Tips to Real Estate Agents' Success

With over 2 million real estate agents according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), becoming a successful real estate agent takes more than just a license and a knowledge of current laws and regulations.The first year drop out range estimated to be from 40% to 80% demonstrates that many real estate agents are not as successful as they could be and research suggests that 90% give up after 3 years. The following 7 tips may help you avoid becoming one of these statistics.

1. First and Foremost YOU are a business. Real estate agents work for a broker, but are independent, commissioned sales people. This means that you are a small business and must run your practice as a business. Again, remember you are a small business owner.
2. Embrace a Planning Attitude. If you don't have a plan, then you are on some else's plan - usually the successful real estate agent's. During the last 10 years, what I have learned as a performance improvement consultant or coach is that most people place more value in planning a trip to the grocery store or a vacation than planning their lives either professionally or personally.
3. Research Your Market Plan. Since you, as the real estate agent, are responsible for your own expenses, do your research specific to your marketing plan within your strategic plan. Time spent in constructing your marketing plan is definitely well spent. NOTE: Remember a business plan usually is data driven, while a strategic plan identifies who does what by when.
4. Establish Sales Goals. Using your strategic action plan, establish sales goals. If you are new to this industry, it may take 6 months before the first sale. HINT: Use the W.H.Y. S.M.A.R.T. criteria for goal setting.
5. Create a Financial Budget. Budgeting is critical given the up and down of this volatile market place. Your financial budget should plan for your marketing costs, any additional costs such as education and your forecasted income.
6. Make Managing Yourself a Priority. Building a business is not easy. You must learn how to manage yourself especially in the area of time management, ongoing real estate business training coaching continuing education units, and personal life balance. Real estate is said to be a 24/7 business much like any small business. However, it is important not to lose sight of your personal life including family, friends, physical health, etc.
7. Find a Mentor or a Real Estate Coach. Going it alone is not easy. Take the time to find a mentor who can help you steer through some of the known obstacles and help you during the "peaks and valleys." If you have the resources, you may wish to hire a real estate coach or an executive coach who specializes in small business help and sales.

Being an incredible sales person and entering the real estate market does not guarantee similar sales success. However, these 7 tips may help you avoid many of the pitfalls by not being one of the four real estate agents who quit within one year or one of the nine who give up after 3 years.

Interviewing a Real Estate Agent

Want to sell a house and don’t know where to start? Well start off with choosing the right real estate agent that will do the job efficiently for you. However, with the plethora of real estate agents operating independently or in an organization, what options do you have to filter out just the appropriate guy for the job? Following are tips that might help you prepare well for the interview you are about to hold with a prospective listing agent to sell your house for good money.

- The price factor is undoubtedly the most important of all with the kind of competition we have in the real estate market today. You cannot just estimate a price without proper back up. And when you hire a real estate agent it becomes a major part of his job to list a price that has sufficient spine to it. Check whether your agent has thoroughly done his homework by comparing the other sales in the locality and whether they have categorized the positive and negatives of the other sales as compared to that of your property before they put a price tag on your property.

Their job is not only to satisfy you with the right price on the property but also to convince the buyer and the buyer’s agent with that price and right amount of back up for the same.

- When it comes to the marketing aspect, ask your agent what the action plan is. Make sure he is up to date with the current market demands and harnesses the modern technologies and strategies to market your house. Apart from providing colored pictures and virtual tours to the prospective buyers you could have a video created to reach to millions of customers through the internet. You never know who watches the video and how lucky you get.

- Do not be ignorant, show your agent that you are not someone who is fully dependent on them and is much informed.

Humbly ask the agent for their recent listing history from the multiple listing service.

- A good listing agent would surely have previous customer testimonials to produce to you to show his credibility. You might even double check by calling their previous clients and ask about their service. As a customer you have the right to thoroughly analyze the credibility of your real estate agent. If you have come across a certain agent via word-of-mouth, this step is already taken care of in that case.

- If your real estate agent surely is a professional he would not hesitate to look around your property and come up with quick tips on how to showcase your house effectively. The look of the exterior and interiors of the house is crucial when it comes to creating an effective first impression on the buyer. Highlight all the positive angles to your property well enough to attract attention and do not forget to fix whatever that has to be fixed before sale. So if your agent is able to support you in this aspect he knows what he is doing.

- Make sure you know what procedures your listing agent is going to undertake in showing the house to the buyers. Some listing agents work with appointment only or have other strict rules that might put off the buyer and you might lose out on a great sale. So make sure your agent is flexible enough and always available.

- Make sure your listing agent informs you on time about the real estate bubble in your neighborhood. Ask them about it beforehand which will help you identify the right agent by the way they respond to your query.

Keep these tips in mind and go ahead and execute the sale of your property with just the right real estate agent.

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