I’m excited to introduce you to Laura Sinclair of Aiken, SC, founder of Laura Makes Moves. Laura is a Relocation Specialist and Real Estate Agent, originally from Canada, who moved to Virginia for school, met her now husband and permanently moved to the US. Laura realized how difficult it can be when you move to a new city, especially if you’ve never made a big move before. After getting her Real Estate license, Laura made it her mission to help others have less stressful moves. Laura provides a service helping clients find a real estate agent in the city they’re moving to, interviewing them on her client’s behalf (to make sure they specialize in working with clients that are relocating to their city) and giving them tips and tricks through her blog, her moving guide and posts on social media.
Laura and I have a very important conversation about ‘relocation fatigue.’ You might have experienced it—it refers to when you know you might move soon, and you stop living in the present! You become detached from the world you’re living in because the ‘you’re moving soon’ mindset becomes a coping mechanism. This could show up as not leaning into relationships, or caring about the everyday life you’re building. It’s hard to articulate when you’re in it, but it’s not sustainable and awareness can help you get past it. Different than the ‘6 Month Funk’ that can occur after you move, this could occur before you move, and it’s good to be aware of it so you can get ahead of it. Moving to a new place, especially if it involves a long-distance move, can be a major life transition requiring significant time, effort, and planning. We also talk about City POC’s, the state of ‘languish’ and quietly quitting where you are, the 6 Month Funk and how you can avoid it all.
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Listen to the Podcast here
Relocation Fatigue With Laura Makes Moves
I am super excited to talk to our guest, Laura Sinclair, from Aiken, South Carolina. If you’re looking for her on Instagram, she is @LauraMakesMoves. She has amazing content. She and I have become friends. We originally met in the Gold Digger Podcast space on Facebook. I had put the technology issues that I was experiencing in a post. She responded and said, “I’m so excited. Somebody else loves relocating as much as I do.” We’ve become friends, and I’m going to come and visit Aiken, which I’m super excited about. We’re going to do a city spotlight live. That’ll be our first time. Laura, tell us a little bit about yourself. Welcome to the show.
From Canada to Aiken: Laura’s Relocation Journey Begins
Thank you for having me. It’s awesome being here. I’m originally from Canada, born and raised, lived there my whole childhood, moved to Virginia to go to school, which is where I met my husband. He got a job here in Aiken, South Carolina. We moved here. Since turning eighteen, I’ve moved internationally to the US, first temporarily for school on a student visa, and then more permanently on a fiancé visa, and then now as a permanent resident here, or as I like to call me, resident alien in the eyes of immigration, which is such an endearing term from the US government for us. That’s how I got here. My husband is a pastor at a church, and he’s an associate pastor. We mainly work with the youth and children. That’s a huge part of our life. We have a lot of fun doing that. We have two little girls, Alice is four and a half, and Jane is two, and they keep us super busy.
I love that. When you say you’re from Canada, the first thing that I think of is Canaday. I don’t know why, that’s so dumb, but it’s so stereotypical. I apologize on behalf of all of America.
It’s fun. They now used to be like, “I can hear that in your voice. I hear your accent.” They’re now like, “You’re from Canada? You sound so Southern.” I’m like, “I know.”
The Aiken is coming out, and you’re embracing it and loving it.
I didn’t notice it happening, but now when I go home, everyone is like, “What the heck happened?”
They’re like, “Give the Canada back.”
I do get it back a smidge when I go home, but it fades pretty quickly when I get back here.
I bet. You’re a real estate agent. You’re doing a couple of different things. You share the love for relocating people just as I do. I think we’re both overdoing it ourselves, but there are some hot topics that you’ve posted about lately that I was like, “We have to talk about this.” In full transparency to everybody, you and I taped about a month ago, and we had a great conversation. It was getting to know each other.
Since then, we have had so many conversations, and the things that you’re posting about and articulating, I was like, “Oh my gosh, yes.” The things that I’m posting about, you’re like, “Yes, that’s a thing.” It works to collaborate in a way. You’re a real estate agent for Keller Williams, first of all, in Aiken. You do a ton of stuff for people relocating to your town, but you’re also doing something super cool.
