What It's Like Being a New Agent

I've now been a Realtor and a member of Rebecca's team for just about three months. If you've been reading my studying posts, I guess this is the point where I confess that they aren't being written in real time :-)  Anyway, it seemed like a good time to reflect on what it's like to be new...before I forget! So, if you're an aspiring or newly licensed agent, I hope this post will give you some insight into what to expect during your first weeks. Expect paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. I think mine took about 30-45 minutes to complete. Not quite as extensive as the paperwork when you buy or sell a house, but the time commitment was almost the same :-)

Expect to be inundated with information. There is simply no way the human brain can take in, process and retain all of the information people will fire at you. No way. Between new agent orientation, emails from your local MLS, your national and regional professional associations, your brokerage and others I'm forgetting at the moment, you will be swimming in due dates, logins, account balances, advice, instructions and names of people to connect with. I'm not sure I have any foolproof strategies for tracking it all, other than take lots of notes, keep a list (I used Excel) and add tasks with any associated due dates and costs to it as you go. Then you can cross off items as you complete them. I also set aside about an hour each week to go back through the notes and paperwork I compiled in the previous 7 days to file things away and to make sure nothing fell through the cracks.

Expect to develop a business plan right away. You need to be clear about why you're working, what your goals are and how you're going to reach them. Otherwise, it's too easy to get overwhelmed. And because for many of us this is the first time we've ever worked for ourselves--ever been in a job where a boss wasn't paying attention to when we clocked in and out or whether we finished our work for the day--it's oh so easy to procrastinate, especially when there's so much to do. Ignite is Keller Williams' signature course for new agents, and you'll come out of it with goals and a plan (literally daily, weekly and monthly activity and outcome goals) for achieving your target income. Ignite is open to all agents, not just KW agents. Contact Rebecca here for more info if you'd like to attend. For me, having that roadmap to follow has been invaluable. Can't say enough good things about it.

Expect to set boundaries. This is tricky for many of us (myself included). This is a career that can and will consume as much of your life as you will allow. And because you're excited about it, and because you're working with people who are excited for you, it is easy to take on too much.  Ignite is actually really helpful in this regard. (Wow, this is the 2nd Ignite plug of this post...they're not paying me to promote it guys, I swear.) But suffice it to say that KW gives you a blue-print for success and it is possible to do it without sacrificing all of your free time and neglecting yourself or your family, or losing all your friends and your sunny disposition.

Expect to feel excited, anxious and overwhelmed all at once. Being new at anything can be all of those things. Some days I felt way more anxious than excited and vice versa. Totally normal.

Expect to have fun. Everything I wrote above was true for me, but it's also true that this is so much fun! I really don't want that point to get lost in all of this. This is a fun job. Keller Williams is a fun company to work for. Rebecca's team is amazing and talented and are the first people to raise their hands to help me when I need it. It's been an amazing experience and I'm trying to enjoy each season of it before the next begins.

Are any of you new agents? What has your experience been like? Any advice for managing the logistics and the emotions involved with being a newbie? Please share below!

I Secret-Shopped Open Houses.

Hi all! Erin writing again this week. This might be my first non-studying-themed blog post and my first new agent-y post. Hadn't thought about that until just now. You know how you have markers for new experiences that make it all seem more real or more official somehow? I think this is one of them. Anyway... I secret-shopped some open houses last weekend. It was really fun. Here's what happened.

Windowboxes

Well, first let's start with why I did it. Part of my job on Rebecca's team is to capture the new Realtor experience and document it. I do some of that on this blog, but the rest of it we're using to create a roadmap for new agents in our office to follow. We want to create systems that anyone could jump into and feel confident in the process, be efficient and see success no matter how new they are to real estate.

Much of what I've been doing is taking myself on little field trips and then turning it into something that will be helpful and useful for other brokers. The open houses was one example. I'd shadowed Rebecca at a couple of hers, so I knew how she did things. But I wanted to see how other agents conducted theirs. I thought maybe there were things I could take back to Rebecca and the team that we could adopt.

House 2

But what I found in my, admittedly, relatively small sample was not particularly inspiring. Here's what I noticed:

Not one agent introduced themselves by name or shook my hand.

