One of the highest paying careers in the world is selling real estate. Yet despite this fact, one of the lowest paying careers in the world is also selling real estate!
Over the past three decades, I have had the opportunity to lead nearly 1,000 seminars and workshops for real estate agents and brokers across the country and abroad. At these events, I have the honor of seeing people’s eyes light up, beliefs soar, and motivations come to life.
I’ve had more agents than I can count asking me the secret of real estate success. While at first glance I tend to mean there are no secrets, I discovered that there really were. Here are five of my secrets:
1. Working hard is like round tires
When people get into real estate, it’s often for one of a handful of reasons. These reasons can include making more money and balancing their lives, and I often hear, “I wanted to be my own boss.” Whenever someone says the latter, I love asking them what they didn’t like about their last boss. The answer is always a bit ironic because their last boss, in almost every case, just wanted them to work hard, deliver results, and maintain effective practices.
The reason I think it’s funny is that the exact same things are needed in the real estate business if you want to be successful. Like round tires, hard work never gets old.
2. Don’t play the waiting game
Another key to success as an agent is to “not play the waiting game”. When I ask an agent how business is going, a common response is to tell me how the market is doing. . . but that’s not what I asked.
What these agents are really telling me is that they are waiting for something outside to improve. They respond with comments such as “We really have a shortage of inventory and interest rates are crazy”, as well as other external limiting points. While in a good market an agent may end up making a good living, if they don’t have a plan or process to follow, their income will only be tied to current market conditions. “Hot markets can ruin potentially great agents!” »
3. Know the limits of hard work
Ancient wisdom says, “What goes up must come down.” One of the statements from my seminars is always an eye-opener to any agent in the room. “He who owns the invisible, owns a paycheck!” This secret to success is about as simple as it gets, but since it’s so widely ignored, I can’t help but classify it as a real secret.
The most common Natural the marketing objective of agents is to seek the visible rather than the invisible. This thinking may be the very element that costs an agent the majority of their earning potential. When there seems to be a lot of people wanting to buy real estate in a market where inventory is low, most agents tend to market to those same buyers. The problem here is that it doesn’t solve a problem, but rather accentuates one that already exists – a low inventory-to-buyer ratio.
3. Invisible market
Having a buyer does not guarantee a salary, but it can guarantee a lot of work. And then sometimes that buyer will write an offer with another agent after all your hard work. Although hard work is a requirement, it’s only as good as your plan.
“Those who possess the invisible, possess a salary!” The invisible, in this case, is the lists. If an agent had a good quality listing in a marketplace with a lot of buyers and not enough inventory, then that agent would be guaranteed a paycheck.
If you’re in a market where there seem to be more buyers than ads, place a premium on your marketing goal, dollars, and effort to get ads. The reverse is also true – if you’re in a market where you have an abundance of listings and not enough buyers, then weigh your marketing focus, your dollars, and your efforts to gain buyers heavily.
4. Marketing vs Market
When we wait for a market to change or improve, we are only giving ourselves permission not to do the essential. Yet it is these very bases that make the magic happen!
Keep in mind the simple premise of the words “Marketing” versus “Market”. Market is a noun while marketing is a verb. Marketing is the act of generating an improved synthetic market.
Since some of the highest paying and lowest paying careers are in real estate sales, think about what makes the difference. That difference is knowing what some call secrets and then implementing them day in and day out.
Now that you know some of my secrets, you can put yourself on the high end of the income spectrum. . . in any market! Choose to make today your best day.
Darryl Turner is the founder and CEO of the Darryl Turner Society. To date, The Darryl Turner Corporation has participated in over 75,000 sales calls and conducted over 65,000 coaching sessions.