If you are switching or considering switching real estate companies, I ask you one question: Why?

I'm encountering more and more agents who think the solution to their revenue woes in a down market is to switch real estate companies. If you are one of these agents, you may be absolutely justified in your decision ... just make sure it's for the right reasons.

In some instances, these are agents who have their systems in place and simply are making a business move due to less commissions earned on their normal number of homes sold. In these cases, it's usually a move to a company with lower monthly fees. Perfectly understandable.

In most cases, though, I'm seeing agents who are in trouble. They have no systems in place, their funds are nearly depleted, and they're moving to a new company thinking THAT is the solution to their problems. If this is where you are, please look at your own efforts and scrutinize yourself.

It doesn't matter what company you work for ... if you have systems in place and are diligent and sincere in your efforts, you will succeed. If you don't, you won't. Having a long-term follow up system in place has never been more important than it is now.

The answer to your problems is usually in the size of your database. If you've been in real estate for more than 3 months and you only have 100 or 200 people in your database, you need a larger database.

It's that simple. From my numerous discussions with trainers in the industry, I've found many basic similarities in the various training systems of real estate companies. Ultimately, you should have 1,000 people or more in your database if you have been a real estate professional for more than 120 days.

Success in real estate isn't rocket science, but that doesn't mean there's no effort involved. Quite frankly, cultivating and followup as a real estate professional can be some of the most thankless work on the planet. Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, the origin of which I can't remember -- but I've heard it repeated dozens of times over the years:

"Successful people and unsuccessful people all hate doing the same things. The difference is successful people DO those things."

Published: December 18, 2008

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Mark was born in left field and continues to live there. He's the Internet Marketing & Strategy Consultant for clients at GetMyHomesValue.com and he has have a coaching blog on ActiveRain, which is gaining in popularity. Mark believes that technology has really brought business full circle back to its roots... people helping people, and this is the basis for his coaching. He is also currently writing his first book, set to be completed by the end of the summer.