Making It Big: The Three Skills You Need

Making it big: The three skills you need.

Perhaps you went into real estate because you wanted to be independent. You wanted to be your own boss–name your own hours–work at your own speed.  You had heard real estate agents make lots of money. Maybe you thought this was a business were you just looked at pretty houses. Not so fast! Even though real estate is considered to be a career where ‘you’re in business for yourself”, taking that thought too far can result in failure. 

Whether you’re new or in business for decades, read on. You may be deluding yourself about your path to success.

Selling Real Estate: Skills Needed

There are many skills required in this business that people new to it just don’t have.  Too often, agents believe all they have to do is to start in this business and go to training. They will be successful. Then, when they start failing, they can’t figure out why. In this blog I’ll name 3 qualities and skills you need to develop fast. My question to you is: How are you going to develop or refine them?

Skill # 1: Time management

Most people go into real estate from a field that required them to show up on time, do specific work, and work for at least eight hours. If they didn’t fulfill the minimum requirements of the job, they were fired. Understandably, many people don’t like to work under those strictures. So, they go into real estate where they can name their own hours, work at their own speed, etc. etc. The problem is they don’t understand that working at their own speed many be working at a failure speed.

My question: How are you developing your time management skills? Did you bring them from your former business? (Most agents don’t). If you don’t have dynamic time management skills, how will you develop them?

Skill # 2; Being accountable to a plan

When I was regional director for a very large international franchise company, I screened people for leadership positions.  I was stunned to find  most potential owners and managers had never had anyone hold them accountable. In fact, there was a negative feeling about being held accountable. When you have a ‘boss’, you are accountable to that work plan and to your boss. In real estate, we’re so careful not to step over the boundaries of the independent contractor concept, we rarely hold anyone accountable to anything. The result: Most people never know what the job really is, and whether they are on track to attain their goals.

My question to you is: Who is helping you be accountable for your own success? Who is your coach? (And don’t tell me it is YOU…..) If you don’t have someone coaching you, how do you know you’re on the right track?

Skill #3: Implement a plan of action.

It is just amazing to me the kablooey plans of action out there.  Most of the time, in fact, an agent isn’t provided a plan of action. He/she is just told suggestions or 50 ways to do something. The result: The agent has no idea how to prioritize activities and proceed. He has no idea whether what he is doing every day actually is leading him toward a goal. That’s like my musician friend who says every piece of music is the same: It all uses the same 88 keys–just in different arrangements. But, if you were to try to play a piece of music without knowing the sequencing of the melody, you couldn’t play it. It’s the same as picking out the best methods from those ” 50 ways to do something”. 

My question to you is: Do you have a proven, prioritized plan of action and are you executing it? How do you know it is a plan that will get you exceptional results? (all plans aren’t the same!)

I’ve given you 3 skills agents need to succeed.  What do you think? Is real estate an ‘independent’ or dependent business? I believe it needs to be a ‘dependent’ business at the beginning. That is, I coach the new agent as he/she starts his/her business. I am the leader. The new agent is the follower (or the struggling agent). There is the dependence. Once the agent ‘has it’, I step back, and become more of a consultant. Have you been a successful follower, so you can learn the business right? If not, why not? If you went to a piano teacher to learn to play the piano, you wouldn’t start your first lesson by telling the teacher how to play! 

If you haven’t read the great book,  Outliers, get it and read it now. One of the great lessons in the book is that no one succeeds alone. 

Give me your feedback on the ‘independent’ or ‘dependent’ concept. What do you think?