Real Estate Matchmaker: Finding The Right Agent For Your Move
You’re that real estate agent matchmaker, which I think is even cooler. A lot of people don’t realize that they can reach out to a real estate agent in the town that they’re hoping to move to, get ideas, talk about the town, and interview them to find out if they’re a good match. You take that out of the process for them. Talk a little bit about what that whole thing is about.
I don’t think a lot of people even realize how much due diligence you should do when you’re hiring an agent, especially a buyer’s agent, when you’re moving to a new town, because they’re going to do more than handle your transaction, which in and of itself is a beast. They’re going to do a lot of handholding emotionally. They’re going to answer your questions about the culture, community, industry, and market. There are a million and one things that run through your head, as you know, being a chronic mover, as I am.
When you’re going somewhere you’ve never been before, and especially somewhere you’re not very familiar with, you have all these questions. You want to work with someone who, A) is available and helpful and caring, and isn’t in it to open a door and write a contract. B) You want to work with someone who’s done this before for people who have relocated, because there are more hoops that you have to jump through. It’s important to do that due diligence and do interviews. Most people don’t think about that.
There are so many things to think about with a move, moving companies, moving trucks, movers, rentals, and then finding the house. You get to town, and you hit the buttons on the Google machine, and you pick whoever comes up first. Sometimes that works out, and that’s great when it does. A lot of times it doesn’t, unfortunately. It can be hard to get out of that situation once you’re in it, whether legally or it’s awkwardly. The best thing to do is to start looking for your agent, specifically your relocation agent, before you even put boots on the ground in the town. That way, they can help you get to know the town.
They might tell you something that changes your mind. If your move is optional, and it’s not something you have to do, and you’re looking for your dream location, they might inform you of things that make you change your mind. You need to be talking to that person long before you’re ready to move. What I do is I help interview agents all over the country, specifically for people who are relocating, to help them find an agent who’s going to specialize in relocation, be the best that they can be for their client, and then get them connected. That way, you have someone who’s in the industry, who knows what it takes to be a good relocation agent, helping find that person for you.
Many people don't realize the due diligence required when hiring a real estate agent, especially a buyer's agent, in a new town. They'll do more than just handle your transaction—which is a beast in itself. Share on XTotally. If you are interviewing somebody, what kind of questions do you feel are important for somebody that’s either never bought a house or never moved out of state?
There’s a lot that goes into it. Some of it I like to observe without asking. I like to look through their presence online and see how they’re educating people online and answering questions for clients before they even reach out. I’ll do a lot of observing first to narrow down the agents who I think are killing it. When I’m speaking with agents, I think it’s important to ask about the resources they already have in place. Do they have any kind of moving guide, relocation guide, something that they can send to you on the first contact to give you a general overview of where you’re going and the kind of extra services they offer?
Going along with that, I ask them if they’ll do some relocation consultation in person if you happen to be visiting town, which is great, or over the phone or video call if you’re doing this outside, unseen from out of state or out of country in some cases. Those are the two big things you want to know. They might say, “I don’t have that, but we can still chat.” That might be a bit of a red flag. Not that they’re not a good agent, but that they’re not already prepared to help someone with as many tasks as you’re about to have coming up.
Relocation Roadblocks: Avoiding Hidden Moving Costs
It’s a lot of handholding, I imagine, because you don’t know what you don’t know, especially about that town. There are a ton of towns surrounding each town, and every single town is going to have its own real estate agent, its own pros and cons, all of that stuff. Moving is such an investment, both time and money, and that’s before you even buy the house. We all look at that big 20% number to put down, which luckily, first-time buyers, I’ve heard anything from 5% with some of the programs that they have out there, to the 20% or more, which is amazing if you can.
The money and the investment that you have to make into the moving trucks, the boxes, there are ways to do it on the cheap, but at the same time, it all adds up eventually. I tell people, if you have a checklist of things that you’re putting together of what you need for a move, and that could be anything from buying the boxes and all that stuff, add 30% because you’re always going to underestimate what it costs. Always.
There’s always surprise expenses too, like that speeding ticket you get going down the interstate or that extra stop overnight because you can’t make it in one day. There’s always something.
