By now, you should have a solid grasp on some of the most important aspects of starting a real estate career. You should:
If you’re still with us, it’s a good sign that you see the tremendous benefits that can be unlocked when you pursue a career in real estate. In this chapter, we’d like to dig a little deeper and highlight a few of the critical keys to achieving success in real estate.
As we’ve discussed in prior chapters, building a real estate business requires patience, dedication and hard work. But success is also extremely attainable if you’re willing to build the proper foundation during your first couple of years in the business. Many people just like you have found that transitioning to a career in real estate has been highly lucrative, allowing them to maintain their desired lifestyle and improve their work-life balance.
But what, exactly, does it take to become successful in real estate? Below, we’ll discuss the six critical keys to unlock the income and lifestyle you want from your real estate career.
Before we dive into the critical keys to success, let’s talk a little bit about how to define success since this term means different things to different people. Success may mean one or more of the following:
There’s no right or wrong answer to what success means to you. In many ways, it will depend on the type of career you pursue in real estate. For example, a full-time agent may prioritize specific income goals in their vision of success, while someone getting into real estate to fix and flip houses may be more focused on closing a specific number of deals in order to ensure a steady number of homes to flip each year. The important point is that you put some thought into what success means to you and establish some measurable and achievable goals that will help you gauge your success over time.
When you start your real estate career, we recommend that you create a formal business plan that outlines your overall goals and how you will measure your success. We’ve discussed the important elements to include in your business plan in Chapter 5 (in case you’d like to look back for reference). By constructing this plan and identifying your most important goals, you’ll be able to define what a successful real estate career looks like for you. This will make it easier to carry out your plan and achieve your desired success.
We recommend that you revisit your business plan each year and make any adjustments necessary to reflect the changes in your business, your overall goals, or your definition of success. This will ensure you’re always directing your efforts towards the actions that will be most critical to achieving your specific goals at that time.
As you begin your career in real estate, keep the following items in mind, as they will be some of the most important keys to building a successful business:
Without a doubt, the most critical key to your success as a real estate agent is a commitment to consistent prospecting and lead generation. Finding new clients is one of the most important parts of your job, especially during your first few years in real estate. While some brokerages may provide assistance with leads, you will be responsible for handling the vast majority of your lead generation efforts.
Over time, you’ll be able to cultivate a significant portion of your new clients from referrals, but this is a slow and steady process that takes several years. Once you build a strong referral system, lead generation and client prospecting will mostly take care of itself. However, you’ll need to devote a significant amount of energy to this process during the first few years.
While your marketing strategy will be an important way to generate leads during your first few years in the industry, there are many other ways to get clients that don’t require spending money. Many agents become active in organizations such as:
Becoming active in a variety of organizations gives you an opportunity to develop social relationships with a lot of people. It’s common to discuss what you do for a living in a casual manner as you develop these social relationships, making it easy to become someone’s agent once they are looking to buy or sell a home. Over time, this will result in a significant amount of business finding you without much effort.
Open houses are another great way to meet people and generate leads. You’ll get to know a lot of people when you host an open house and while many of them will not want that particular home, they are in the market to buy. If they don’t already have an agent, you have a shot at a client.
Once you generate leads, you will also need a method for organizing them so that you can nurture them until they become clients. The most effective way to organize your leads, current clients and past clients in a way that can help grow your business is to use a client relationship management (CRM) system.
CRM systems provide robust ways to organize and prioritize all the contacts in your database. They also provide automation for items such as task reminders, listing management and lead tracking. This will allow you to perform all lead organization and nurturing tasks as efficiently as possible, freeing up more time to spend working with your clients.
The to-do list for real estate agents can often get quite lengthy, making time management an essential key to becoming successful in this field. If you don’t want to work 60-70 hours a week (and we don’t recommend putting in anywhere near this many hours), you’ll need to develop an effective way to organize your time.
Fortunately, there’s no reason why you should work more than 40 hours a week as a real estate agent. In fact, most of the best agents rarely exceed 40 hours in a typical work week. Moreover, there is a considerable body of research that has found your productivity actually drops precipitously when you work insane 60-70 weeks. In addition, this type of workaholic schedule sets you up for burnout.
So how can you maintain a 40-hour work week and still accomplish everything that needs to be done to build a successful real estate career? The following time management tips will help you optimize your time spent working to ensure you get more done in fewer hours.
Time blocking is an effective way to strategically organize your time. By blocking out set periods of time to focus on a specific task (i.e., scheduling appointments, following up with leads, writing contracts, etc.), you can harness your focus to get more done than is possible when you switch gears every few minutes.
