The Truth About Working for Yourself

What makes someone likely to succeed as a real estate agent ? It’s a great question and an understandable one. Who wants to invest time and energy and money in becoming an agent if it’s going to be a bad fit for them?

It’s also almost an impossible question to answer. Within real estate you’ll meet people from all walks of life, from diverse professional and educational backgrounds.

At Keller Williams we have a personality assessment that people can take, which points them in the direction of careers within the company that are probably a good fit for their personalities. That’s really the closest we come to “predicting” here.

But…

There are some tips I’d share with anyone considering becoming a real estate agent at a brokerage where they’ll have lots of autonomy. They probably apply to anyone considering self-employment of any kind though, so please read on even if a real estate career isn’t in your future.

Startup Stock Photos

Stay humble. I have seen people make the mistake of believing that there is nothing they can learn from anyone else. This is totally untrue. I’ve been doing this since 2003 and I still look for opportunities to learn and I accept coaching from people who know more than I do.

Behave as if you’re at work even if your office is in your home. Get dressed. Maintain a regular schedule. Avoid sending work emails while you’re in the middle of doing yoga in your living room. Sometimes you do have to answer an email at 11:59PM on a Thursday night, but to the extent you can, establish your working hours and stick to them. Plan days off and stick to those too.

Enjoy the freedom and flexibility, but not at the expense of the work. If you don’t wake up every day with the realization that but for your own efforts, you are unemployed, you won’t succeed. The freedom that comes from being able to set your own goals and design your own job is incredibly rewarding. But the people who are successful balance that with accountability. They set clear tasks and goals for every day and are disciplined enough to meet them even though no one else is watching. You can probably train yourself to do this if it doesn’t come naturally, but I find that a certain level of self-motivation and discipline is necessary.

Be yourself. This is such a cliché, but in any business where you are a big part of the equation when a client is deciding whether to work with you, it is so important. You should know who you are as a real estate agent—what is your philosophy about your work? Why would someone choose to work with you over the agent down the street? What sets you apart?

You must know these things and be able to communicate them to prospective clients in a genuine way.

Have clearly defined goals and a definition of success. If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know when you’ve arrived. Go through a formal goal-setting process regularly. How often really depends on your business. It can be something you do yearly, quarterly or monthly. But decide where you want your business to be at the end of that period. In my case, I set goals for how many transactions I want to close annually in my real estate business. And then I have separate goals for the other roles I have at Keller Williams. Figure out your metrics for determining when you’ve met your goals and then reward yourself for doing so.

Be a good boss to yourself. Pay yourself a salary, even if it’s a small one when your business is just getting started. Have a plan for how you determine when it’s appropriate to give yourself a raise. Invest in retirement; have a plan for taking a vacation or for when you’re too sick to work; work the supplies you need into your monthly budget. In short, treat yourself the way you’d expect a good boss to treat you if you were their employee. Otherwise you’ll resent yourself and burnout.

All you other self-employed people out there, please feel free to share any of the tips that work for you in the Comments section below.

Thanks, all! I’ll see you back here again soon.

Can You Work Less & Still Grow Your Business? Yes You Can! Find Out How...

He's working less and seeing a 35% increase in his business by leveraging the wisdom, systems and technology of KW.  Why did this successful, independent broker (number 1 on the Olympic Peninsula!) choose to join KW?

Watch this video to find out what happened to Brody Broker’s real estate business when he went all in with KW. And if you’re looking to buy or sell on the Olympic Peninsula, you can learn more about Brody and his team by visiting their website here.

Don't Want to Help People Buy or Sell Homes? You Should Still Get a Real Estate License. Here's Why...

One of the things I love to share with aspiring agents when they come in for office tours (contact me here if you're interested in signing-up for one!), is the variety of ways you can structure a career in real estate. People often think of being a real estate agent as only representing clients in the purchase or sale of a property. That's how I started my career, and may be how you start yours too. But it doesn't have to be the only way you put your skills to work.

I'm a big fan of variety and of diversifying sources of income, including building in some passive income where I can. I thought I'd share with you today some of the ways you can do that as a real estate agent. Keep in mind that my experience has been with Keller Williams exclusively, so the opportunities I discuss below are the ones available with this brokerage. I don't know for sure what other brokerages offer. Okay, caveat out of the way, so here we go.

Option 1: Representing Buyers and Sellers. This is pretty straightforward. As a real estate agent, clients will hire you to represent them in the purchase or sale of a property.

Option 2: "Flipping" Properties. This is where you buy a property, invest in renovating it, and then sell it for a profit (hopefully!). There are several shows on HGTV profiling people who do this. As a licensed real estate agent you can represent yourself as buyer and seller and you'll have access to new properties as they come on the market. Keller Williams has a book to help agents learn how to do this successfully. It's called, appropriately enough, "Flip."

Option 3: Investment Properties. This is where you purchase a property and then rent it out to a third party. Again, Keller Williams has educational materials to help agents do this successfully, maximize their earning potential, and avoid some of the mistakes people commonly make when starting out as landlords. It's called, "Hold."

Option 4: Referrals. I know agents whose entire business is built on Keller Williams' Referral Program. Keller Williams has agents licensed to sell homes anywhere in the world. If someone approaches you wanting to purchase or sell a home outside of the area in which you work, you can refer them to a Keller Williams agent in that region. If that client hires that Keller Williams agent and they purchase or sell a property, you could receive 25% of the commission on that sale. Just for referring that client. Pretty great, right? I've done it several times and it's a win-win-win experience. I know I'm referring someone to an agent who is going to provide them with excellent service; a great KW agent gets to serve someone that may not have otherwise found them; and I get a nice financial thank-you.

