Before we draft offers we better know the overriding objective of the client. (There can be more than one objective, but only one that is do or die.) If that Objective is something subjective, such as “protect me”, we could discover what “protect me” looks like to the client. What I fear is not the same as what another person fears. I need to know what they want to be protected from and be sure the protection I am suggesting is not protecting them from fears of my own and diminishing their offer.
What could the client’s goal be? Get my offer accepted is one goal. Is it overriding? If it is, we better know what the contingencies we suggest look like to the people on the other side of the table. If the objective is to protect me from whatever could go wrong, we can do that so well that the offer is unacceptable to the Seller.
There is a balance in most cases. Once accepted the objective may change to something subjective, but inserting protection without the client having the opportunity to decide before the Offer is submitted is a sure way to contribute to having an otherwise acceptable offer rejected.
To know a person’s overriding objective, we have to (1) Ask questions about the client’s risk tolerance. (2) Know what the different contingencies do and don’t do. (3) Have a dialogue about choices to strengthen or weaken the chance of accomplishing the client’s objective. Once we know what matters most to the client we can begin precision crafting of an offer with the objective in mind.