Not one agent asked me to sign-in or leave a business card.

Not one agent kept me chatting to see whether I might need their services. (And at most of these open houses I was the only person walking through, so distraction wasn't an issue.)

With a couple of them I even volunteered information that, had an open house attendee shared it with Rebecca, she would have used as a point of conversation and follow-up.

House 3

Maybe you read the above and think there's nothing wrong with what I describe. And you're right--there's nothing technically wrong with any of it. None of the agents were unkind or unfriendly, I want to make a point to say that. But there was nothing particularly right about it either.

Here's what I mean.

When we host an open house we always do three things: we introduce ourselves with a handshake; we ask people to sign-in; we do our best to connect with them somehow through conversation; and then we find a reason to follow-up.

Why? Well, let's take each of those things in turn.

We introduce ourselves because most agents don't, and doing so makes an impression.

We have people sign-in because that's how we collect contact information so that we can follow-up with them later. Following-up might be an email with the answer to a question we weren't able to answer at the open house. It's always either a handwritten note (if they leave their address) or an email, thanking them for coming and letting them know we're here to help them with anything real estate-related. It's proactive and you'd be amazed at the benefit we get from something so simple. It's also a way to track how many visitors we got, so we can share that information with our seller.

We engage them in conversation. We want to connect with them. If they're looking to buy or sell, we want them to like us and choose to work with us. If they aren't looking to buy or sell, we want them to remember us the next time someone asks them if they know any good Realtors. We also do it because we want to be of service. If there's something we can do--information we can share or whatever--we need to know what that is, so that we can help. We only find out those things if we talk to the person. The talking also often gives us our follow-up reason. We try to make note of something they said that we can mention in our note or email afterward.

If we have slow times during the open house we use that time to start on our thank-you notes. If we don't get at least 5 people through the open house, we knock on neighbors doors or we find some other way to meet someone new. We don't ever just sit in an open house doing nothing. It's lead-generation time, whether people walk through the door or they don't.

House 4

The point of all of this is really being efficient and effective. Leverage your time so that you never look back on that two or three-hour block of time you spent at an open house and think it was wasted time. Some of these things seem simple, but you'd be surprised how many people don't do them. Don't miss out on relatively easy, relatively quick things that can make a huge difference in your business.

It's Rude to Talk About This...

There's a list of things that we're not supposed to talk about in polite conversation, right? And money is one of them. But sometimes things need to be said and we have to get real and get honest because when we do we can help other people save money or make more of it.

The former is the reason for this post.

When I meet with aspiring agents, or with people who are starting to consider real estate as a career, I share the information that I think is critical for them to know. And some of that is about the costs associated with studying for a license. (There are others associated with actually being an agent, but I'll address those in another post.)

The online course I recommend, and the course we follow in our office when we teach the live version of the class, is Rockwell. It's not cheap. It runs approx. $489 plus tax.

Yeah.

That face you're probably making now is the same expression I see on the faces of many of the people I meet with during career orientations.

And some of them look at other education providers, many of which are less expensive than Rockwell.

So why do I recommend such a relatively expensive study program?

It's really, honestly because I think Rockwell is the best. That's all. The curriculum is comprehensive and strong; you get access to online courses AND textbooks with quizzes and final exams; and their test prep (the CRAM section and 12 sample exams) set you up for success on the real thing like no other system I've reviewed.

I have had students who chose one of the less expensive options succeed on the exam. But more often than not, I'll get an email or call from them because they're frustrated by the material or because they took the licensing exam and failed after weeks or months of studying. They then usually end up paying for the Rockwell courses, so when it's all said and done they've paid the $489 plus another $200-$300 for the other course and a failed licensing exam.

Not a huge savings after all.

Success rate-wise, Rockwell boasts an 86% and 87% first try pass rate on the National and State exams, respectively, in Washington. The average for the others is 58% and 63%, National and State. So, if you're a person who prefers statistics to anecdotal data from an agent and blog writer, that's for you :-)

(By way of a disclaimer, I'm not on Rockwell's payroll, they don't send me free stuff and they have no idea I'm writing this post.)

