❯❯ Promotional opportunity: A listing gives you a reason to advertise and draw the attention of prospects whom you can convert to clients or future prospects. And when your listing sells, you can spread the word of your success with another round of communication to those in the neighborhood, on social media, and throughout your sphere of influence.
❯❯ A business multiplier: Talk to any listing agent and you’ll have this fact confirmed: One listing equals more than one sale.
❯❯ Creates quality of life: Being a strong listing agent creates quality of life as well. By my fourth year in real estate I was on pace to sell 150 homes. I also was in construction of a vacation home in Bend, Oregon. Joan, my wife, was a general contractor. She needed to be onsite on Fridays to meet with subcontractors. I shifted to working Mondays through Thursdays, and taking Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off. It was totally unheard of for an agent to take weekends off then, and even now.
I would have not have been able to accomplish the high level of sales and time off without being a strong listing agent. I didn’t work a buyer the rest of my real estate sales career. They typically want to see property on weekends. I was enjoying my lifestyle at my vacation home playing golf, snowshoeing, hiking, and biking.
❯❯ A free team of agents working for you: The moment you post your listing, all the other agents in your area will go to work on your behalf. And the best part is that they don’t require payment until they deliver a buyer, and then they’ll be paid not by you but by your seller through the commission structure.
Much of the information in this book focuses on developing listings, because to achieve top-level success, listings are the name of the game.
Agents typically follow one of these four basic approaches in the quest to achieve real estate success:
❯❯ Become a workaholic. More than 80 percent of agents who generate a reasonable income achieve their success by turning their careers into a 7-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day job. They answer emails, texts, private messages, and business phone calls day and night; they make themselves constantly available to prospects and clients; and they work on demand with no restraints or boundaries because of technology. That can lead to burnout.
❯❯ Buy clients. The second-most-frequent pathway to success is to buy business through excessive marketing campaigns. Marketing can be a valuable tool, but you must monitor, track, and count the results. You have to be consistent in your marketing and branding. You can’t start and stop campaigns. Some agents buy their way to top-level real estate success by investing in large branding or marketing campaigns – you will get called, texted, and emailed endlessly with both online and offline marketing and lead generation. The challenge is the risk-versus-reward position, and earlier in your career the risk is even greater. Others buy their way to the top by discounting their commissions. By offering themselves at the lowest prices, these agents eliminate the need to emphasize their skills, abilities, and expertise.
❯❯ Take the shady road. Another avenue to real estate financial success is to abandon ethics and just go for the deal and the resulting money. Unlike the vast majority of agents who advise and advocate for their clients, agents who take this route choose not to be bound by ethics or any codes of conduct. They put their own needs first and put their clients’ best interests in distant second place. Fortunately, these agents are few and far between.
❯❯ Build a professional services business. The fourth and best pathway is to create a well-rounded, professional services business not unlike that of a doctor, dentist, attorney, or accountant. The balance of the two connected and complementary segments of prospecting, lead generation, lead conversion, and marketing is essential to reach this level. Fewer than 5 percent of all agents follow this route, yet the ones who do are the ones who earn the largest sums of money – some exceeding $1 million annually while also having high-quality lives and time for friends and family. Plus, when they’re ready to bow out of the industry, they have a business asset they can sell to another agent. (See the sidebar “Mining gold from your professional services business” for more details on creating an asset you can sell.)
The best professionals provide ongoing services to clients who wouldn’t think of taking their business elsewhere. These professionals develop reputations and client loyalty that reside in their company name, even after the founding professionals move on to other ventures or into retirement. Doing more than just earning an income and building a clientele, these professionals build an asset that they can sell, which allows them to receive compensation from the value of the successful businesses they’ve built.
As a favorite example, my father was a dentist for 30 years. When he decided to retire, he sold his practice to another dentist. He sold his building and equipment, but most important, he sold his patient roster, which raked in the majority of the money he received.
A real estate agent who builds a well-rounded, successful business can enjoy a similarly lucrative sale. In fact, your objective should be to build the kind of business that you can sell at the completion of your real estate career.
I worked with a coaching client a few years ago as she prepared her business for sale. She tracked lead-making strategies, lead conversion rates, client satisfaction, listings, buyers, and net profit. Then, for two years, we worked together to improve all the facets of her business until they were fine-tuned to perfection. She was among the minority 5 percent of agents who built a truly well-rounded business. The result: Her real estate practice sold for well over $1 million. How’s that for a goal?
Chapter 2
Selecting the Right Company
IN THIS CHAPTER
❯❯ Weighing the pros and cons of different types of real estate companies
❯❯ Knowing the roles of agency players and the rules of the house
❯❯ Choosing and joining your agency team
Before you sign on with a real estate company, you need to take time to look well beneath the surface and beyond first impressions to determine whether the company is, in fact, the right one for you. Do the company’s core values and culture align with yours? Are its technology platforms and systems cutting edge, standard for the market, or lagging behind? Does its brand help you stand out in the marketplace?
Most agents, whether new or experienced, don’t invest enough time in evaluating and analyzing companies, owners, key managers, and their direct broker manager in their office before they commit to a real estate firm. In this chapter, I help you to do the homework, compare the opportunities, make the choice, and establish a winning partnership.
Real estate offices have evolved from the sprawling buildings where every agent had his own workstation, cubical, or private office. Although some offices are still arranged this way, the vast majority of real estate offices are morphing into a more stop-and-go model. Agents on the go share spaces, tools and resources. Many agents work probably remotely from a home office. Their activities are mobile because of technological advances in access to information and paperless documents and transactions. Even agents who need staff or help for administrative functions are hiring virtual assistants, who can work from any location.
I have a client who has a team of agents and administration staff who all work remotely. They sell over 50 million dollars of real estate a year, but everyone works from a home office. They don’t even have space at the real estate company.
Real estate offices today are using a more open-space