get a number so I could go to the bank and have the check made up.
I guess cash just isn't used in real estate transactions. If there's no financing, nobody seems to know what to do.
Now aren't you just the most helpful person! ;o)
LOL! I love your business attitude! Too bad more business owners don't have the same. We were trying to get some electrical work done on our house. It was a small job, and mainly we just wanted a couple of questions answered. It took us several weeks to get anyone to call back!