True success in this industry comes from a genuine passion for people, property, and playing the long game.
That real estate is truly a long game is something I heavily stress when speaking with new-to- the- industry agents.
In property, your name is your brand.
Trust and positive word-of-mouth business can take years to build but can also be lost in seconds. Playing the long game as a winner means always doing the right thing by your clients.
Know that in real estate, reputation is everything. A solid reputation brings referrals, repeat business, and long-term stability.
Even changing the market that you work in can be a massive challenge to an experienced successful agent.
As an example, I had a senior agent who moved locality as part of an ‘easing into retirement’ strategy. With all the experience in the world, he still found it near impossible to crack a new market.
When you play the long game, you won’t just focus on today’s deal.
Celebrating the short-term wins is tempting but agents are better placed strategically thinking about where their business, their clients, and their market will be in five years, in ten years.
In a sense, serve before you sell is the successful long-haul agent mantra, as they educate and guide clients and prioritise helping over selling.
Every contact you make as an agent is a vital component of your future success, and the network you nurture is more valuable than any single listing or client.
With an intention to be a career agent, your focus is on your ‘business’ not your ‘job’ and you invest in in marketing, branding, and building systems.
You position yourself as a trusted expert as you establish your valued brand in your market. Your goal is lifelong clients, though the relationships you nurture.
Career agents build and operate from a strategic foundation of brand, skills, network, and systems, which grows their business over time; and they control their income through a pipeline of business through referrals, repeat clients, and strategic marketing.
A career agent is someone who treats being a real estate agent as their full-time, long-term profession, not just a side hustle or a temporary gig.
Being a career agent means being an identity in the industry.
Take it further and consider you are building a legacy and not just a career. Your thinking is well beyond the next listing, the next sale, the next commission. It is about the impact you want to have on your community, your clients, and the industry.
My advice to newcomers is to align themselves with a recognised and respected company that will take them from A to Z through the entire business of real estate rather than throwing them out into the market to sell.
The most successful agents understand every facet of the real estate business and the relationship between different departments – sales, property management, finance, administration.
Find a strong partner in a real estate business that is genuine in its offer of mentorship, training, and a good support system and has high performers in its ranks. Working with high achieving agents in team environments elevates newcomers faster.
Integral with success and longevity in real estate are an agent’s industry knowledge and continuous learning as they invest time in upgrading skills, staying ahead of industry changes and legal regulations, and up to date with market shifts, tech tools and evolving client needs.
Real estate never stands still.
Why do I say that real estate is not for the faint-hearted? It’s because, while I love it, I recognise that it can be a brutal game – unpredictable, stressful in negotiations, ruthless in competition, unrealistic in expectations, with pressures, rejections and emotional highs and lows.
I am often asked “Would you give my son/daughter a start?”. I begin to explain, “It’s not as simple as that…”