While you may want to get even more granular and block out specific chunks of time each day, we recommend first approaching this process from a weekly view. Here’s what an example of a time-blocked week may look like:
There are a few key points to keep in mind when time blocking:
Once you’ve time blocked your week, you can drill down a little deeper and think about the best way to prioritize the tasks you’ve allocated for each day. Having a framework for how to prioritize tasks is critical because there are always fires to put out and unexpected items that will creep into your day. It’s easy to get bogged down in dealing with these items as they pop up, preventing you from tackling the most important tasks associated with building a successful real estate business.
When you understand how to prioritize tasks, you’ll be able to focus your energy on the items that truly need your attention. We recommend using the Eisenhower Matrix as a framework for prioritizing your daily tasks. The Eisenhower Matrix helps you organize your to-do list into four primary categories in order to identify which items should be prioritized:
Based on this matrix, you should prioritize your tasks in the following manner:
Do First
These are the tasks that are both urgent and important. They represent the core tasks that directly impact the success of your business (and your ability to earn money), such as:
You should be blocking out time in your day to get these tasks done, and you should generally prioritize them early in the day while you’re still fresh.
Schedule
Important, but not urgent tasks should be scheduled into your day, but completed after you handle the items that are both important and urgent. Examples of important, but not urgent tasks include:
Delegate
Tasks that are urgent, but not important should be delegated whenever possible. Since they are urgent, you need to make sure they get done. However, it’s not essential for you to do them yourself since they’re not important.
Examples of urgent, but not important tasks that you can potentially delegate include:
Delegating tasks can be tricky when you’re first starting out in real estate since you may not have this help available at your brokerage. However, you don’t need to pay for an expensive personal assistant to delegate the tasks that aren’t essential for you to perform. There are affordable ways to outsource this help.
You can find freelancers and virtual assistants on websites such as Fiverr and Upwork that can help you complete these urgent, but not important items at a reasonable cost. Delegating these tasks is a critical way to improve your time management and free up your day to focus on the most pressing items that require your personal attention and focus.
Don’t Do
There are inevitably tasks on your plate that aren’t really helping you at all. These are the items that are neither urgent nor important, and which don’t significantly contribute to the success of your real estate business or your ability to achieve the goals you’ve established.
A great example of something you shouldn’t do is have unnecessary meetings with individuals who aren’t helping you grow your business. These are a poor use of your time and should be eliminated from your to-do list entirely.
Many of the best real estate agents are able to free up time by utilizing technology to automate tasks. The ideal tool for this is an effective CRM system that will allow you to automate your lead outreach and nurturing to ensure you reach the right lead with the right message at the right time.
If you want to build a thriving real estate business, you’ll need to cultivate return clients who also refer you to their friends and family. To accomplish this, you must put in the effort to build relationships with these people.
Fortunately, building these relationships doesn’t require ongoing in-person contact. Instead, you simply need to reach out at the right times to remind these clients you care. Sending messages wishing them a happy birthday, congratulating them on their closing anniversaries, and other similar occasions will go a long way toward forging these relationships.
When you’re starting out, you may be able to manage this process on an Excel spreadsheet, but as your business grows, this will simply not be practical. What will you do when you’re trying to nurture five to ten times as many leads as you have now? How will you remember the preferences and important dates for dozens, if not hundreds, of former clients? If you try to stay on top of these items personally, one of two things will happen:
Using a CRM can save you hours of work every week by eliminating the need to send these messages to former clients personally. It can also allow you to easily stay on top of your lead nurture efforts so that you’re able to turn more of them into clients (who may eventually also become a source of referrals for you).
We’re all human, and there are limitations to our focus and energy. It’s impossible to be extremely productive, effective and efficient all day long, so there’s no point in trying. You’ll be able to remain more productive by giving yourself some break time to recharge and refocus.
For this reason, we recommend allotting time for breaks each day when you’re time blocking your week. Whether you spend time going for a walk, taking a class at the gym, going to a coffee shop to read a book or doing anything else you find relaxing and enjoyable, prioritizing this break time will allow you to finish out your day with renewed energy and focus.
As we discussed in Chapter 4, marketing is an important component of a real estate agent’s job, especially during your first few years in business. Until you’re able to build a solid referral system from former clients, you’ll need to rely on marketing to generate leads. If you don’t have a background in marketing, this aspect of running your business may be a bit more challenging. Therefore, it will be important to invest some time in learning how to effectively market your real estate business.
