Id I’d Known Then What I Know Now: The Other 5 Newbie Mistakes

In my last blog, I listed what I thought were 5 of the dumbest mistakes new agents make. Boy, did I wish I’d known these things prior to starting my career. And, since I’m preparing the next edition of Become Tomorrow’s Mega-Agent Today, I am asking you to give me some feedback, too, in what you feel are the common new agent mistakes, so we can help new agents succeed.

Here’s the rest of the list of 10:

1. Starting the business part-time, with no ‘drop dead’ exit plan from your other work. I know. I started part-time, but, within three months, I realized that I could not serve my consumer honestly when I had to run to another job. The truth is that you just don’t care much about the consumer if you’re not committed and working a real estate at least 50 hours a week. If you have to start part-time, give yourself a deadline to become full-time. Managers, don’t hire without that dead-line in writing. You’ll be wasting your time training and coaching.
2.  Not getting a commitment from your manager that he/she will consistently and frequently coach you to a game plan. If your manager can’t rise to that level of commitment, how successful to you think your manager intends you to be? (Side note to managers: I believe you need to be 100% committed to your agents, or else the likelihood they will fail is 100%. Use a precise, consistent, proven game plan like the 3^rd edition of Up and Running in 30 Days to put your agent to work, and coach your agent with Managers: Putting Up and Running to Work, now in its 3^rd edition to match the new, expanded agent’s start-up plan.)
3. Thinking that the best commission plan is the best place to work. As the old song says, “Nothin’ from nothin’ is nothin’.” You need to sell lots of real estate—lots and lots of real estate. Choose the place where you think that will happen. New agents who figure out they only have to sell three homes a year to pay those fees are thinking like losers.
4. Not investing in the business until they ‘get successful’. When would that be? Why do you get to be successful without an investment? With that attitude, how are you going to compete with those great agents—and how are you going to meet those amazingly high consumer expectations?
5.  Going into the business to see if they like it. I’ll bet 50% of new agents don’t really go into the business to make it a career. They go into the business to ‘try it out’. If that’s your attitude, how do you expect your manager and your company to be 100% committed to you, when you’re 25% committed?

A Great Manager Plus a Great Plan Plus Accountability = Success

Harsh words above, but true.  If you want to succeed, find a great manager who will coach you and hold you to a start-up plan. Find a manager who will tell you the truth—even when you don’t want to hear it! Find a manager who is 100% committed to you, and you will be one of those 50% who survive their first years, and go on to great careers.