With 12 years in the real estate industry and 4 years of growing a high producing
real estate team, I have been asked by many agents in the Triangle area what it takes to succeed in this industry.
This experience and a very curious nature has led me to a study of what it is that makes some agents great, and what makes others wash out before reaching their potential. If you have been in the real estate business for more than 5 years, you probably have a good understanding of these principles. If you don't, these basics can help save you a lot of time and hard experience. This is a tough industry to be in for the real estate business opperator.
I believe there are 4 things you MUST do to thrive as a real estate agent.
- Destroy Your Safety Net. Do you have a backup plan? What is that plan? If you can answer that question, DO NOT start a carreer in real estate. At least not yet. I can think back to a time when I always had a safety net. There was always that voice in the back of my head that said: "If this doesn't work, then I can always work in my families business." The problem is that this didn't truly create a driving need in my business. It wasn't until I moved all of my chips to the center of the table that I actually started to sell homes. This business is not for the faint of heart, which is easily proven when you see that fewer than 20% of all agents that get licensed last more than 3 years. I would argue that is because 80% of the agents have a backup plan.
- Find A Coach/Mentor. The personality type that gets into the real estate industry is notoriously unaccountable. This mental and emotional makeup says: "I don't want a boss, don't give me accountability, and I work on my schedule". These are the agents that won't typically last in the industry. The personality profile of a successful agent may vary little from this person, but the difference is drive and accountability. The successful agent will always have a coach or mentor. Even when a successful agent reaches the top of their game, there will always be a benefit to the accountability that coaching offers. We are a pioneering group of people, and there is a place for that, but if you are going to be a success you must learn how to align yourself and learn with others who are more successful than you are.
- Run your business like a business.
When you are an agent, there is a major struggle to get enough people who trust you to help them buy or sell a home. There is a tipping point that sneaks up on an agent, where your business can begin to run you instead of you running your business. Early on, the most important thing you can do is take a personality assessment. I recommend the DISC Assessment (You can find a free one here). Use this tool to get to know yourself better. Learn your strengths, weeknesses, and motivations. Use this self-awareness to surrount yourself with others that have different strengths than you have. Ultimately, when you cater to your own strengths your business can be handled more efficiently because others pick up the areas where you are weak. Caution! Don't use this as an excuse to slack on important areas of your business. Once you are surrounded with others who can handle these, you need to focus on all aspects of real estate.
- Hyper-Focus. The problem that I see all too often in this business is "shiny object syndrom". It is a daily struggle that I fight with, and it can KILL your momentum. You go into a day or week with an objective and are quickly bombarded with a dozen good sounding ideas or distractions. These immediately cut your flow of productivity off and leave you ending your day with the same "to do list" that you started with. There are many would be great agents, who never reach a fraction of there potential because of shiny object syndrom. The key is hyper focus! Make your to do list every morning, arranged by order of importance. Determine your top three items and throw the rest away. If they are important after your top priorities are finished you can come back to them. It is far better to actually finish a few important tasks in a day that leave the office with 15 half completed projects.
After 12 years in the real estate industry, there are many more tips that can help make your carreer a success, but these are the most important.
I have found that growing or joining a team is a great way to Gain a Mentor, Run Your Business Like A Business, and Hyper Focus.
If you want a chance to link into a developed system, or to learn how the Bruce Hill Group can help provide support, training and the leads you need, click below.
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