Why Boutique? Let’s Talk About Retainers.

This one can be a little touchy in my industry: retainers.

Recently, I was reading about the collapse of a larger property advisory business, and one thing genuinely gob smacked me — the amount of money some clients had paid upfront, only to potentially lose it when the business went under. It got me thinking again about the way I’ve structured Your Key Advocacy, and why I believe the boutique model works so well for my clients.

In my business, I charge a retainer. It shows commitment from the client and gives them a little skin in the game. My clients are generally warm, ready to buy and already actively engaged in their property search. But my retainer is deliberately a very small portion of my overall fee.

And wait for it…

I think it’s reasonable that I should only get paid in full once I’ve actually done the job.

Not exactly a controversial position, I wouldn’t have thought.

The retainer isn’t there to fund my cash flow.
It isn’t there to pay my bills.
It isn’t there to cover my mortgage, over heads or staff salaries.

Those are my responsibility as the business owner.

My job is to find and secure the right property for my client. Once I’ve done that job, I get paid for it. And I think there’s an important distinction here. When you engage a buyer’s advocate, you’re placing a huge amount of trust in that person. You’re trusting them with what is potentially one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll ever make — and often at a time when you’re already feeling overwhelmed by the property search. I don’t think you should also have to hand over a huge chunk of money before much of the work has even begun, because signing a client is the easy part.

Actually, being there through the search — inspecting properties, giving honest advice when something isn’t right, doing the due diligence, negotiating, bidding and eventually getting the right home across the line — that’s the job. And that’s what you should be paying for.

For me, boutique means deliberately keeping things manageable. I know my clients. I know what they’re looking for. I’m personally involved in their search, their inspections, their negotiations and their purchases. And because the bulk of my fee remains outstanding until we actually buy something, there’s a very simple alignment between us:

You want me to successfully buy you a home. And I don’t get paid in full until I do.

That model might not build the biggest advocacy business in Melbourne. But I’ve never particularly wanted to build the biggest one. I want to build a sustainable business that does an excellent job for the people who trust me to represent them. There are plenty of fantastic larger businesses, just as there are plenty of fantastic boutique ones. Size itself isn’t the issue.

For me, it comes down to the service you receive, the person actually looking after you, and whether they’re still just as invested in getting you a result after you’ve signed on the dotted line.

I’ll take the boutique approach.

Do the job. Deliver the result. Then get paid.