A Fresh Approach to Real Estate Rookie-hood with Jennifer Allan

Hope you were able to join us last weekend for the second Rookie-to-Rookie show at SellwithSoulLand... it was fun! In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, I held a free Teleseminar on Saturday where three newly-non-rookies (thanks Erin Deric, Kate Huntress and Melissa Brown!) shared their secrets for surviving their rookie years. We talked about things like how they financed the venture, what their biggest challenge was, where they spent money they wish they hadn't, how long it took to see a paycheck - stuff like that.  

We covered a lot of information, but as always, there were a few questions from the audience we didn't have time for. I promised during the show that I would post those questions in my blog, and solicit answers from my honored guest speakers, and of course... anyone else who'd like to chime in...

Here we go:

1. Do you have a web site?

2. Do you work primarily from home or from your real estate office?

3. Did you take any sales training courses held by the "guru's" of our industry?  If so, any recommendations one way or the other?

4. Any advice on how to choose a broker?   

5. If a new agent keeps a full time job in the beginning, any advice on if or how to disclose it to prospective clients? 

6. I work in an expensive market where the people in my sphere of influence can't afford to buy yet. Any suggestions on ways to reach other prospects? 

7. Any suggestions to generate leads if you're new to town?   

Okay, ladies! Have at it!

On Saturday, we kicked off what I hope will be a regular thang over at SWSLand. The first ever Rookie-to-Rookie Show where I invited four newly non-rookies (that is  - agents who are just out of their rookie year and survived to tell about it) to share their secrets for, well, living to tell about it!

I thought it was a fabulous show and the post-show feedback seemed to support that opinion. THANK YOU Kathy Jackson, Janice Styles-Hall and Sarah Taylor (and Erin Deric who had to bail last minute, but was there in spirit).

The show was a panel discussion where I posed several questions to my guests about their rookie experience. Questions such as...

We then went to the audience and did the best we could to address their questions, but, alas, time flew and we ran out of time. So, as I promised my standing-room-only crowd, we'll hit the rest of your questions here at Active Rain.

I've listed the unanswered questions below. I'll answer them from my experience here in a comment, and ask my guest hosts to do the same. Oh, and DO feel free to post your OWN responses - the more, the merrier!

• What can I do if there are no other agents in the office to go to for training or mentoring? I work in a small office where most agents work from home. How important is it to have other agents to learn from or can I just figure this out as I go and as questions come up? 

• If you really have no money for marketing, meaning you could afford about $100, what would you do? 
  

• What did it cost to sign with a broker? Training, books, tapes, leads and so forth. 

• How important are designations - ePro, GRI, etc? 

• Have any of you established a niche? If so, why that one? What experience do you have with absentee owners? <--one of two (the other military relocation) that I'm strongly considering... Thanks! 

• I have heard company provided template web sites don't work. Do you agree or disagree? 

• How large an area can one person cover? 

• Has anyone advertised on bus stops? 

• What are your feelings on new agents joining a team? How do you avoid being taken advantage of on a team as a rookie agent? 

• Did anyone work a full time 8 - 5 job while starting their real estate career? I find that all the classes, luncheons, meetings, closings etc. take place during the work day. 

• When you have a listing where the seller wants to "wait ‘til the market improves," instead of lower the price, what do you tell them? 

• Do the speakers think floor duty and open houses are really worth doing?

• How important is the brokerage firm you decide on? Ex: A well known firm such as Keller Williams or Century 21 verses a smaller unknown name? The smaller unknown name has such a better broker/agent split, less fees, etc. Would I be getting more leads from the larger firm or do you find your own clients at both firms? 

• What is one of the most important things you wish you would have known when first starting in the business? 

 Stay tuned for the date & time of the next Rookie-to-Rookie show...

Quick announcement before I head to waters bluer (Bahamas, here I come!)...

On Saturday morning, October 10th, I'm hosting a teleseminar with four newly NON-rookie real estate agents in their 2nd & 3rd years, who obviously did NOT become first-year statistics. They're doing quite well, thank you very much, even though they started their careers at a really lousy time.

The show will be structured as a panel discussion, with each guest honestly answering a series of questions about his or her rookie year (actually, they all happen to be female this round). They'll tell us what prospecting strategies worked... and which didn't. Where they spent money wisely... and where they threw it away. Their biggest success... and their most embarrassing moment.

