Takeways:
- When people first get out of real estate school, they seem to have a romanticized idea of real estate.
- Real estate is problem-solving, troubleshooting, trial and error, constant learning — and the list goes on.
- Agents need to find a brokerage that will support them and dive in headfirst.
Getting started in real estate is an exciting prospect. It’s a completely new subject, with endless opportunities and a fantastic potential for income.
I think that when people first go to real estate school, they have a picture of what real estate is in their mind. They’ve been watching HGTV and “Million Dollar Listing,” and they think that being an agent means driving a fancy car, running in and out of beautiful houses, and getting big, fat checks.
But real estate is so much more. It’s problem-solving, troubleshooting, trial and error, constant learning — and the list goes on.
I believe that it takes a certain type of person and a certain personality to be an agent.
This story occurred in our office and involves two new agents, both less than six months out of real estate school. Neither had worked a “grown-up job” before, and both were fresh to the business. For the sake of the story and confidentiality, I’ll name them Sarah and Stephanie.
Sarah came along first. She was a few years out of college and had yet to find her passion. She had gone to real estate school, and she loved it.
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Sarah joined our team and began to work our lead systems in an attempt to get her first deal. The problem that Sarah ran into was essentially “paralysis by analysis.”
She wanted to know everything, and she was terrified by the thought of messing something up. She spent countless hours researching, reading and trying to learn all that she could about the business.
However, after four months of no solid prospects or clients, she became frustrated and moved on to another brokerage before finally dropping out altogether.
Then Stephanie comes to our office. She is also fresh out of real estate school and ready to conquer the world. She is determined, enthusiastic and ready to work.
She immediately jumped into our lead system and got to work. Within just five weeks, she had five buyer clients and her first closing under her belt with no intent on slowing down.
The differences between the two were many. I attribute at least one of the differences to personality. Sarah was a bit shy, and Stephanie has a much more outgoing personality.
The major difference that we saw is that Stephanie wasn’t scared to get started. She jumped in headfirst — knowing that she had the support system in our office to help guide her through her first transaction and beyond.
She wasn’t scared of screwing up because she knew she could always just ask questions when they arose. Sarah focused too closely on the possibility that she could fail, and she let that get the best of her.
I’m not saying, by any means, that someone with a shy personality won’t make it in the real estate industry. If there was one takeaway from this story, it’s that to get started you need to jump in fully.
There is only so much that you can learn by reading, and you learn so much more by doing. I am an avid supporter of learning by doing.
To succeed, I think that you also need a brokerage that fits you, as well as one that will support you through your first transaction and beyond. I began my career at a brokerage that didn’t fit my needs, and it took much longer to get moving than I would have liked.
So, if I could give advice to new agents, it would be the following three things:
- I would encourage them to dive in headfirst and get started.
- I would also highly recommend finding a brokerage that meets your needs, one with a training program and lead generation platform.
- I would encourage them to be aware of “paralysis by analysis.”
Find a broker you can trust to support and guide you, and you will be well on your way to becoming the next top agent.
Jay Luebke is a residential sales specialist and the visual coordinator with The ART of Real Estate in Columbia, South Carolina. You can follow The ART of Real Estate on Twitter @TheARTeam.