How to be successful as a real-estate agent.

If you are just beginning in real estate, having the right tools and advice can make the difference between accelerated career growth and plateauing—or worse, losing clients. Here are some key tips to remember when starting out as a real-estate agent.

1.    Define your audience.
Create a picture of the clients you would like to work for, what they are likely to own, what they want to hear and where you will be able to find them.

2.    Seek advice from other Real Estate Agents.
Ask permission to shadow the best agent/s in your office. Invite an agent you admire out for a coffee; if you explain you are new to the industry and would love to pick their brains, most will say ‘sure’. Of course, respect the time given to you and make the most of it; you’ll realise how valuable time is to a successful agent soon enough.

3.    Network.
Seek out opportunities to meet new people and network. Be seen to build your personal brand and ensure people are aware of what you do.

4.    Paperwork and systems.
Keep good records; everyone you meet who owns property should be put into a database of some sort, maybe even a CRM. Your database is not a phone number storage device – it is a way to plan your activity, distribute marketing, give prospective clients the information they want.

5.    Create a personal sales approach.
Use your CRM to your advantage.  Be sure to include the nice-to-know details, like the schools the children attend or their pet snake’s name. Real estate sales is meeting people who own property, listening to them, caring and keeping in touch.

6.    Maintain your energy.
Preserve your sanity and family life, protect your health and block out time for having fun in order to retain you energy and enthusiasm for your job. This will shine through in your sales approach.

7.    Reflect on the effectiveness of your sales approach.
To improve at anything you need to do it and then reflect to see what works and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t work, seek out ways to develop your skills. Say ‘yes’ to every opportunity for training and take notes which include immediate actions. At the beginning, your learning is likely to come down to increasing the quantity of people you are meeting who own property, working on your ability to establish motivation and asking constructive questions.

8.    Have a genuine will to assist people.
If you genuinely want to assist a person find a new home, or sell their existing one, you are more likely to make a sale than focusing on ‘making the sale’.  The sale comes from doing the right things, it is the outcome!