The National Association of Realtors attracts over 10,000 new members a month. But close to as many agents wash out and go inactive, most in their first year. Why isn't the success rate higher for new agents? One reason - lack of preparedness - may be the answer. Don't fall into the same abyss as others. What you know in advance can help you ride out the rough spots better than your peers who turn their licenses in after they find real estate sales more difficult than they bargained for.

New agents are often unprepared for being overwhelmed

Many people earn four to seven-year degrees in higher learning institutions to become professionals such as accountants and attorneys. Yet the real estate industry, with few exceptions such as Colorado, turns out agents (salespersons) representing real estate fiduciaries (brokers) with just a few weeks or months of education.

To understate the situation, there is a huge reality gap in what agents learn to pass the licensing test and what they really need to know to make a living.

If you are a new agent, one of the first realities that you have to face is that you won't have enough time to get the experience you need before committing serious, costly errors. To name just a few things that will go wrong under your watch, consumers will test you to your resources' limits. They will use your time, money and gas to look at homes, or ask you to prepare a marketing plan when all they want is data so they can buy or sell a home without you. Murphy's Law will take it from there and interfere with your transactions. Every little thing from oversights on the sellers' disclosure to the insurance company refusing to insure the home to the buyer's credit problems can put the kabosh on what should be a smooth transaction. Even if you are lucky enough to close a home, you might be hauled before an MLS committee and told you have to give up your commission because another agent showed the home to your buyer before your buyer bought the home with you. Or your buyer sues you and your broker because the seller didn't disclose mold in the home. And so on.

That means you have to have more in your arsenal besides your real estate license. You have to develop experience as well as a sixth sense for things that can go wrong, because between the time you meet a new client and get him or her to closing, a million different little things can go wrong. Your job is to prevent problems and expedite the sale while protecting your client's rights, the rights of others and keeping your broker and yourself from liability.

That's what the job really is. It's not sales, it's not helping people with the American dream. You just got a license to handle explosives - so your job is really about damage control.

So, whatever education you got to obtain your license isn't going to be nearly enough. You will need further training if you are going to be good at getting deals to closing and keeping your broker and you out of court.

To manage damage control, you'll have to develop many skills including the following:

• Scripts, overcoming objections, and body language so you have a better shot at getting the listing contract or buyer's agreement, reading buying or selling signals, and knowing when to talk and when to be silent
• Learning to price well so you have credibility with buyers and sellers
• Time management so you can learn shortcuts and avoid timewasters
• Developing contacts so you have mortgage bankers, fix-it people, and others who will help you make the sale
• Educating yourself on the run - put together resources so you can find information quickly on topics that impact your sales
• Finding and identifying cost-effective ways to market your services, listings, and buyers' needs to consumers and other agents
• Contract negotiating techniques so deal points don't become dealbreakers
• Self-defense and personal safety techniques as you will be dealing with the public and with strangers

This brief list gives you an idea of what isn't covered in real estate education classes, but these skills and many more will be as important to you as anything you learned to pass your real estate licensing exam.

There are only so many hours in the day, and if you are lucky enough to report to work on your first day with a contract to sell a home in your hand, you still won't be paid a dime until the home closes in four to six weeks, if it closes on time. All of your working activities that first day and thereafter have to be balanced between getting new business and retaining the business you have - keeping the deal you're working on from falling through.

So while you are dividing your day into getting new business and keeping the business you have, make time for continuing education. Take classes, read articles, attend meetings at your MLS or association, hire a coach, and ask questions of other agents and brokers by the water cooler.

Learn not just by asking for help, but by offering to help. Offer to sit an open house for a top agent in exchange for some pointers or letting you shadow for a day. Offer to babysit listings for agents who want to take a short vacation. Offer to take buyers out to look at homes for agents and offer the agents referral fees for business they don't want or can't get to.

You can devote a little time each day to rounding out your own list of what you need to do to get and keep business, but be sure to make time for some of the items listed above. Then you'll find that your new real estate career is easier to balance, and balance is the key to keeping you off the inactive list.

Published: September 5, 2002

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