Top Ten Tidbits For Success

Top Ten Tidbits for Success - My submission for the Carnival Of Real Estate, hosted this week by ARDELL DellaLoggia 

It wasn't long ago, I was driving all over the state of Georgia writing health insurance policies. I loved what I did, and I was very good at it.  I had a team of agents.  It was my duty to show them the ropes and help them become successful like a team would in the real estate field.  However, it didn't work.  About the time that I was putting together my team, the company changed their policies.  No longer did I feel that what we were offering was of value.  After several months of slacking sales, I decided I was done.  I couldn't sell something I no longer believe in.  The awards, bonuses, nothing mattered anymore.

Then came a year of not knowing exactly what I wanted to do.  This was the time, when I was working with my father-in-law and husband in their appraisal office.  It became clear very quickly that I wasn't a sit behind the desk type person. I wanted to work with people again. I wanted to sell!

I recently completed my first full year in the real estate business.  During this time, I worked the business along with a 40 hour a week job. It was a hard year, but also a year of learning what will affect my career for the rest of my life.

I am now a full time agent.  I often get asked what I am doing to build my business.  Often, I just smile. I have never been one to share my thoughts and ideas behind my early success, but today I want to share a few tidbits with those that are thinking about a career in Real Estate, or are just getting started. 

If your new to the business, I highly suggest that you order or pick up the book,  Your First Year In Real Estate.  I actually received a copy of it from Mario Levesque, from a contest that he held.

Here are my top 10 tidbits to help you come successful.

 1. You need to believe that Real Estate is not easy.  This is not new news.  For some reason, people still think that they can just jump in and business will be knocking on their door. It costs money to crank up a real estate career. And, it takes awhile to earn money.  You need to have a reserve built up to live on while your waiting on that first closing.  Some will say 6 months worth of reserves, I say be safe and make it a years worth.  This doesn't mean you have a year to become successful. It means you have one year to define your business.

2.  Your confidence needs to be at an all time high when you start.  This is your career of choice.  Real Estate is a different breed of business. You will quickly find that those around you will often have the least confidence in you.  You need to believe in yourself.  Once you have sale 1, 2 and 3 out of the way, people will take notice and start backing your decision to enter the real estate field.  This is just the price you pay.  You need to dig inside, keep going, never look back, stay focused, and you can become unstoppable.

3.  Chose a company that offers training and the type of philosophy that you want to build your business on.  You will hear over and over about agents changing brokerage firms.  It is ok to want to better your position, but try to find that perfect match in the beginning. It might be a company that doesn't offer the commission split that you were hoping for in the beginning, but they might offer the knowledge that will become invaluable in your success.  Besides, its hard to keep up with clients if your moving from brokerage to brokerage trying to find your perfect fit.  Don't forget the fact that if you have listings, they often don't move with you.

4.  Decide what your area of expertise is going to be.  Are you going to sell single family residential homes, multi-family, commercial, industrial or maybe land?  You need an idea, because as you prepare to start your career you can save yourself a lot of time by pre-defining your specialty. There are real differences in selling in the different areas.  Depending on which specialty you chose, your clients can be green and unknowing or very sosphicated. Take the time and understand the differences.

5.  Once you know your niche market you need to begin to "brand" yourself.  You need to figure out how you're going to set yourself a part from the rest.  Forget that you're new, that doesn't matter.  You need to develop a marketing plan that portraits you as the expert, and do everything possible to make that the case.  Put together a sharp looking business card, letterhead, signs.  Whatever you need for the business needs to be about people remembering you, not just the company.  Branding will become one area that you need to know you're the expert in.

 6.  Be systematic.  This was the hardest thing for me, and it still is, as I don't like to do things over and over.  You must have a system for everything.  It needs to be a trackable system.  You don't want to be doing things for your business that are not working.  You will know this if you track your response.  Whether it is door knocking, emails, direct mail, or whatever, you must track your results.  The biggest problem that people have is that they don't work a system long enough to get a real understanding of the results. If your going to take the time to set up a marketing system, you need to give it time to work. Depending on who you're talking to, they will tell you it takes someone 6 to 8 times to see your information before they will act on it.  This is probably the most important part of marketing that you need to remember.

7.  You must be customer service oriented.  Whether you're a listing agent or buyers agent, you better know what your clients needs are.  I think that customer service is the number one complaint that I hear from my clients about other agents.  I work with a lot of clients who are often hiring me as their second or third agent.  They will voice their opinion often without you having to ask.  It is important that you touch base with your clients regularly.  It can be by phone, mail, or my preferred method email.  Email allows me to send them information at any time of the day, and typically late at night.  If you don't take care of your customers you're not going to get referrals either.  In fact, poor customer service can be the death of your business.  I don't suggest going there.

8.  Become knowledgeable in your market area.  Nothing is more impressive to a client than for you to know exactly what is currently on the market, the listing price and the history of why its on the market.  You need to know what has sold in the area in the last year to two years and what it sold for.  You need to know what is currently under construction. Is the state, county or city working on making any changes that will affect the property of your soon to be client.  In short, be as aware of the surroundings as possible.

9.  Watch other agents.  There are many successful agents.  These agents can offer you insight to the business that will touch you for a lifetime. There are also agents that aren't so successful.  It is important that you learn from them.  Learn what it is that they are doing that works for them and emulate it, tweaking it to reflect your personality and style.  You will find that not everything works for everyone and trying it yourself might bring different results.  Surround yourself with successful people and your chances of success increase significantly.

10.  This is the most important tip I can give you.  Build your business with heart.  You will have days when you want to quit.  Suck it up and keep going.  This takes heart.  You will have days when nothing goes as planned. Suck it up and keep going.  This takes heart.  You will be at a closing and it blows up. Suck it up and keep going. This takes heart.

Your heart is most beneficial when applied to your clients.  Your clients just want to be a priority of yours.  They want to know that you care.  Don't make your clients just a number, make them special. It doesn't matter if you have one or one hundred, they  all need a special place in your business and they all demand the same amount of your attention to detail.  We build our business on caring. 

If you were a potential client and you asked any of our past clients why you should chose us, you would be told it is because we obviously care about our clients.  We might not get their home sold right away (especially in today's market), but they know they are getting 100 % from us.  They know we care as we email them weekly with updates on where things stand. They know we care when we drive by a couple of times a week to check and make sure everything is ok.  They know that we care when we walk out of closing and can tell them we would do it all over again, no matter how hard of a job it was. They know you care when you show up in jeans to help them move out of the house prior to closing or you help work their yard sale a few days before they move.

Clients are your backbone.  They make or break your business. Follow your heart and remember that everyone deserves the same respect and well done job that you as a client would demand.  If you can't give them this, you might want to rethink Real Estate.