Many things to think of. Luckily, you have a moving checklist. I love that on your Instagram. That’s something that people can download. Two of the things that I jumped all over that I was super excited about from your Instagram. In the post that you had made, one is relocation fatigue. The minute you posted that, I about jumped out of my chair, and I was like, “That’s real. It’s a thing.” I had never articulated it. Let’s talk a little bit about what you posted about because it is heartbreaking to watch somebody go through it, because you know exactly what’s happening. It’s like a train wreck. You can’t stop watching, but you don’t know how to help.
It’s true about yourself, too.
You bring awareness to it. You even mentioned that you guys have been living in the same house for five years. As a pastor’s wife, pastors move a lot. The ministry moves you. That could be its own Instagram, “Ministry moves.”
I’ve been thinking about it.
You should. That’s a whole other network. What do you consider relocation fatigue to be?
This is something that I coined the term two weeks ago because I’ve been thinking so much about it, and I wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t know what to call it. I thought, surely someone else is out there talking about it, but I couldn’t find anything. If anyone in your audience has heard of this or talked about it in another term before, I would love to hear it. A few years ago, Trevor and I started to think, “Surely in the next maybe 1 to 3 years, the time’s going to come to go.” He’s an associate pastor, and he feels called to be a senior pastor somewhere.
We knew it was coming. We don’t quite ever know when, which I guess is true of a lot of people who have constant moves for the military and stuff like that. It was in our heads, and slowly but surely over those months and eventually years, it became this constant state of being detached from the world we were in. Very slowly, it happens. You stop reaching out to people as much. When somebody rubs you the wrong way, rather than being like, “Maybe we should dig into this and get past it,” you’re like, “I’m moving soon.”
Forget that conversation, forget that relationship. You’re making these decisions every day where you care less about the things that you have where you are now, because you’re in this almost like a coping mechanism. It’s like, “I’ll be gone soon. It doesn’t matter.” I didn’t realize I was doing it for probably about a year and a half. We were coming up on New Year’s 2023, and I was tired. What I wanted was to move. I thought that was the solution. When it wasn’t coming as quickly as I thought it was, I didn’t want to be acting and thinking and behaving like I had been the last few years.
I wanted my relationships back. I wanted to care about the life I was building here and not yearn for somewhere else. I decided that New Year’s, if the Lord plucks us up in six months, great. If we were here another five years, I’m going to do with my time here what I’m supposed to. I still catch myself making decisions in relocation fatigue. I have to remind myself that that’s not sustainable, and it’s not a good use of my time. Many parents out there, this is the one that convicts me. I was like, “I’ll never have Alice at age three again.” I don’t remember a lot of it. I don’t. It’s probably because Jane was born, and she was an awful baby.
Start looking for your agent, specifically your relocation agent, before putting boots on the ground in the town. That way, they can help you get to know the town. Share on XIt’s a different type of fatigue. You were not sleeping.
Mom fatigue was mixed in that year, too. It was both those things together, and feeling my time in Aiken was coming to a close. I mentally checked out, and I realized that Alice, age three, I don’t remember. There’s not a whole bunch of strong memories, and I don’t want that to be true for ages 4, 5, and 6. However long we have left here, it was completely not in my control. I’m ready to stop making those decisions in that way, like we’re about to leave. That’s when I started to think about it. I thought, surely there are other people out there who do this same thing, and we should probably talk about it.
Living is an action verb. If you’re not living, then they say you’re dying, which is a total cliché. There is this, I feel like, an epidemic of quietly quitting places that you’re in when you decide that you’re done, instead of strategically looking at this as an opportunity to get prepared for the next phase of your life or the next chapter, even if that’s in where you’re in. We talked about doing a city POC, and going and spending a week or two at the place that you want to move to, see if it’s still your dream. You get to a point where you’re like, “I had this built up in my head.”
I did it with San Diego. I hate to say it, but in my childhood, I saw commercials for California. I wanted to move there so bad. I visited once for a weekend, and I was like, “That’s it. I’m moving here. I’m going to live in San Diego the rest of my days, and it’s going to be glorious.” I got there and I was like, “People don’t work here,” and I’m a hustler. It’s a lot quieter than I thought. It was a lot lower key than I thought. I think it’s more hustling and a hustle kind of a city now. In my head, if I had spent a couple of weeks there, not that I’m dating myself here, we didn’t have Airbnb.
