I have a book on my shelf at home entitled "Change is Inevitable, Growth is Optional." For a long time I didn't really understand what that meant. Change is hard! I probably try to avoid change as much as possible. But think about it: How many times have you moved and had to learn your way around a new place or get used to a new routine? You may have learned a lot about yourself and how you can adapt to new situations. You grew through the experience into the person you are now. These opportunities appear in our business lives, too. Our Multiple Listing Service was upgraded a few months ago, and boy was that a change! Now my company is changing to a new method of setting showings on our listings. One of our agents just commented to me that along with the MLS changes, this is really too much change in a year! And the year isn't even half over yet!

Every day brings new challenges and change to the ways we are used to doing things. I think many people look on change as a negative because they don't want to change themselves or their habits. Changes will occur around us, but we have a choice whether we will grow as a result of the change. This is the improvement part. Take the MLS upgrade, for example. We still have agents who refuse to learn how to utilize the system. They complain that it's too hard, or they don't have time, or they don't think it's necessary. What they are missing is the opportunity to work on their business by being able to take advantage of the many tools available through the MLS system to provide information to potential clients. Change is inevitable. We live in a world that relies on multiple means of communication and information transfer. Growth is optional. We can choose to stick with the way we've always done it or embrance the options that change bring and improve our business. It's really up to each individual to decide.

Don't get me wrong--not all change is positive. But any change brings with it the opportunity for growth and/or improvement. Think about it: What changes have you faced in the past year or so in your business and how have you reacted to them? Do you embrace change and look for growth opportunities or do you react negatively to change? Are you getting the support you need to achieve growth in your business when faced with change?

"Behold the Turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out." James Bryant Conant (1893-1978)

Open houses are bringing out the buyers according to what I'm hearing from agents in my office. Sometimes new and newer agents lament that they can't find a good open house. What is a "good" open house? Certainly one that brings a lot of traffic could be considered "good." I think open houses are a great excuse to prospect. The open house itself if a passive form of prospecting, that is, you wait for prospects to come to you. I always tried to turn my open houses into active prospecting opportunities by making calls to neighboring apartment complexes (after checking the Do Not Call list, of course), inviting neighbors to attend the open house, and inviting the neighbors to help me spread the word about the open house. These efforts would generally result in more visitors to the open house, but more importantly, I got to talk to people who might be thinking of buying or selling. We have the opportunity at Real Living to post our open houses to our public web site on an open house list. I have found (as have other agents in my company) that most of the people who attend an open house come from the open house postings on the web, directional signs, or an individual agent's prospecting efforts. I would even consider doing open houses any day of the week or even two on a Sunday. These are opportunities for you to get face-to-face with buyers. Isn't that what most of us are looking for in a buyer's market?

I listen to business-related CDs and tapes in my car quite a bit. This is how I sharpen my skills and learn new techniques that I can employ in my role as trainer and coach in my office. Lately I've spent a lot of time listening to Richard Flint. We have several of his CDs and books in our collection. I also receive his monthly e-newsletter and there are usually some very good articles I like to keep for my future reference. Last month, in an article about sales, Richard Flint made a great point: "There is always business; it may not be what it was, but there is business for people to do. The challenge is you must adapt and create a new pathway to finding it. . . . The market is either a perception given you by others or a picture of business to be done that you work to create every day. . . . I think positive people who are committed to having a "whatever it takes" attitude are going to do business!" What are the key points here? There is business to be done. It is a challenging market, so you may need to find new ways to get the business that's out there. And perhaps above all, you need to stay positive and committed to making it happen. How do you spell success?

There's always something new! One of the things that has kept real estate interesting for me has been the fact that there seems to be something new every day. Sure, we see a lot of the same sorts of questions, issues, properties, and the like, but even if everything seems the same, there's usually something different to keep us on our toes. We all face learning curves--in other words, we are regularly challenged to learn beyond what we thought we had already mastered. We don't know initially where this learning process will take us. Sometimes we end up becoming experts in some aspect of the business we didn't think we'd ever touch.

I see this happening almost every day with short sale and bank-owned transactions. Just when you think you've grasped the complexities of the short sale transaction, something new comes along from the bank and you're back to learning how to do it in this case. This can be very frustrating for both the agents and those of us trying to help agents wade through a short sale transaction. I try to stay positive and keep reminding agents that what they learn doing the deal will help them with the next one. I'm also reminded that stress is in our lives whether we want it or not. What we do with it is what counts. So, in the stress of the moment when the learning curve seems steep and very curvy, remember that there's an end and what we take away from the experience can help in the long run.

Yes, there's always something new. What we do with the new experience shapes how we carry ourselves in the future.

So, your company has a training program. Maybe your office has a training program. What are these programs, and how will they help you? Some agents get frustrated if they are required to sit in a classroom for days upon days listening to a training program and wondering when they get to try it themselves. Other agents want a more hands-on, one-on-one approach with a coach or mentor to guide them through the beginning of their career. This approach sometimes backfires when the mentor is another agent who only wants to do it for the referral fees the new agent generates. What do you get at your company/office?

I ask these questions because I happen to think that training is a necessary component of any agent's orientation to a new career or company. How this training happens is the question. I think that it is essential that the person helping you to get started in real estate be dedicated to your success, not their own. Ultimately if you, as a new agent, are successful, you make the office or company successful, so it's a win/win situation for the training/mentor. My job at Real Living HER in the Northeast Regional office is to be that trainer/coach/mentor who helps you get going. I recognize that every agent is different and responds to different approaches, so I offer different learning opportunities: "classroom" sessions, individualized coaching, and one-on-one training. My company also offers a company-wide training program that utilizes different approaches as well. Although I am licensed, I don't focus on my sales career anymore. Instead, I dedicate my time to working with the agents to help them be successful.

In a challenging market such as ours today, I think agents need all the help and support they can get. I hope that you're getting what you feel you need.