I was inspired to write this blog because of the Why I Don't Like Teams! Post from yesterday. My husband and myself have been a real estate team for 25 years. We put our team together to focus on bringing the client and customer a concierge level of high quality service.
The one common complaint that sellers and buyers have is not hearing from the agent. We really feel that having administrative tasks that are time consuming, but not customer centric, handled by assistants who love the detail work makes us more available to the most important part of our business the customer and client.
I ran my business as an sole agent for a year before my husband joined me. It was a tough year & I worked some 15 hour days back to back to back to keep up. I was able to sell 28 homes my first year in the business, but it was very time consuming to do on my own & I hated the myriad of paperwork. Somedays I could not handle all the calls & commitments that people wanted because this business tends to run in busy/slow cycles. With my husband in the business it brought on a new dimension & allowed us to hire help with the clerical work. Our first year together in the business was challenging, but it made our relationship stronger because we avowed that we would work through everything & find solutions.
There is greatness in the dimension a relationship takes on when you work through problems. Many teams/couples have problems whether they are inside a real estate team or a marriage. Working together creates a space where you cannot just ignore problems as you could in a marriage where you just quit communicating and appear to still be in the team/marriage.
Throughout the 25 years as a team we have always allowed our assistants who wanted to use their license to sell to get credit for their sales. We have also split credit 50/50 all the the sales we personally individually made since we each had a different role in working. I would do the appointment, Ted would do the set up and the virtual tour, I would write the ad copy, etc. I did this as a decision to our initially being in the business and helped us to both rise to the top of our industry both individually and as a team.
I love real estate and Active Rain because it allows us to comment on the greatness of what we do in the business and to share that experience with others. I have never begrudged anyone for the way they run their business, that is their decision and if I waste my energy in worrying about how others are doing their business it takes my focus away from what I am doing.
Tony Robbins once said, "Whatever you are for gives you energy and whatever you are against takes your energy". I have hung onto this for years and whenever I think I want to rant about someone else being wrong, I look above my desk and there are these words. I need my energy to build my business and to take care of my customers. So for me every day is about standing in a place where I am FOR SOMETHING and against nothing. I worked hard to get out of JUDGMENT and into curiosity. Being Responsible is a place to stand, it is about being the only cause in the matter of ones life. Ultimately it is a context in which one chooses to live.
Being a part of a team or a mastermind as Napoleon Hill puts it allows for a great power than the individual and teams are what truly allow you to grow as an individual. I work with a lot of great, great individual agents who have amazing support staffs and do not market themselves as a team, I work with individual agents who have no support staff and am amazed and in awe of who they are. I work with just a lot of really amazing agents in this market. I chose they are amazing and each of them has a gift for me in our passing. I really get that it is my choice to make them amazing for me and to give me energy. What do you chose???
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