Option 5: Profit Sharing. Okay, this one is a unique option within the world of real estate. When you close a transaction, you pay a percentage of your commission to Keller Williams, until you've paid the company dollar CAP in commission in a calendar year. After that commitment is met, then you keep 100% of the commissions you make. Here's where the profit-sharing comes in. The person who "referred" you to Keller Williams gets a thank you for sending you to KW. So, if you go into business with Keller Williams and then you recommend it to a friend or acquaintance and they join as an agent too anywhere in the world), you could get a portion of the commission. You're fully vested after 3 years and the benefit can outlive you and be passed along to your heirs.

Option 6: Salaried Positions. For whatever reason, maybe you want a more predictable 9-5, salaried job. Keller Williams hires licensed real estate agents to provide administrative and transaction support to our Realtors. So, you could use your knowledge and skills in this way as opposed to representing buyers and sellers.  Or maybe you're a great leader and want to take on additional responsibilities on top of your work as an agent. KW has formal curriculum for people who want to pursue a leadership role, and there is additional income associated with those opportunities.

Was any of this news to you? Did one or more of these options make you think about a real estate career in a different way? Please share your thoughts in the Comments section below or contact me here if you want to talk more about real estate or Keller Williams.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you here again soon!

Finding a Reason...

I set financial goals every year--I decide how much salary I want to generate and I create a specific plan for how to get there. You may do that too. Goal-setting is something you’ve probably read and heard about a lot.

Something that often is missed in all the business planning and goal-setting conversations is the why of it all. Why do we do any of this? Beyond what it takes to support myself, why do I want to do any more of that?

I am often motivated by a mission or charity I want to support. For example, I can't go on a mission trip with my church (I've got family and work obligations that keep me here), but I can devote some of my salary to sponsoring people who can go and do that mission work. So, I might set a goal of giving $10,000 to sponsor three people on a mission trip and then I'm working toward my financial goals with that motivation behind it. It's important to me to connect what I'm doing at work to whatever cause has spoken to me that year.

Other “why-s” can be experiences you’d like to have. Perhaps you want to travel, or invest in properties. Perhaps you’d love to create a family trust that could provide funds for the college tuition or down payments on homes for your friends and family. Perhaps you want to build a business that’s big enough to hire staff and other agents to work with you, creating income and opportunities for others. Or perhaps you want to build expertise that you can then leverage as a teacher, helping others learn and grow in their careers.

What’s meaningful to you? What dreams do you have for yourself or your family that would be made possible through your work?

Why I Have a Coach

While I work for Keller Williams, for all intents and purposes I have had my own business for more than 14 years. I set my own goals and no one is going to knock on my door tomorrow if I don’t show up to work and complete the tasks on my to-do list today. That is one of the things I love about my career—I wake up every day and create my own job. There is so much responsibility inherent in that, but also a ton of freedom and joy.

I doubled my business in 2016. No one told me to do that. I decided I wanted to set that as a goal for the year and I did it. I could decide to double it again in 2017 if I want to, and if I did, I would reap the rewards of that achievement.

But being an entrepreneur can be a lonely place sometimes, and often we can’t see ways we could be improving or pushing ourselves because we’re too close to have any perspective or objectivity.

That is the beauty of a coach. They can help us with those things and much more. So here are a few benefits of a coaching relationship.

You learn from someone who knows more than you or has a different area of expertise. This is the most obvious benefit of a coach—you have access to information that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Knowledge it took that person years, or decades to gain can be yours in minutes or hours. It can be a super-efficient means of learning, which should appeal to the busy entrepreneur you are!

You get honest feedback on your own performance. This is something that we have ready access to when we work for someone else in the typical boss-employee paradigm. But once you’re working for yourself, or in an autonomous job (like real estate), opportunities for external feedback can be non-existent. As much dread as an annual performance review has conjured up for me in previous jobs, there can be great value in hearing where there is room for us to improve, grow or change professionally. Coaches can serve that function for you.

You have a sounding board and cheering section. Again, these are often lacking in the world of the entrepreneur. It can be lonely being a one-person shop, or being the boss. Even the most introverted among us needs to bounce ideas off of other people from time to time. And even the most confident of entrepreneurs sometimes need to hear some words of encouragement or a pep talk. Just as a coach can see places where you can grow and improve, so can they see places where you are rocking this whole business-thing! We can be hard on ourselves and sometimes we don’t see just how far we’ve come or just how great our successes have been. When you’re feeling discouraged or overwhelmed, hearing words of support and encouragement from someone you respect is invaluable.

You expand your network. Networking is a word we hear repeatedly as entrepreneurs. I think it often gets conflated with “schmoozing” which we all have differing levels of comfort in doing. But really, networking is just about interacting with other people to exchange information and develop contacts. Building a relationship with a coach is a form of networking. They are learning about you and what you do—you are exchanging information. They might then refer other people they know to you for your services, or they might know people who can help you in some other area of your business.

You get inspired. Think about it. You saw the value in coaching and after the needs analysis, you were assigned a coach. And then they chose to coach you because they saw something in you worth the investment of their time and energy. Wow! How do you not find the motivation to get up, get going on that project and succeed when someone like that believes in you? That has been hugely motivating for me over the years.

Have you had a coach before? If so, what did you appreciate most about them? Where did you find them?

Have you been a coach to someone before? What tips do you have for prospective protégés for approaching a prospective mentor and making the most out of the relationship?

Please share your answers in the Comments section below.

Keller Williams matches new agents up with an experienced coach right out of the gate. This coach helps the new agent to decide on their goals for the year, and to develop strategies for achieving them. It’s one of the reasons why I love Keller Williams so much, and why 4 out of every 5 agents to start with us are still in business after the first year. Mentoring and coaching is an incredible gift to give and to receive.

Okay, that’s it from me this time! I’ll see you back here again soon.