Stuff like that.  

My guests are all readers of Sell with Soul, so their secrets of success probably don't include any cheesy closing tactics or aggressive sales pitches. And this will not be a brag-fest where each guest tries to out-shine the others with outrageous claims or trumped-up production levels. Nope. These are real people, with real challenges, frustrations and fears.

Anyway, if you're in your first year... or just feel as if you are... or if you're in charge of training the newer agents in your world... please join us! It'll be fun!

HERE'S WHERE YOU REGISTER FOR THE ROOKIE-TO-ROOKIE SHOW

Bon Voyage!

Yesterday I promised to share some ideas to become a Master of Your Market so you can capture more of that business that crosses your path in your day-to-day wanderings!

First, if it's customary to "preview" in your market, do that. A lot. (If previewing IS customary in your market, you might be surprised to hear that it's frowned on or flat out not allowed in some! If that's the case in your market, you might want to move;-])

I advise all new agents to spend some serious quality time previewing in their first few months. By "serious," I mean every other day if they can. The best way to effectively preview is to practice what I call "Opinionated Previewing" or "Previewing with a Purpose." That means to look at somewhat similar homes and compare them to each other or against your "subject" property. You would practice both when you preview in preparation for an open house, or preview for a new buyer. If you don't have a new buyer or an upcoming open house, go preview all the houses in a certain price range or architectural style. Whatever your excuse, being able to compare homes to each other helps you internalize the data you're gathering (so you can spit it out intelligently if the opportunity arises).

A great side benefit of pro-active previewing is that karma always seems to provide you with an audience to share your newly-found expertise with. What I mean is that if you go out and preview all the Bungalows between $250,000 and $350,000, within a week or two, you'll almost certainly meet someone with one of those to sell, or who knows someone who'd like to buy one! It's previewing magic!

Another way to Master Your Market is to always have your antenna up for opportunities to show properties to buyers. Even buyers who probably won't ever lead you to a paycheck.  It's one thing for you to go out alone and preview, but quite another to have someone else with you to provide feedback on what you're seeing. And if you make conversation with this person, you'll get to hear their impressions of neighborhoods and styles and features, which will help you better understand what's important to the consumer. So, drive across town for a sign call.  Take a buyer out to look at properties even if she says she won't buy til next spring.

If you've chosen to master a particular geographic market, you'll want to learn about the flow and amenities of the area as well as the housing stock. Drive the area using a variety of access points. Visit the grocery stores and the neighborhood parks. If you have friends who live there, ask them what they like and dislike about their neighborhoods. Read local neighborhood newspapers and subscribe to other agents' newsletters who specialize in your new favorite neighborhood.

Do open houses in that neighborhood as often as you can, even if you have to do them for an agent in a different office.

The job of "becoming" a market master is never really done. Markets change (duh) and in order to truly be a master, you have to keep up with the changes. Don't go overboard - you do have other things to do besides preview (I hope!), but try to keep Market Mastery on your to-do list. You'll feel awfully smart the next time you capture a great new client at a party because you knew how much that Victorian down the street sold for!

 Next up - Nurturing Relationships TODAY for Business Tomorrow

From time to time I post a blog about the abysmal state of rookie real estate training in America.

• Here's one - Just What a Rookie Real Estate Agent Needs: CHARM School!
• Here's another. "Good for you, Let me know if you need anything"
• And another. New Real Estate Agents - Put DOWN that Phone!

Do I have an agenda? Eh, maybe. Yeah, I sell books about real estate training and I even have boot-camp type program specifically for rookies, but that alone doesn't inspire the contempt, yes, contempt I have for the real estate training industry.

I'm disgusted by the "fake it til you make it" attitude. I'm annoyed by the focus on prospecting competence over, well, COMPETENCE competence. I'm frustrated by the stories I hear of promises made during the recruiting process that are broken as soon as the rookie shows up to work. I could go on and on.

But today, I'm asking. WHY? Why is it this way? It occurs to me that if 80-95% of our new agents fail within the first year, then something isn't working and maybe we ought to try something different. Like... training? REAL training, not some fluffed up, time-wasting, sales-pitch-disguised-as-education to promote some product or another?

Here are the reasons I've heard for NOT training our new licensees.

1.       Not a good use of resources. Since the majority of new agents will fail, it's a waste of money and time to implement a decent training program.

