You have dreams about becoming a successful real estate professional. You want to be like the big names in the industry, and acquire their polish, experience, and contacts. As you begin your new career, you'll benefit from knowing how to get where you want to go.

Were you recruited? If so, a broker met you and saw potential in you and is willing to sponsor you while you obtain your license. Were you tired of teaching school for pennies or standing on your feet in retail or nursing? No matter what your previous profession, you have valuable assets to bring to the real estate industry -- the ability to meet people, make cold calls, overcome objections, inform, empathize, convince, organize, multi-task, and so on.

It may be news to you, but the number one ability you're really going to need is sales. Selling is the process of developing, managing and closing a lead. Your job is to bring business to the broker, not the other way around.

It costs a broker real money to sponsor you. There's office space you can use, adding you to the brokerage's website, twitter, training you, including you in company advertising, etc. The broker pays significant franchise fees to become part of a respected brand like Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices or Century21, and in return, you and they get the systems and services of the franchisor.

The broker can provide a few opportunities to get started. You may be asked to sit an open house or to do phone duty at the brokerage, where you'll be expected to convert any leads you develop into closed sales. But here's the newsflash -- most of the leads you get will come from developing them yourself.

So following the next morning meeting, where the broker tells you about the latest listings and other company news, prepare to hit the phones. Make a list of everyone you can think of and put them into a contact manager database where you can include as much information as possible -- name, spouse's name, names and ages of children, birthdates, employers, hobbies, goals and other data. Tell them what you're doing and ask how you can help them. Everyone you know should know that you're a real estate professional. And sooner or later, someone is going to need to move to a new home.

And if anyone objects to hiring you as a newbie, remember that your job is to overcome objections. Tell them that actually now is the best time to hire you because your broker is closely supervising you, so it's almost like hiring the broker themselves.