A hotel for two weeks in San Diego was still as expensive as it was. There are more opportunities to do things like that now. I look at relocation fatigue as quietly quitting. As you said, you’re making those decisions instead of leaning into some of the things that you need to do. You’re almost taking one step back and saying, “I’m not going to paint that wall because I don’t need to. I might not be here in two years.” I had somebody come to my door the other day. Mind you, I built my house last year. I moved in in January. I’ve only been here about a year and three months.
Someone came to my door about a water filtration system and how I probably should be looking into that. In my head, I was like, “One, my house is new. The pipes are new. I don’t need that.” When you build a house, there are a lot of people who go door to door to sell everything. I had somebody come to my door selling storm doors, and I have a storm door. He was like, “Maybe your backyard.” I’m like, “I have sliders, but I appreciate you stopping by.” I didn’t know what to say. The water filtration and solar panels, and you get a lot of the door-to-door salesmen, which was very new to me.
Also, like, “I’m not going to be here in a couple of years. I might not invest in something like that.” How do you feel about what they can do? How do we solve this problem? I’m hearing a lot about the psychology of languish. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that term. A lot of people coming out of the pandemic are surviving, they’re not thriving. We thought, “The pandemic was going to be over by 2022.” Here we are in 2023. There is a resurgence, and people are tired. They’re living day to day without that move to look forward to, so to speak. What kind of things can we do to overcome that?
The Psychology Of Moving: Navigating Languish And Big Decisions
It’s hard. I’m still navigating that myself. For me, the biggest difference, and again, this is still fresh from the new year for me, was the decision. It doesn’t make the thoughts go away or the habits. It is because, at this point, two years of doing it, it’s a habit. It doesn’t make those habits go away. You have to consistently work at it. If you can catch yourself in that mindset in the first place, you’ve almost won the battle. That’s why I wanted to talk about it. It is because I knew a lot of people were probably like me, acting this way and not even noticing, maybe thinking, “Why am I so lonely?” but not knowing why. For me, that was the case. I didn’t know why until it hit me.
I think catching yourself in that thought process and in making those decisions that don’t benefit you and the lifestyle you want to live, but they’re more survival decisions, like you were saying, that’s the most important part, is seeing it. Once you see it, have your big why, your reason for why you’re living, why you’re here on your earth. Also, like I told you with my example of Alice at age three, that’s the big one for me. I could have gone on in that trance for another year or 2, maybe 3 or 5, what do I know, until we moved.
It would have been okay. I would have been all right, but I would have lost out on years, years of my life, years of my children’s lives, years of my career, doing something less important than it could have been. That’s what you’ve got to come back to. It’s going to be different for everybody. What’s the reason that you’re alive and that you’re here and that you want to have a full life? That, coupled with noticing it, is usually enough to refocus yourself, I find, for me, at least.
Moving To Solve Problems: Honesty And Healthy Headspace
One of the things that I talk about in the FRED framework is robustness and the mental and physical strength that you need to have to move. One of the pivotal things that you said was that moving to avoid problems. I have a friend who moved. She was an alcoholic at the time, and she found herself she got to a new city, and all the new things to explore and all the new people to meet, and all of those things.
She would fall back into her old habits. Once people realized that she sometimes isn’t fun when she’s drunk, she would get to that point where she was like, “I don’t want to deal with this. I’m going to move to a new city with new exciting things and all that.” Mentally, that’s a thing. I’ve moved because I wasn’t happy in a place. It’s different than the dissatisfaction of dealing with an actual ailment or mental issue or something that you are avoiding, but you know you need to do.
I’m glad that you coach people through this because it’s so important. You need to be very honest with yourself about your motivations. That’s hard when you’re stuck in a bad headspace. If you have the option to move, rather than being relocated for work or whatever, being very honest with yourself about what the reasoning behind it is, and it is for your best? Do we ever know that until afterwards? No, we don’t know it for sure. Are you making decisions out of fear and out of putting off something very important, like you were saying? Is it because you understand that it’s time to go?
One hundred percent. What I find is that when you go through a move and you’re avoiding something, or you’re not in the right headspace to enjoy it fully and embrace the things that you need to deal with, six months later, it’s going to rear its ugly head. It is because at that point, you have explored everything, from hiking trails to the grocery stores that you want to be going to on a daily basis. That routine becomes a little mundane.