2.       Not a good use of resources, Part II. Since the agents who do not fail will likely leave their first broker in search of a better deal elsewhere, why would Broker 1 spend time and money training the rookie to be his future competition?

3.       That's the way it IS. This is a sink or swim business. If you don't have the drive to learn the business yourself, you shouldn't be here at all.

4.       That's the way it IS, Part II. "We" didn't have our hands held and we somehow survived.

5.       Real estate agents are competitive; therefore, there's no real motivation to help someone who will become your competition.

It's easy for us Old Fogies to brush off the need for training - after all - we don't particularly want any more competition. And besides, "we" didn't get formal training and we came out okay. But then in the next breath, we complain loudly about "the guy (or gal) on the other end of the sale who doesn't know what he's doing and is screwing up my deal."

Maybe it's just that we've forgotten how much there is to learn in your first year and how complex the process really is. I talk to rookies every day, so I'm reminded of their pain and confusion... and their utter frustration with the lack of support they receive from the broker or trainer.

So I'm sincerely asking - WHY do we seem to care so little about quality training in our industry?

For the low, low price of just $49, you, yes, you can have 12 hours of brilliant real estate discussions, interviews and seminars delivered in .mp3 audio format that can be easily burned to CDs and keep you entertained on your August road trip vacation. Or, just on your day-to-day wanderings 'round town.

We're 2/3 of the way through the Summer of Soul Seminar Series, with only two shows left to go. But since all the shows have been recorded, you can still purchase the series in its entirety and listen in at your convenience. And, of course, join us for the final two shows on August 15th & August 29th.

Here are the programs that are included in the package. Each is between 60 and 90 minutes long:

• Introverts are Salespeople, too! An interview with Susan Haughton, proud (and successful) introvert
  
• Negotiations: The Games People Play with Jackie Leavenworth
  
• Q&A with Broker Bryant: An interview with Broker Bryant Tutas
  
• Have More Fun and Sell More Real Estate! A discussion with Jennifer Allan & Tom Gosche
  
• Pipeline 2010: Blogging for Business: A panel discussion with Janie Coffey, Renee Burrows & Karen Rice.
  
• Pipeline 2010: Attracting Business by Mastering Your Market
  
• Pipeline 2010: Selling to Your Sphere of Influence
  
• Pipeline 2010: The Very BEST  Way to Fill up Your Pipeline
  
• Alternative Business Models with Margaret Rome, Nishika Jones, Mollie Wasserman and Jennifer Allan
  
• Surviving the Inspection (coming August 15)
  
• Final Session (Topic being voted on... coming August 29th)

The price of the package is $49 through the end of August. At that point, all the recorded shows will be professionally edited and compiled into a package that will be offered at $99.

Here's more information on the Summer of Soul. To purchase the package, just click that big blue button below.

That's the response my first-month real estate agent friend got from her Big Name broker when she emailed to say she had a $1.5M buyer lead.  "Good for you, let me know if you need anything."

Are you kidding me?

My friend, smart as she is ;-] can barely spell MLS. She doesn't know what radon is, she doesn't know any inspectors, she doesn't yet have a relationship with a lender. She doesn't know how to select the best homes to show her new buyer.

But of course, she's been thoroughly trained on scripts, farming and other prospecting strategies as part of her Big Name training package.

We've all been there, and it's a scary place. An exciting place to be, for sure, especially when a $1.5M buyer comes to call (hmmmmm... yeah, I can do that math). And yes, being new implies a level of scariness when presented with one's first customers. But Puh-leeeeaze! To tell a brand spanking new agent to "let me know if you need anything" is criminal, in my opinion. Okay, that's melodramatic, so if not criminal, let's say irresponsible. Heck, how about downright STUPID? My friend is on a 60/40% split, so the broker's take on this deal is... how much? A LOT. And the chances of my friend closing this deal without help are slim-to-none. Oh, and the guy is qualified up to $3.5M but claims that he's "cheap," so he asked my friend to try to stay around $1.5M.

My friend calls me for help. Of course, I don't know her market or her contracts or her MLS or her local customs, but so far, I've been a hell of a lot more help to her than her on-site, stands-to-make-$20k-on-the-deal broker.

I won't name names, but this is a national company that recruits rookie agents and promises them world-class training. I'm underwhelmed, to say the least.

Thanks for listening.

PIPELINE 2010 - Part of the Summer of Soul!
What You Can Do TODAY to Ensure a Happy Next Year!

