Starting out and progressing your career can be tricky if you don’t know where you’re going. Time may heal all wounds but it doesn’t necessarily equate to success in the real estate field. Just because you’ve been an agent for 20 years doesn’t mean you are at the top of your field.
Rather, hunger, desire, skill, mentoring and environment contribute much more to a successful career path than years on the clock. So how do you ensure your career is progressing along the right path?
Most importantly it is vital that you have a vision for the future of your career and your business.
If you have no idea where you want to go how are you going to get there? Know what you want to achieve, set short-term goals to move you forward and your business will grow and prosper. Decide your vision based on your purpose, mission and values and think about the numbers and measurements you need to meet in order to reach your goals. Your basic tools for growth include increasing your fees, selling more properties and boosting your average sale price. To reach your true potential I recommend thinking five to 10 years ahead. Ask yourself what you want your business to become, how many offices you’d like to have and how many agents you’d like working for you.
Key Career Progression Tips
Have a plan and a mentor Every business needs a business plan. Plan your strategy for success and plot the numbers that will measure your success. A mentor can also guide your through the stages of your career so look for someone whose work you respect and admire. Ask yourself what is holding you back from progressing in your career. Is it skill level, time or the number of transactions you are achieving?
Ask yourself the ‘what’ question What books, skills and attributes or lack of are holding you back? Identify your weaknesses and work hard to overcome them.
Mimic others Spend time with other agents who are far more successful than you are. Pepper them with questions, watch their style and mimic their systems.
Starting out If you’re new to real estate the first stage of progressing along the ultimate career path starts with building your database. The sooner that grows the sooner your business grows. Market your database and learn what to send to which category. Start with buyer work because there are plenty of them and remember that the only difference between a buyer and a seller is time. Set benchmarks you want to achieve and work diligently towards them. It’s also vital that you learn how to list properties well. If you can list it will teach you to prospect and that’s your bread and butter.
After 5 years If you were new to the business five years ago you should now be at the point of already being or close to becoming your own agent. If you come with a little more life experience you should be focused on securing more transactions and higher fees. Level 1 agents will complete about 30 transactions a year and write about $300,000 in fees. Level 2 agents will secure up to 60 transactions a year and write about $600,000 in fees. Level 3 agents will sell more than 100 properties a year and work as a multi-million dollar fee-producing agent.
If you haven’t already, a main goal after five years should be to build a solid team around yourself and to build a business that is sustainable. It’s also vital that the amount of word-of-mouth referrals and the number of repeat customers are continually rising.
After 10 years After a decade you should have a great team around you and could have progressed into partnership, directorship in your existing firm or even have started your own agency. Your goal after a decade should be to continually write more in fees year-on-year. Referrals and past clients should make up a substantial amount of your transactions. Once you’ve made your goals and started ticking them off, it’s time to reassess, make new commitments and move forward again.
Career progression and business growth is a lifetime thing and I urge my clients to review their goals daily. In terms of taking a hard look at where you’re at and what’s happening with your business plan, I recommend checks at the end of the calendar year and the end of the financial year. If you do this twice a year you can ensure you’re always in a growth phase and not sliding backwards. Start by reviewing your numbers over the past year – listings, sales and income generated. You need to review each month in detail and look for patterns. Which months were slower? Which were successful?
You need to understand what is and isn’t working for you and why.
If and when your plans and goals go astray, set a new goal and strive to reach it.
Progressing down the ultimate career path and growing your business doesn’t happen by luck but because you plan for it, adjust the plan when necessary and follow through on that plan.