We recommend reviewing Chapter 4 for some important marketing tips. In addition to the strategies we’ve already discussed, we’ll provide a few additional tips here that will help you more effectively market your business:
Many of the most successful real estate agents work in specific niches in the industry. The niche you choose isn’t as important as having a specialization. Some examples of niches you may want to focus on include:
Focusing on a specific niche is beneficial for several reasons:
When your marketing efforts are focused on a specific niche, you’ll be able to target a narrower audience. While this may at first seem counterintuitive, it will actually help make your marketing efforts more effective, because you’ll have a deeper understanding of the needs, concerns and pain points for your niche. This will allow you to address these items directly in your marketing efforts. By choosing a niche that is less competitive, you’ll also be able to focus your marketing resources on an audience that is more likely to find you.
Keep in mind that your chosen niche isn’t set in stone. As you become a more experienced real estate agent, you can always choose to shift gears and specialize in a new niche that aligns more with your interests and goals at that particular time.
While most people want to work with a knowledgeable and experienced real estate agent, they also want to work with someone they like. Therefore, it’s important that you’re able to convey your personality and enthusiasm for your job when you interact with your clients. Equally important, you’ll need to convey your personality and enthusiasm through your branding when you market your real estate business. This will increase your ability to attract leads and build a client base.
When creating your marketing materials, place a great deal of thought into how you want to convey your personality in your messaging. Make sure your personality remains consistent throughout all of your materials. Whether it’s your head shot, bio, social media profiles, brochures or ads, your goal is to build a consistent brand. This brand will be most effective when it highlights your unique style and personality.
Some items to think about when injecting your personality into your branding efforts include:
In addition, you should consider including a more personal side of yourself in your branding and marketing materials. For example, displaying photos and videos on your website and social media profiles that show you traveling, having fun and engaging in your favorite activities will help you showcase your personality. This will often be as important to marketing your brand as showing images of you working, since it will give you a chance to stand out as unique.
Working in real estate requires thick skin. It often takes 99 “nos” to get a “yes.” This is simply part of the business and the sooner you’re able to handle rejection and develop the ability to persevere through to the next potential opportunity, the more likely you are to experience success.
In the beginning, many new agents take rejection hard. While this is an understandable reaction, it’s important to put each rejection in the rearview mirror as fast as possible and move onto the next deal. This is what experienced agents do – they forget about each rejection immediately and start looking for another deal. Once you’re able to do this, you’ll be well on your way to building a thriving real estate business.
Keep in mind that one “yes” often turns into multiple deals. For example, you may have a client say yes to working with you as the agent who lists their home. Once they sell their home, they will most likely need to buy another one. This can turn into two deals for you if you do a great job selling their home and they agree to work with you when they buy their new one. In the course of doing these deals, you ask this client for referrals (never be shy about asking for business) and they refer you to a friend. You may also pick up a buyer for another home at an open house event you attend with this client. Now, one “yes” has turned into 3 or more deals, each providing you with a fat commission check.
By keeping your eyes on the prize (that ever elusive “yes”), you’ll be able to leverage each deal you do into additional business, allowing you to start stacking up deals rather quickly. But this only happens once you develop that thick skin, learn how to handle rejection and keep moving forward to find the next deal.
In order to be successful in any profession, it’s important to keep learning and growing. This is particularly true in real estate, where markets and trends are constantly changing. Therefore, you’ll need to invest time each year in taking continuing education courses that will help you to stay current on the latest developments in real estate.
Continuing education is not only important for your professional growth, but it is also required to maintain your licensure. In Colorado, you must renew your real estate license every three years. As part of this process, you’re required to complete 24 hours of continuing education in order to renew your license. These courses will cover any new laws and regulations in Colorado. In addition, you’ll be able to take elective real estate courses that align with your professional interests and your chosen niche.
In addition to taking continuing education courses each year, you should also invest time in building your expertise in specific areas associated with your unique real estate business. This may involve:
If you choose to specialize in a niche, you may want to earn additional credentials that will make you a more desirable agent to clients in this niche. For example, if you focus on working with buyers, getting an Accredited Buyer Representative certificate will help you establish greater credibility with prospective buyers. If you specialize in land-related real estate transactions, becoming an Accredited Land Consultant will help you convey your expertise in this niche.
At Colorado Real Estate School, we offer a wide range of online continuing education real estate courses that will help you meet licensure renewal requirements and expand your industry expertise. These courses are delivered in an advanced video format, giving you the ability to pause, stop and repeat sections as needed to accommodate your learning style. Our courses are taught by Colorado real estate experts, ensuring you’re learning from the best in the industry.
As we discussed in Chapter 4, choosing the right brokerage and working with a good mentor are critical to your ability to build a successful real estate business. As a new real estate agent, working with a mentor can be a valuable part of your professional growth. This person can show you how to:
If you choose to focus on a specific niche, you should also make sure you work with a mentor with considerable expertise in that area who can help you learn how to navigate the ins and outs of your targeted niche.
