Are you going through a hard time in your real estate sales career at the moment? If so, maybe you could use a word of caution about your attitude.

Don't spend your time among yourselves comparing yourselves to yourselves. I call it "comparisonitus." It's a virus that can cost new agents their careers. It's contagious and it's deadly.

If you start comparing your office policies and procedure to those in other offices in a negative way, you may find yourself paralyzed and totally unproductive in a very short time. Your solution: change brokers. My recommendation: stay put.

My guess is that you may have already been a victim of this and either got over it, or you are just hanging on, not making any real money.

Here's the scenario:

You come out of sales meeting where your broker has just announced that your E & O insurance is going up two dollars. You didn't think too much about it until you heard another agent complain "They don't charge that much at XYZ Realty". You note it, but don't comment about it. Next week you here that ABC Company doesn't do something else your broker does, maybe has a family picnic once a year and yours doesn't, or gives a $50 dollar prize every month and yours only gives $25. Whatever.

You know what happens next?

You hear about these comparisons often enough and you start wondering if you joined your present company too soon. You start wondering if maybe you should interview with these companies "before I get too deeply involved here." It only follows that since you could be changing offices, it doesn't make sense to get any listings. Right? It called paralysis by analysis, and it's deadly.

If you continue to let others cloud your vision, you will eventually leave the business, because you didn't do any business. You lost your focus and started drifting. Your hot passion for the business turned lukewarm. Why? Because you started listening to nonsense comparisons.

What is the solution?

Set your own standards. Accept the standards of your present broker. If you are new in the business, stay with the office you are with right now. Renew your mind. Reinforce your determination to become a professional real estate agent. Your problem is not necessarily your broker's fault!

In most cases, changing offices is not your answer. Changing your attitude is.

Published: February 4, 2004

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David Fletcher directs the condominium conversion team for Keller Williams Realty in Orlando, Fl and provides downloadable sales and listing training solutions for real estate agents and broker/owners through Agents Boot Camp, Inc., a company he founded to provide affordable training systems newly licensed real estate agents. He has been involved with more than $3 billion in Florida residential sales, chaired the Florida Homebuilders Associaton's Sales and Marketing Council, and been a featured speaker at NAR's national convention. You may see his training products at www.agentsbootcamp.com or contact him directly at 888.222.1935.