What happens is that it sneaks back in, and then you go through this six-month funk where you’re a little depressed. All of a sudden, you become very nostalgic about the place that you moved from, even though when you were there, you could not wait to get away from it. It’s one of those things where getting into that position where you’re working with a therapist or a life coach or the things that you can do to be in the right place, at least if you’re aware of them, then when it rears its ugly head, you can say, “I know what’s happening. I know I didn’t deal with this before, but now I’m ready to jump in.”
If you can catch yourself in that mindset of languish in the first place, you've almost won the battle Share on XI only look on Zillow all over the country on the bad days. Come home from work exhausted. That’s the only day I pull up the Zillow app.
I still have it on my phone, and I moved. I know where I’m living in the next couple of years, so it is one of those things. I feel we exchanged a lot of messages back and forth. One of the reels that I sent Laura was this dog that the neighbors had moved, and the dogs were best friends. You could tell the dog was looking for his buddy. We do that with people. Sometimes people move away. I remember moving away from San Francisco. It was a very quick move. I had a relocation through work.
By the time I interviewed and moved, I think it was a total of a month or a month and a half. I felt like I was leaving a lot of people behind whom I loved and cared for. I knew they were going to be in my life forever. Sometimes you go through that after six months, or if you feel like you’re not moving to the right space, and you miss it.
One of the things that I coach around is when you move to a new place, booking a trip to the old place five months in. If you can afford it, schedule a weekend 4 or 5 months out back to that old place to see your friends, because around that time, you’re starting to miss them. You’re starting to remember places. It’s those places that you miss, but then it also rejuvenates, like, “I remember why I moved.
Good reminder.
From Snow Shovels to Leaf Blowers: Culture Shock & Climate Adjustments
When you moved here from Canada, what were some of the things that you missed? What are some of the things that when you go back home, you’re like, “No, I’m good.”
I miss the four seasons. That’s something that I struggle with here is the climate. That’s why most people move here. I’m the odd sheep out. It’s never cold. I can’t say never. We have a few snappy days, but it’s never going to get cold enough to have a good snow. Autumn goes by way too fast. We get maybe 2 or 3 weeks, and then it’s over because it starts in November. It doesn’t start in September like most parts of the country.
I miss the climate. I miss the four seasons. I grew up snowboarding and skiing, and tapping maple trees for syrup, total Canadian things. I miss that a lot. I miss the culture too, which I know that other parts of the US have more of a multicultural atmosphere than here in the deep South. Back home, being outside of Toronto, I miss having access to all the different ethnic foods, the people, and the different cultures. There are a lot of things that I miss about being in Canada. That’s more true about being outside of a big city.
Totally. I know you and your husband come up to Charlotte a fair amount because you have family here.
We do. We technically go to Salisbury. Not quite Charlotte, but we’ve taken a few overnights in the city. That’s a good little getaway, too.
It’s a fun place to live. We’ve got a lot of different pockets of places. It’s almost like little suburban areas with their own flair. I love it. I moved from Illinois a couple of years ago. I did a short stint in central Illinois. It was funny because when my dad was getting everything out of my garage or helping me get everything out of my garage, he’s like, “You got three shovels here. Do you need all of them?” I’m like, “No, I’m moving to North Carolina. Take them all.” The first time we had snow here, I was like, “I don’t even have a shovel.” We had no plows either. No plows were coming through the neighborhood. All I had was a leaf blower.
I went outside in my winter boots because I still had those. I have a whole closet of winter clothes that I never wear. I took my leaf blower and I blew off the driveway, made a snow angel in my front yard. That was the end of our winter. I was like, “Oh, man.” I went back to Chicago over Thanksgiving this past year. I drove back, and snow wasn’t even in the forecast. It snowed almost the entire week. I was like, “I remember now that I hated the snow. I’m good for the next six months.” I went back for a baby shower. When I got there, coming from O’Hare out to the southwest suburbs where I grew up, it was sleeting a little. I was like, “This is awful.”
Most people do try to move south to get away from that. Here I am wanting to go back.
