One of the highest-paying careers in the world is real estate sales. Yet despite this fact, one of the lowest-paying careers in the world is also real estate sales!
Over the past three decades, I have had the opportunity to conduct nearly 1,000 seminars and workshops for real estate agents and brokers across the nation and abroad. During these events, I have the honor of watching people’s eyes light up, beliefs rise and motivations come to life.
I have had more agents than I can count ask me about the secret to real estate success. While at first glance, I tend to want to say that there are no secrets, I have found that there actually are. Here are five of my secrets:
1. Working hard is like round tires
When people get into real estate, it is often for one of only a few reasons. These reasons may include making more money and balancing their life, and I commonly hear, “I wanted to be my own boss.” Whenever someone says the latter, I love to ask them what it was about their last boss that they didn’t like. The answer is always a little ironic as their last boss, in almost all cases, simply wanted them to work hard, produce results and maintain efficient practices.
The reason I think this is funny is that these are the very same things that are required in the real estate industry 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, a common response is to tell me how the market is doing . . . but that wasn’t what I asked.
What these agents are really telling me is that they are waiting for something external to improve. They respond with comments like, “We really have an inventory shortage and interest rates are crazy,” along with other external points of limitation. While in a good market an agent can end up making a good living, if they do not have a plan or process to follow, then their income will only be connected to current market conditions. “Hot markets can ruin potentially great agents!”
3. Know the limitations of hard work
Ancient wisdom says, “Everything that goes up must come down.” One of the statements in my seminars is always an eye-opener for all of the agents in the room. “Whoever possesses the invisible, possesses a paycheck!” This secret to success is about as simple as it gets, but since it is so widely overlooked, I can’t help but classify it as an actual secret.
The most common natural marketing focus for agents is to pursue the visible over the invisible. This thinking can be the very element that costs an agent the majority of their earning potential. When there seems to be a lot of people who want to buy real estate in a market where inventory is low, most agents tend to market for those very buyers. The issue here is that it doesn’t solve a problem, but rather accentuates the one that already exists — a low inventory-to-buyer ratio.
4. Market for the invisibles
Having a buyer does not guarantee a paycheck, but it might guarantee a lot of work. And then, at times, that buyer will write an offer with another agent after all your work. While hard work is a requirement, it’s only as good as your plan.
“They who possess the invisible, possess a paycheck!” The invisible, in this case, is listings. If an agent had a good quality listing in a market with lots of buyers and not enough inventory, this agent would then possess the guarantee of a paycheck.
If you find yourself in a market where there seem to be more buyers than listings, then heavily weight your marketing focus, dollars and effort toward gaining listings. The opposite is also true – if you find yourself in a market where you have an abundance of listings and not enough buyers, then heavily weight your marketing focus, dollars and effort toward gaining buyers.
5. Marketing vs. market
When we wait on a market to shift or improve, we are only giving ourselves permission to not do the basics. Yet it’s those very basics that make the magic happen!
Keep in mind the simple premises of the words “Marketing” vs. “Market.” Market is a noun while marketing is a verb. Marketing is the act of generating an enhanced synthetic market.
Since some of the highest and lowest-paying careers are in real estate sales, consider 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 earning . . . in any market! Choose to make today your best day ever.
Darryl Turner is the founder and CEO of the Darryl Turner Corporation. To date, The Darryl Turner Corporation has participated in over 75,000 sales call ride-alongs and hosted over 65,000 coaching sessions.