When choosing a brokerage, we recommend selecting one that focuses on working with new agents. These brokerages will typically provide a mentorship program and additional new agent training as part of their onboarding. These types of brokerages will help set you up for success as you start your new career.
Not only is marketing your real estate business time consuming, but it can also be hard work. Fortunately, there’s a much easier way to cultivate a steady stream of clients to work with. Most successful real estate agents build a client base predominantly from referrals and repeat clients. The way they’re able to do this is by building a sphere of influence.
Your sphere of influence refers to the people in your life who know, respect and trust you. This can involve close friends, family members, loose acquaintances, prior clients, professional connections, and just about anyone else who you may be able to influence by encouraging them to act. The larger your sphere of influence, the easier it will be for you to build a thriving business based on referrals and repeat clients.
As we discussed in Chapter 2, you’ll want to build a database that sorts your sphere of influence into three categories:
While the “A” clients are the most important ones to have, you still need all three tiers of clients in your CRM database at all times. Make sure you place the greatest emphasis on marketing to your “A” clients (including meeting with them socially), while still devoting significant time and effort to your “B” clients. Your “C” clients should receive the least attention, but should not be ignored. These clients should be placed on your newsletter list in hopes of moving them to an “A” or “B” client in the future. Your newsletter is an extremely effective marketing tool, allowing you to keep in touch with these clients with minimal time or cost invested on your end.
In general, we’ve found that 20 “A” clients represents the tipping point to maintaining a successful real estate business. This is a very realistic number to achieve.
Building a sphere of influence takes time and consistent effort, but this work will pay huge dividends once you’re able to maintain a steady stream of clients from referrals and repeat business. The following tips will help you build your sphere of influence.
When starting out, you won’t have very many actual clients to include in your sphere. It will take time for you to begin growing a client base. However, you can start building your sphere of influence before you have clients.
Start by making a list of everyone you know. This includes:
Once you’ve generated your list, you can begin reaching out to everyone on it. The first contact with the people on your list must be handled properly. Your outreach should be personal, and your conversation should be focused on relationship building rather than jumping into a sales pitch.
To keep this conversation personal, you should resist the urge to send out a form email to your entire list. While it takes more time, one-on-one interactions are critical to building these relationships. Whenever possible, reach out by phone for this initial contact. If you don’t have the person’s phone number, send a personal chat message over social media that is geared towards your specific relationship with that person rather than a generic message.
Remember, the point of these calls is to deepen connections with these people to build trust that will hopefully lead to referrals over time. Your initial contact needs to focus on this relationship building aspect of the process. Some best practices for this initial outreach include:
Building your sphere of influence is a slow process that can take several years to cultivate properly. You’ll need to dedicate regular time to this activity and consistently engage the people currently in your sphere. Make sure you schedule regular follow-ups with the people you’ve spoken with, and look for opportunities to reach out to new people you meet in your life. Managing these contacts in a CRM database will make this process much easier to navigate.
While regular contact with the people in your sphere is important to nurture and grow these relationships, the way you contact them is also important. You’ll want to use a variety of different communication methods with each person on your list.
Email nurture campaigns are an effective way to regularly check in with people and stay top of mind, but these messages can feel impersonal. In addition, there’s always a risk that these emails will end up in someone’s spam folder and never be seen. Therefore, your regular outreach schedule should include a mix of phone calls, social media messages, and video chats to supplement your email efforts. You can use your CRM system to manage the frequency and mode of contact used with each person on your list.
Social media groups are great ways to connect with a large number of people who share your interests. These groups also give you an opportunity to share your expertise with others. If you see questions posted on these groups that align with any area of expertise in your life, take this opportunity to answer the question and offer additional help if needed. When people in these groups see your expertise, professionalism and willingness to help, they will remember your name and reach out when they need assistance with a real estate matter.
Buying and selling a home can be stressful. You can make this process less stressful for others by sharing your knowledge and expertise with them. Hosting workshops and other events that demystify the process of buying and selling a home can help you grow your sphere.
Some potential workshops you can host include:
Make sure to get the names and contact information of anyone who attends your events so that you can add them to your list and begin nurturing this new relationship.
Anytime you work with a new client, you have an opportunity to make a great impression that turns them into a source of repeat or referral business. Always do whatever you can to provide your clients with a great experience. Demonstrate knowledge and expertise that helps them find the right home for their needs, secure the best possible deal, or make the selling process as easy as possible. Show genuine interest in your clients’ lives and work to cultivate a personal connection with them.
These little things will leave a positive, lasting impression that could generate future business. The more you’re able to dazzle your clients, the more likely they are to land in the “A” list of your sphere. Ultimately, the more “A” list clients you have, the more likely you are to have a steady stream of repeat and referral business. When this occurs, you will start to see your real estate business become extremely successful and lucrative.
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