I know. It’s good in small doses. You remember those places. You’re in a healthy place, mentally and physically. You’re in a good place to embrace where you are, and you can always travel out. That’s one of those things. I felt this was such an important topic because even coming out of the pandemic and feeling everybody’s in this weird position of not wearing masks anymore, but we’re also not getting sick.
We’re still getting COVID sometimes. I had it a month and a half ago. Who knows where I got it from? I think that feeling of languish, toppled, compounded with relocation fatigue, and not being able to articulate what it is, it’s hard to get help, and it’s hard to lean into what you need to do to get over that. We should put our heads together and make a post on what we can do. I’d love anybody tuning in to this to come up with some ideas. I think this is something that people aren’t talking about. I feel like it’s an important conversation.
As a Relocation Specialist, you're there after closing day, helping people get connected and plugged into the community they want to be in, whether it's finding a church or getting their kids into a certain program. Share on XIf you need to talk about it with someone, give Mariette a call.
I’m here for you. I’ve got all the coaching hours you want. I can’t wait to come to Aiken. Tell us a little bit about Aiken. Give a little preview because it seems like an adorable little town.
It is. It’s very charming and quaint. We’ve been growing a lot in the last decade. It was considered more of a retirement town previously, but in the last ten years, more younger families have moved to the area. It’s starting to change a little bit, but I think for the better because those who did live here before with young kids didn’t have much to do. It’s very charming. People call it the small Charleston because it’s smaller, less of a city, but still has a lot of that history and charm.
We have good restaurants. We have awesome boutique shopping downtown. It’s an equestrian community. A lot of people come here to have their horse properties or to keep their horses here when they’re escaping the New York winter. We get a lot of transitions as the months change. We’re also only about 30 minutes from the Masters. That’s coming up next week. That brings in a whole lot of people to our part of the CSRA, which is the Central Savannah River Area outside of Augusta, Georgia. It’s very charming. If you’re looking for a small, quiet Southern escape town, this is a good place to come visit and have a little vacation or maybe explore for your move.
I love that. I think one of the cool things that you do is you get to know your clients well. You’re specializing in relocation. I think you’re even getting your certification, if you don’t have it already.
Working on that. You have to hold this membership for a year. I’m coming up on June is the year, and then I can take the test.
That’s so exciting. You do things for new people moving into your town. I think one of the things that people could do is reach back out, even if they’re not moving, to find out who else has moved to the new town so that they can introduce themselves to them. I moved here two years ago, and luckily, I have a lot of family. They work, and some of my family lives about an hour away. I don’t get to see them all the time, but new people moving to Charlotte, I love that.
One of the interviews that we’re going to do is with Daily Dre. She is an influencer here in Charlotte, but she moved here from Austin. Getting to know the new people doesn’t end when you buy the house. Relocation is getting started. Relocation agents know everybody, and the benefit of working with a good relocation specialist is that you do know a lot of the things that are good and bad, in that you can help them find hairstylists and all the things, from coffee shops to new people you get to know. I love that about what you’re doing and how you cater to your clients.
Thank you. It’s a lot of fun. I fell into the niche accidentally, and looking back, it makes sense because I relocated myself. I’m a transient person in the ministry that we’re in. I happened to start getting a bunch of people who are moving to town. I think it’s because they knew that it was something I was passionate about. I was like, “This could be something that I do all the time.”
I’ve loved specifically working with relocation clients. It’s fun with everybody, especially first-time home buyers if they’re local, but I love helping someone move to town because, as you said, the work doesn’t end on closing day. A lot of times, people will find that you’re besties with your agent for 30 to 45 days. You talk every single day, and then closing day comes, and it ends. That’s not a problem. They have to continue working with the clients who need to get to closing day.
When you’re a relocation specialist, you work with those people after closing day, helping them get connected to the area, get plugged in to the community that they want to, whether they need help finding a church or they want to get their kids in a certain program or whatever it is. It’s fun to do that. I have friends whom I’ve gotten to know and helped move here first, and then stayed connected after. A few of the kids in our youth group come to our youth group because their parents bought a house here with me. It’s fun to help get people integrated into our community even after closing day.
