What I Would do Different if I Could

If I Could Start my Real Estate Career Over, What Would I do Different?

This is such a loaded question, I have made so many mistakes looking back on my almost 15 years in business, it would take far too long to focus on all of them.

Now you may look at some of these mistakes as maybe “not knowing, what I didn’t know” as a new Realtor just entering the business.

I would probably agree with that and would point out, that this would have been my first mistake with hindsight being firmly planted here at 20/20.

The First Change: Hire a Coach, Find a Mentor

The first change I would have made would have been to hire a coach or find a great mentor or enter a training program right off the hop.

There are so many parts of the business, that as a new agent, you just don’t know where to start. None of the marketing, advertising or systems are taught in the real estate course, it’s up to you to figure those things out.

So, if you don’t now how to find a good CRM, ask someone what what you need it to do.

If you don’t know how to find clients, you’ll need to find someone that does and take them for coffee, be present and thankful.

Or you hire a coach, someone that help to advance you further than you would have gotten on your own.

The Second Change: Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

I didn’t know when I got licensed in 2007 that I needed a business plan. I thought the business would just come, I would tell people I was in real estate and they would just call me.

Man, was I wrong.

As a new agent you may not know where your business COULD come from, as an experienced agent, you should absolutely know where it’s coming from and how you acquired it.

Planning out the business and creating a system to make that business repeatable is something I wish I would have known 15 years ago.

Change Number Three: Getting Online Early

It took me about 3 years to finally get a website, it took me another year after that to embrace video marketing. It took me probably 4 years after that to really embrace social media as a tool to generate business and keep in contact with past clients.

Don’t just go out and get a website without a solid plan though. If you have a website, what is your strategy to generate traffic and leads?

Will you invest money in SEO?

Will you invest time in blogging and video blogging?

Will you invest time and money into learning how to do your own SEO?

Having a website is a great first step, figuring out how to get that site found is a whole other process that you need to embrace.

Fourth and Final: Run Your Business, Like a Business

If you talk to any successful business owner, they will tell you that they have a budget, P&L’s, margin’s.

They know what it cost’s to run their business, how much they pay in tax, what their financial limitations are, what expenditures they can afford.

They plan for new technology, not just doing the research on how it will help their business, but what the cost is to acquire and what the ROI (return on investment) can/will be.

When your income is zero, you are probably thinking, “How can I have a budget?”

If you got into real estate and didn’t have a budget, that would have been your FIRST mistake. If you are in real estate now and have revenue but don’t know your margins then it’s time to sit down and list our all your expenses and track all your commissions coming in.

Know what your tax bracket is and begin to understand your profit position. Once you adopt a business owner mindset and get rid of the employee type mindset your financial world will open up.

So Now What? Have I Corrected my Mistakes?

Well I don’t think I would be much of a coach if I didn’t.

Do I have a coach now? Have I had coaches over the last decade?

Yes. I have a full time coach now and have had them in the past. I also hire specialists when I need help with certain things I want to accomplish. I sat down recently with a digital marketer friend of mine and paid him for an hour. I sat down with a YouTube expert and paid them for their hour. Don’t be afraid to find the specialists that will push your business forward.

When I first started I didn’t have a business plan, that didn’t actually start until I hired a coach.

Since then, I have written my own business plan template and hand it out to my coaching clients when we start working together.

I am still online, I just have a different perspective on it now than I did 11 years ago.

Knowing what my commissions are coming in and knowing what my expenses are really began when I started a team all the way back in 2013. Truth be told, the budget happened at the same time as the business plan, my coach was instrumental in that.

I see these mistakes as a few of the core areas that a lot of Realtors either forego and don’t really know about when they get into the business.

Key Takeaways:

If you are brand new in the business either hire a coach or find a great mentor that is willing to help you get going.

Get in the mindset that you are running a successful business and remember that all successful businesses have a plan.

Use every tool available to you when it comes to marketing, then dial in and find what is the best fit. Stay away from the shiny pennies.

Lastly, have fun with it, you get to build and run this business anyway that you want. Make sure that what you build is repeatable and sustainable and you’ll do just fine.