10 more things new real estate agents need to know

Earlier, we covered ten things you need to know in your first 100 days. Hopefully you have one or two firm transactions under your belt, even if you haven’t received a commission cheque yet.

But hope is not a strategy. Are you still doing the basics? What now?

Keep on keepin’ on. Keep doing the basics – open houses, floor time, agent tours, communicating with your database.

Here are ten more things real estate agents need to know for your next 100 days:

1. Read. Study. Investigate.

There are tons of real estate books and periodicals, a plethora of information and advice on the Internet and seminars or quick tips on YouTube. Yes, there is good and bad. But read something. Dedicate at least an hour each day to learning more.

2. Take your mandatory articling courses as soon as possible.

You may be sick of courses, but it is better to get them out of the way, before you get too busy. Plus, learning more makes you a better agent. Unless you aren’t certain you are staying in real estate and are just “testing” it out.

3. Take every free course available.

Take all training your brokerage, franchise and board offers. There is so much to learn. Take courses outside of real estate – small business, bookkeeping, social media, marketing. When courses aren’t available, find a webinar. Commit to a minimum of at least one course or seminar every month.

4. Answer your phone.

Yes, answer it when it rings, don’t let it go to voicemail. Buyers are impatient. If you don’t answer, they will most likely call someone else. Within minutes, maybe even seconds.

5. Call your sellers, from time to time, just to say hello and tell them something about the market.

They want to know you are still alive and working hard for them, even if their property isn’t selling. Sellers don’t believe “no news is good news”’. Sellers believe no news is “lazy agent”.

6. There isn’t enough business to go around.

Don’t let anyone tell you there is. If they do, it is because they don’t want you to work hard and they want to eat your lunch. There are a limited number of buyers and sellers every year. Your job is to find out where they are and meet them there, to show them your enthusiasm, knowledge and expertise. But don’t show them your desperation. People can smell desperation and run the other way.

7. That being said, you can’t be all things to all people.

Not everyone will like you. Only a few will connect with you and ask you to be their agent. Get to know your strengths and your ideal client and start to seek them out. Build on your successes and grow them into new successes.

8. Are you already busy?

Busy means having buyers in your car (or in their car following you). Open houses and floor time and studying and reading and courses and going to tour can take up a lot of time, but in the end, you have to be showing houses to buyers. If you aren’t showing houses and writing offers, don’t fool yourself that you are busy.

9. Don’t carry your clients’ baggage.

You are not a social worker, you are a leader. You will be working with people at an emotional and stressful time in their lives and you must not absorb their pain. You are a facilitator. You care, you empathize, but you will not be able to lead them on this journey if you are their baggage carrier. Stay above the fray.

10. Success leaves clues.

Buy an agent a coffee. They are your competitor, so don’t ask them what they do or how they do it – they won’t tell you. Ask them for the best advice they would give a new agent who wants to be a great agent. The answers you get will be varied and interesting, but will contain nuggets of truths within. Tell them if they ever have an “extra” buyer, someone they are not connecting with or is too demanding, you would be happy to take over and pay them a referral. Some agents have more business than they can handle at different times of the year and might share a lead if they see you are diligent and hard-working.