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Watch my New Realtor Mistakes Video!
Once I become a six figure part time Realtor, I looked back and realized that I could have achieved that as a new real estate agent so much faster if I had not made these 5 new Realtor mistakes in year one! I hope this helps you succeed in real estate faster than I did, and if you’d like to partner with our team for free to help you succeed faster as a new agent, be sure to schedule a call!
Inconsistent Client Lead Generation
Perhaps my biggest new Realtor mistakes in year one was that I wasn’t really lead generating for clients. I know what you’re thinking: “what an IDIOT – of course you have to lead generate!” Well, here’s the thing: I THOUGHT I was lead generating!
Does this sound familiar? I was talking to people I know, I was giving out business cards, I was leaving business cards in different places, I was reaching out to my sphere of influence, I was posting rarely and inconsistently on social media, I created a Facebook business page I never really used… I THOUGHT I was doing all the right things to lead generate for clients. I thought I was doing all the right things to lead generate, right?
Talking to your sphere of influence is great but it isn’t a real repeatable lead generation technique that you can scale deliberately and consistently. You could have 50 people in your sphere but how many of them are actually ready to buy or sell? Chances are just a few and most of them know other real estate agents as well, right? If you think you’re going to be closing dozens of transactions a year from those 50 friends, I’m sorry to break it to you… you won’t be. You need to always be bringing in and working client leads!
Part of my problem was that I was a part time real estate agent. I realized too late that I wasn’t really focusing on lead generation like I should. I wasn’t using leverage to help me free up time or accomplish lead generation in spite of my busy schedule when I should have been. Be sure to check out the one thing nobody tells new Realtors until after they’re licensed. That should help prepare your mindset for this entrepreneur path and understand what it is going to take!
There are a TON of ways to generate real estate client leads for free as a new agent. It’s important to understand that while you should have more than one way of generating leads, you can’t do it all and you can’t do the techniques that you dislike for very long. You need to find just a few lead generation strategies you enjoy working on and pour your heart and soul (consistently!) into those!
Not Using Leverage in Your Real Estate Business
The second of me new Realtor mistakes was that I wasn’t using leverage in my business! I was attending to EVERY single aspect of my real estate agent business, from lead generation, to paperwork, to transaction coordination, to scheduling inspections, you name it, it was all on me. Now that could have been feasible – maybe – if I wasn’t a part timer at the time.
But it was very hard for me and it is hard to a lot of new agents to scale when you are stuck in the low income tasks when you should be focusing on the high income tasks like lead generation and serving your clients to the best of your ability.
It took me having four transactions going at once before I realized that I couldn’t run my business this way… I was pulling my hair out! So I hired a transaction coordinator and everything changed! They scheduled my inspections, handled paperwork, and took care of all the little things so I could focus on the parts of my business that mattered more and that I enjoyed doing!
Then I hired an assistant to help me grow my social media lead generation! Between her and a transaction coordinator, I was able to jump very quickly to a six figure part time agent and than transition to full time real estate!
Not Understanding the Importance of Having the Right Partners
Choosing the right real estate business partners is essential to success in the real estate business. I’m talking about your mortgage loan officers, your home inspectors, your title agents, the people you must depend on on a daily basis to get each transaction closed!
So many new Realtors enter this business – myself included – just thinking any lender or inspector or title agent will be fine and we just let it ride initially. We even sometimes let our clients figure it out – huge mistake!
Having the right partners can mean the smoothest, easiest transactions versus the literal transaction FROM HELL. And guess what happens with your client and all parties on that transaction from hell? You won’t be getting many referrals from that client and the other Realtor will remember you for all the WRONG reasons.
If you have the RIGHT lender, the RIGHT inspector, and RIGHT title, your transaction will be like it is on autopilot and it will go VERY well. You won’t have to babysit and remind the loan officer to do their job. You will be able to fully trust your inspector and their reports. You won’t have to remind the title agency that closing is next week!
Trust me here, if you choose the right business partners and add a transaction coordinator, and your transactions will be on autopilot from under contract to closing! And you can coach your clients on the importance of choosing the right partners to achieving their real estate goals as well!
Not Coaching Your Clients
Speaking of coaching your clients, clients don’t know as much about real estate as you! This is another of my first year new Realtor mistakes I made. Maybe that sounds obvious, but we forget that WE need to be the experts and that we have the knowledge and experience to help out clients achieve our goals!
How is your client going to know that they can close and get appraised faster with your local loan officer partner rather than some big national bank? How will they know what they need to do and when? How will they know what they can actually afford without your help?
By coaching your clients from end to end, you will have smoother transaction and you will create raving fans of your clients! Soon you’ll be getting client referrals like it is going out of style!
Not Carrying Confidence and Leading Your Team!
The last of my big first year new Realtor mistakes I made was not leading my clients with confidence! I acted like a newbie and didn’t maintain an attitude of experience and confidence in my abilities and skills. As soon as you start treating every lead as if you are ALREADY their Realtor – setting up MLS searches and hooking them up with a lender while you’re on the phone – you will instantly convert those leads to clients!
You need to absolutely confident in the advice and knowledge you impart to your clients! “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure” should NEVER be in your vocabulary. YOU are the real estate expert. Come up with the answer and provide it! It doesn’t always need to be perfect, but it needs to be present!
If YOU act with confidence throughout the transaction, your clients will be confident in closing it! If you are NOT confident, the likelihood of getting cold feet increases dramatically and that’s good for no one. Be the leader of your client team and they will love you for it!
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