Advice for New Agents

Monica Hubert asked for frugal advice for new agents on how to succeed.  My comment became so long I thought I'd make a post out of it instead.  Here's the advice I give to agents with little means just starting out:

• Find a good mentor to ask practical day to day questions like how to fill out a purchase agreement or what to do in a negotiation!
  
• Join Active Rain or another network of real estate professionals that can give you advice so you don't have to go to your competitors
• Make a business plan.  Both the Keller Williams "red book" "How to Become a Millionaire Real Estate Agent" and Carla Cross' books "How to Get Your Business Up and Running in 30 Days" or the one on business planning are good for beginners.
• Choose the area you want to work.  You can do this randomly by personal preference or in a businesslike manner based on number of sales compared to number of listings and factoring in market time.  Also look at whether other agents are deeply entrenched in marketing that area and decide if you want to compete or not.
• Decide in your business plan how much you want to make this year and break that down by number of transactions needed to make that amount.  Break the number of transactions into how many marketing things you have to do to arrive at that one transaction (i.e., number of cold calls, network meetings, church services, mailings, walks in the neighborhood).  Begin working the marketing to arrive at the transactions needed.
• Buy a web domain for under $10.  The domain should be named so searches for your farm area will bring up your domain name.  (First mistake I made!)
• Start a blog and focus it on your farm area (mistake #2 that I didn't do!).  Check out Teresa Boardman's StPaulRealEstateBlog as an example of the way a blog should work. 
  
• Everything you create for marketing should be able to be sold to another agent when you leave the business, therefore, using your name in titles or domain name is probably not a good idea!
• After you have purchased a domain from a place like GoDaddy! sign up for a free Point2Agent website and start writing 13 pages of web content directed at the consumer.  As you earn more money you can upgrade to other websites, but this free will give you a start.
• When you get your first transaction, keep very good conversation logs.  This habit is a good one to start immediately and will cost you NOTHING but could save you much if you ever go to court!
  
• When you finish your first  transaction, don't quit working but do take a few minutes to pat yourself on the back and say good job!