(excerpted from the not-yet-titled sequel to Sell with Soul coming... sometime!)

... Before I tell you all about how to select the right homes to show your buyer, let me put your mind at ease about something.

Do some of your buyers seem to be doing most of the legwork finding the houses they want to look at? About half of mine are; they email me every day with their new list of houses they want to look at... and with every emailed list, I feel just a little bit more guilty. Isn't that MY job - to peruse the MLS searching for Just the Right Home for them? But they beat me to it and, between you and me, I'm happy to let them, guilt & all.

And you know what? They're happy to do it! Buyers have always wanted direct access to our precious MLS database and now that they have it, they're tickled. When I bought my first house back in 1994, I remember actually stealing borrowing my agent's MLS book when she wasn't looking and poring through it for hours. I hated waiting for her daily phone call with the details of new listings and always wondered if she was screening out The Right One for me!

So don't fret about proving your worth to a buyer by beating him to the MLS every day. Let him take control of that part of the buying process; there's plenty more value you bring to the table that he can't possibly do himself.

That said, I must confess that I miss the intimacy I used to have with the MLS when I was solely responsible for choosing the properties my buyers saw. Before the days of a public MLS or automated email notifications, I was in my MLS several times a day searching for new listings, which, by default, kept my finger on the pulse of my local market. While I still keep up on the comings and goings of my market area, I'm much less conversant on the specifics of it than I used to be.

Ah well...

www.SellwithSoul.com/rookieschoolinfo.htm

The new agent asks: "Will it damage my credibility to have my broker involved in my first listing?"

Yes, it might. Do it anyway.

There are variations on this theme - such as when a new agent objects to sharing his first few commissions with a mentor, or an experienced agent refuses to get help on his first short sale listing or commercial deal. After all, in today's market especially, we NEED every last penny of that commission!

But that's not really the point, is it?

We real estate agents charge a lot of money for what we do. Part of our fee includes a level of expertise that our clients have every right to expect from us. It's not their job to teach us our craft; no, that's OUR job - to learn it so we can be the experts our clients need us to be. Even if "learning it" takes money out of our pockets.

So, if you aren't yet the expert, it's simply the right thing to do to bring on someone who is. Yes, whether you've been selling real estate for weeks or decades. We owe it to our future adoring fans to take great care of them!

Get an autographed copy at www.SellwithSoul.com

p.s. back to the original question posted here - DOES it hurt an agent's credibility to have his broker involved? If so, any thoughts on how to mitigate the damage?

We all talk about how tough a new agent's rookie year is, but once they've survived those 12 months, they're good to go. And in the old days, I would agree. I sold 25 houses in 1997, 35 in 1998 and close to 50 in 1999. So, by the end of my third year, I'd sold over 100 homes and most of my surviving rookie friends (the ones who started the same time as me and were still in the game) had similar track records. I think it's safe to say that once you've sold 100 houses, you probably have a pretty good idea what you're doing (although every day almost always STILL gives me a learning experience or two!)

But the rookies and first-year agents I've been talking to lately have a much different experience. Most sell fewer than 5 houses their first year and maybe double that in their second.

I met with a 3-year agent the other day who has only sold 19 houses in his career and seems moderately happy with that. What struck me about this 3-year agent was how inexperienced he came across - I was trying to help him negotiate multiple offers on his listing and was stunned at his level of, (how else can I say it?) incompetence. He'd never heard of a back-up offer or understood the issues that might arise with an FHA loan on a fix-up property. He thought he was supposed to take down his For Sale sign and lockbox as soon as his listing went under contract.  He hadn't yet selected a preferred title company to work with. He didn't know that he had to change the status from "Active" to "Under Contract" in the MLS within 24 hours of accepting a contract.

I can see how a brand new agent wouldn't know any of these things and you don't call that incompetence - you call it inexperience (and hope she has good broker guidance). But all of these things were issues I learned about in my first year - and by my third year - heavens - this was kindergarten-level stuff! But it all seemed new to him.

First and second year agents - how comfy do you feel in your REALTOR skin and at what point did you start to feel that you could handle pretty much anything tossed your way? Or DO you feel that way yet? Old Fogies - is my experience unique? Or did our "generation" have a better opportunity to get up speed faster?

The Rookie Boot Camp for Agents Who Want to Sell with Soul!