Breaking Up With Your Agent: How To Navigate Real Estate Relationships
It’s like you said, you become besties with them for 30 to 45 days. That’s so important up front to interview the agents. If you’re going to break up with an agent because you realize you guys aren’t jiving well, what’s the best way to do that? One, you should break up with them, not ghost them. I feel that’s probably important. What else? How could you approach that?
I would say, I know it can feel super awkward, but don’t feel bad about it, first of all, because this is a huge decision. You’re making a series of many huge decisions throughout this process. You need someone, A) who’s competent and can guide you in a way that’s going to make your relocation or your move successful. B) Also, what you like. If you can’t stand them, like they rub you the wrong way or they say things that you think are off, it’s important that you don’t try to endure that relationship because you’re going to talk a lot, and they’re going to represent your best interests in a huge financial decision.
You want to make sure you are on the same page. That’s my encouragement first, to not feel bad about it. If you get to the point where you know it’s time, have an honest conversation. If you can, if it’s not severe to the point where you need to quit and run, talk to them first to say, “This is my concern. This is something that happened or that you said. It’s making me wonder if we’re still compatible.” If they can address it to a point where you feel comfortable and satisfied, maybe it was a miscommunication, maybe they dropped the ball, and they apologize sincerely and want to do better, that’s the best-case scenario.
If it still comes to the point where you need to move on and you know it in your soul, be honest. Tell them that it’s not working. Tell them why so they can hopefully improve if they care enough to do so. Tell them that you want to terminate your relationship. If you have a contractual agreement, then there is paperwork involved. If you guys were calling and texting, and you haven’t signed any papers, that’s it. You say, “We’re done. Goodbye.”
The funny thing about contracts is that they don't matter until somebody sues. Share on XThat’s important to note, though, because a lot of people don’t know. I guess I did that. I did sign paperwork, but I guess I forgot. That’s important because you do sometimes sign paperwork.
It is important. The funny thing about contracts is that they don’t matter until somebody sues. Nine times out of ten, if you didn’t do things legally but the other person doesn’t care or doesn’t follow up, it doesn’t matter. Your open relationship expired, and nothing happened. The correct way, so that no one gets in trouble, is to make sure you terminate that contract.
When you sign your next agency agreement with your new agent, you are going to sign a contract that says, “I’m not in any other agency agreements.” If that new agent had gone over the paperwork with you like they should have, you would have read that. I’m like, “I am.” They would say, “That’s no problem. Get them to sign this.” It’s simple. You can terminate it unilaterally, which is a fancy law term that means they don’t have to agree to let you go. You have to formally give them the paper that says, “I’m leaving.”
That makes it easier because you can email them. Say, “I’m breaking up with you. We’re terminating your contract,” and then ghost them.
They’ll probably have something to send you. Again, I’m speaking South Carolina contracts. I’m sure it differs from state to state. Either way, it should never be that you’re being held hostage by your agent. I can’t say never, because crazy things happen, but that would be odd.
I was going to say, you’ve become such good friends with some of your clients that you even married one of the couples, your husband did.
That’s probably my favorite story. Befriending people. She moved here. Her fiancé followed when he got a job. They were dating at the time. They got engaged, and they wanted to get married pretty quickly. Their family was going to come from Colorado in the spring, but not quite yet. She called me. She’s like, “I know your husband’s a pastor. Could he do a quick, informal ceremony for us so we could get legally married? We’ll have a big wedding later.”
It was so cute. I thought it was so fun that she asked that. We hung some string lights in our backyard, and it was just the two of them, me, my husband, and our two daughters. It was sweet. Their family FaceTimed in, and I held the phone, but that’s so cool. It’s such a cool job that I have to get to be that person. I was the only person she knew in town, and I happened to be married to a pastor, and she had a need to get married.
It worked. It’s like divine intervention.
It’s so fun. That’s one example of the cool things about my job, getting to meet people and bring them into the community here. It’s so cool.
I love that. Thank you so much for jumping on and talking with the audience and me. I can’t wait to come down to Aiken. We’re going to have to plan that not on a Master’s weekend because I imagine it’s going to be crazy and very expensive, but I want to come down there and check it out live and in person. We’ll make plans to do that soon.
That sounds fun. I look forward to it.
Awesome. Thank you so much, Laura. We’ll talk soon.
Thanks, Mariette.