You are an expert in commercial/industrial real estate sales and you definitely want to project this image to your clients. The transactions that your clients will make through you are some of the most important transactions they will ever make in their lives. The future of their businesses rests on the decisions they make with regard to which property they will lease or buy and how much money they will spend in doing so.

The forms and contracts that you use for the real estate transactions you conduct with your clients represent the binding terms and conditions with which your clients will move forward in completing the transactions they desire. Keeping this in mind you need to know these forms inside and out. When your clients ask you questions about whether or not a certain provision is included in the standard language in a particular form you need to know whether it is or not and direct them to that particular standard paragraph and instruct them to read it themselves.

If a client asks you whether or not one of your standard forms includes a particular provision and you say, "I'm not sure," you definitely are not projecting an image of someone who is an expert in your field.

Know the standardized provisions in all of the forms that you use and be able to immediately direct your clients to these provisions in the forms if they ask you to. Then have them read the provisions for themselves. And, as you do not want to be construed as offering legal counsel to your clients, always make sure that your client is represented by appropriate legal counsel.

Directing your clients to a paragraph to read in a standardized form is one thing. But always leave the interpretation of what they are reading to their legal counsel.