Love and Your Real Estate Career

This is Valentine’s month, so thoughts of love have been in the air.

All the candy and flowers speak of romantic love, but as most of us know, there are many more varieties of love.

I love my husband and sons, my dogs, my friends, and… the smell of new mown hay, huckleberries, and a nice nap in the afternoon. And that’s merely the beginning of a long, long list.

I also love you for reading my posts, I love my customers who use my prospecting letters, and who hire me to write custom copy, such as their bios, community pages, and custom letters. I love getting comments and suggestions for post topics and letter sets. I love it when someone spots a typo in my work and writes or calls to let me know about it.

But this is about YOU and your real estate career (or any career, for that matter).

There are two points to consider:

• What do you love most about your career?
• Are you letting your career get in the way of your “other loves?”

Your career:

As a real estate professional you wear dozens of hats. You may love some of them and wish you could take others off and stomp on them. So why don’t you do it?

Take a little time to think about that. Whatever you love to do, you do best. It’s fun and energizing. Whatever you dislike doing, you probably don’t do very well, because your heart isn’t in it.

Stop and think about those tasks you don’t love.

Are there ways to do more of what you love and permanently give those other tasks to someone else?

Maybe you love dealing face to face with clients but dislike entering listings into MLS and taking care of other paperwork tasks.

Maybe you dread doing those mundane tasks like putting up signs, filling flyer boxes, and keeping your car clean and filled with fuel. (That would be me – I really don’t like going to the gas station.)  

• Some things, like entering MLS data, putting up signs, and keeping your car clean and full of fuel can easily be handed to an assistant.
• A transaction coordinator can take care of various paperwork tasks while keeping you on track with the tasks you must attend to yourself.

You might say “But I can’t afford it.” Are you sure? Have you looked into what it costs? Does it cost more per hour than you could make if you were in front of clients in those hours?

Then there are the clients you choose to work with.

Yes – you do choose. You choose via your marketing, which is why so many of us urge agents to develop niches and to use your marketing to attract people in those niches.

Maybe you love working with first time buyers or investors who buy fixers, but go after the high-end clients because there’s more money to be made.

Maybe you love working with buyers but only take listings because someone says you must – or it’s the other way around.

If your marketing brings in both buyers and sellers and you only want to work with one or the other, share the ones you don’t want with a partner or refer them to someone who will pay you a fee.

And thinking of niches… when you work with the properties and people you love most, two things will happen. You’ll be happier and healthier, AND you will close more transactions. Read this post from last June to see why: https://copybymarte.com/how-to-choose-your-real-estate-niche/

What about marketing?

Maybe you love writing web pages, prospecting letters, postcards, property descriptions, etc. that help bring the buyers and sellers to your door, but don’t want to list or show homes. (This was where I found myself after 18 years in real estate – so I switched careers.)

If you feel the way I did back when I switched careers, why not affiliate yourself with a team and become their marketer? Do all the writing and marketing for the entire team and receive a percentage of every sale. Perhaps you could even negotiate something like a salary plus a percentage for doing the marketing for your entire brokerage.

Maybe you love marketing through social media – or maybe you only do it because you know it will help give you more exposure and thus more clients and closings.

If you really don’t like marketing, you can turn to people like me and my son.

I happen to love writing real estate marketing materials. You probably know that I have 49+ sets of pre-written prospecting letters available, plus weekly blog posts. I also write custom letters, agent bios, property descriptions, and real estate web pages of all kinds, including community pages.

My son, Chris, is the social media guy. I don’t like it and don’t understand it, but he loves it. If you don’t like it or can’t find time for it, you can connect with him at https://www.facebook.com/Kaizo7-379720216190829/

Back to your Other Loves…

Are you paying attention to them? Are you making time for them?

“We are supposed to enjoy the good stuff now, while we can, with the people we love.
Life has a funny way of teaching us that lesson over and over again.”
Sheena Easton

~~~

Whether it’s the people you love or the activities you love, they do need your time and attention. After all, what is the point of working and making money if you aren’t enjoying your life and the people you love aren’t enjoying your company?

I know – you have way too much to do. That’s another good reason to hire someone to do the tasks you don’t love doing.

No reasonable client will expect you to be available 24 hours of every day. You aren’t a robot.

So set some boundaries. Tell clients that you’re only available between X a.m. and Y p.m. While you’re at it, if your family sits down to dinner together at a certain time each evening, let people know that if they call between certain hours, you’ll be unavailable but will return the call ASAP. Then turn off the phone and talk with the people you love.

The same goes for doing things that energize you. It really is OK for you to take time to play a round of golf, go fishing, enjoy a horseback ride, play a card game, attend a book club meeting, or spend an evening out dancing.

The truth is simple: As long as you do what you say you’ll do, good people will respect you and will respect your ”real life” time. People who don’t respect you aren’t worth having as clients.

The original of this post appeared at: https://copybymarte.com/love-and-your-real-estate-career/

Hearts Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Young first time homebuyers courtesy of Morgue File