A real estate practice is a company within a company. My most successful clients are earning 6 to 7 figures, and it always surprises me that many Realtors®, all with the same income potential, do not see themselves as bona fide business owners.
The Fallacies
“Agents work for brokers.” While this is often quoted as a statement of fact, it is incorrect. Agents work with brokers, not for them. That one-word difference, replacing “for” with “with,” is critical. Embrace it because it will inform many of the choices you make in your real estate career. You are a self-employed independent contractor with all the responsibilities and freedom that implies.
When you are recruited into a brokerage firm, it feels like being “hired.” I will suggest that, in reality, it is nothing of the sort and that an “employee” mindset is the most significant cause of low financial achievements among real estate agents.
A key question a recruiter with your best business interest at heart should ask is, “How much money do you plan to invest in your business over the next 36 months?” Only recruiters who have not grasped what is required to compete or the demands of a successful real estate practice will fail to ask it. -at your expense. The idea that a real estate start-up needs no investment is false, and should you buy into it, it will lead you…well, nowhere.
What does it mean to be the CEO?
To start selling real estate is equivalent to creating and overseeing a start-up. As the CEO of a start-up, you must be able to envision the overall persona of the company, its mission, and its goals. But you must also understand the minutiae of operations, the components that make up each aspect of the business, and the tasks that must be done to bring to life each of these components and make the whole successful.
The Four Pillars™ is a system I’ve created to help agents understand and manage their business. It identifies Administration, Technology, Sales, and Marketing as the “Pillars” of any real estate sales operation. Think of them as divisions of a company. The CEO’s responsibility is to manage those divisions by ensuring tasks are channeled to the right place/person and performed according to company standards. In small businesses and start-ups, it is also the CEO’s job to ensure business comes in the door and that the company is financially viable.
Like in many small companies, in the beginning, the owner, a.k.a. the agent, will likely have to do everything. Regardless of the one-person workforce or because of it, it is constructive to think in terms of the Pillars. It helps segment the tasks to perform each day, clarify priorities, and allocate time. And it sets up your company for growth in anticipation of the day you take on a buyer’s agent, an assistant, or both.
The CEO Real Estate Agent Mindset
As the CEO, you must have a vision, a mission, and a set of core values. To define each, ask yourself what your company looks like in 5 years, how you want to be viewed in your community, and what values will be embodied in everything you are and do.
A vision of yourself with a large team supporting new developments in your area is very different than a vision of yourself with one assistant representing the wealthiest in your community. Take some time to evaluate the options in your market and study the successful real estate agents around you. In doing so, you will identify the various success models available –or you may devise a hybrid of your own. A word of caution: whatever your vision is, you must strive for competence first to bring it to bear.
Your mission could be generic: to be recognized for providing flawless real estate transaction experiences. Or, it could be specific based on your market’s demographics, such as empowering first-time buyers to own the American Dream, helping empty nesters turn a new page in the book of their lives, or facilitating housing transitions for older adults.
Core values apply to both your business and personal life. They define who you are and how you and your company show up in the world. Your business decisions should rely on facts and be informed by your core values. For example, if one of your core values is honor, and you are faced with choosing a course of action regarding another agent’s conduct, asking yourself which choice is honorable is extremely powerful because a value-based choice supports your authenticity and your company as a brand. It also defines you in your role as a CEO vis-à-vis your peers. If you are unsure about your core values, here is a list of values to get you started.
The Job of the CEO Real Estate Agent
With the Four Pillars™ of Administration, Marketing, Technology, and Sales competing for every minute of your day, it is normal for you to sometimes feel like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. As the CEO, you must take time to step back and organize the work that will make up your first six months in the business, then the second, third, and so on, until your processes fit and support your vision and mission and consistently move you closer to your goals.
- Goal Setting
Your first task as CEO is to set goals. You should set goals for income, volume, and number of transactions. Your broker should help you generate those numbers from market statistics.
You should also set goals for the number of people you ultimately want in your database, how you will get to that number, and the number of people you wish to contact daily or weekly to talk about real estate.
- Task Organization
As a CEO Real Estate Agent, all sorts of tasks will be competing for your time. The efficient and effective way to deal with them is to list them all (you’ll need a running list), allocate them to Pillars, identify the one-off versus the ongoing, and schedule your work. For example, getting your website up and running is a one-off task that falls into the Technology Pillar. However, updating it monthly with market data is an ongoing task residing squarely in the Marketing Pillar.
- Time Allocation
One of the most challenging realities a CEO faces is that many tasks necessary for the business to run do not contribute directly to generating revenue. In real estate, revenue is the result of being nose-to-nose with people willing and able to buy or sell a home, a.k.a. activities in the Sales Pillar. But without discipline and organization, the Admin, Technology, and Marketing Pillars can take up every minute of every day, with the net result of zero business growth,
The way through this challenge is by carefully allocating tasks to time slots in your daily schedule. The practice has been called “Time Blocking” by real estate coaches for a long time, and the term has somehow fallen into disfavor as too harsh or too “salesy.” Whatever you choose to call it, “Time Blocking” requires commitment, organization, and discipline, and those traits, along with the actual allocation of specific times to specific tasks, are still very much necessary if you are to accomplish everything required to create and grow a thriving business. You can learn more about time allocation here.
Be a CEO and Take Your Company to Its Full Potential
A growing business will regularly present new challenges. If you are paying attention, you will know when it’s time to outsource some tasks –social media is a prime example, hire staff -you will need an assistant to attend those pesky home inspections and stay behind with the photographer, and potentially recruit agents to your business to handle transactions below your preferred price point or outside of your chosen business area. By actively managing your business, you can anticipate those growth junctures and act preemptively. Failing that, you will one day find yourself running late to appointments and unprepared for client meetings. Your marketing will fall through the cracks, and you will miss significant income opportunities because you did not have your eye on your business’s future and growth.
In the meantime, don’t hesitate to call or text 239-220-1018 if I can help you think like a CEO and take your business to its full potential.
Happy Selling ∞