As always, feel free to leave your comments and questions below or watch my 1+1=4 Math Video here. Thanks and I'll check back in here again soon!

Are You Stuck in This Vicious Cycle?

(This post contains affiliate links.)

What percentage of people in the United States would you guess are living paycheck to paycheck? Are you one of them?  If I told you that 50-percent of us fall into that category, would you believe me?

If you think that's a high estimate, hold on to your hats because the actual number is worse.  

More than three-quarters of workers (78%) who earn less than $100,000 per year, are one unexpected expense away from a big financial mess. I don't know about you, but that number is scary to me. (You can check out the full story here.)

Additionally, and very much relatedly, 71-percent of full-time workers say they have some kind of debt. Of those, 56-percent of them say they don't believe they will ever get out of it. Think about it--if you're living paycheck to paycheck because of debt, and something unexpected comes up, you go into more debt to pay that expense. So, it's kind of a vicious cycle, right?

Consider the emotional toll that belief takes on a person. Working full-time, unable to get ahead financially, operating under the anchor of debt, and believing things will never be any better. What does that do to our collective mental, emotional and spiritual health? The cost of our debt-culture goes beyond a financial one.

Let's talk about the culture of debt while we're at it. It's become more than just acceptable--it's marketed as desirable. Many people get their first credit card offer at 18--I've heard stories of credit card applications being included in freshman move-in packets at colleges! College itself has become synonymous with debt too. Can't afford tuition? Here's a student loan you can spend the rest of your adult life paying off. Want something now, but can't afford it? Why wait? Just fill out this credit application and walk out of the store with it. You deserve it.

We think it's an unavoidable part of adult life, but it doesn't have to be and it really shouldn't be. It is crippling. If you're struggling with debt or just want to learn how to create a budget and make a financial plan you can live with, I cannot recommend Dave Ramsey's books enough. The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness is one of my favorites and a good place to start.

Freedom

In contrast to that 78-percent number, only nine-percent of full-time workers earning more than $100,000 per year reported that they struggled to make ends meet.

What does that tell us? Well, it tells me we need an increase in income and a shift to a debt-is-not-okay mindset. And it reinforces for me one of the big reasons why I'm such and advocate for real estate and Keller Williams in particular.

Streams

I’m a self-help junkie and every book I read about entrepreneurship or financial freedom says we should have multiple income streams. That we should be diversifying where our money comes from so that our financial futures are not subject to the whims of one bad boss or the ups and downs of one market. 

If I told you that as a Realtor I have four businesses functioning simultaneously and generating four income streams for me, would that pique your curiosity? The first is the most obvious--I represent buyers and sellers and earn commissions on each transaction I close. Income stream number one.

You might be surprised how many agents don't leverage the other three opportunities: referrals, profit-sharing and investing in real estate. Please don't be one of them! I love talking about possibilities and coaching other agents, so click here and let's schedule a time to meet!

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The End of the Studying Road!

Hi all! Erin guest-blogging for Rebecca again today about being an aspiring/new agent. There was a clue in there about how my broker's exam went...Did you spot it? Yep, I said "new agent," which means I passed my broker's exam! It is such a huge weight off of my shoulders and I cannot tell you how happy I am not to be spending all of those hours studying anymore. It was interesting material, but man oh man, knowing you're going to be tested on something takes almost all of the fun out of it :-)

Today I thought I'd share a bit about my test experience and the things I did study-wise that I think helped me the most.

After I finished my clock hours, worked through all of the course material and taken all of the final quizzes, here's what I did next.

Took a Baseline Sample Exam. Rockwell has 12 sample exams and I took one to get a baseline of how close I was to being ready to take the test and where my areas of weakness were. I can't remember my exact score on that, but I think it was something like 86%...

Anyway, the sample exam will show you the questions you got wrong (very helpful), but also will break down the test by topic area (very, very helpful). So, it would tell me which chapters and sections I scored a below passing grade on. I wrote those down after the first sample exam, and those were my points of extra study attention for that first day.

Scheduled my Exam. I spoke to Rebecca shortly after I took that first sample exam and told her my score. I took the sample exam on a Thursday and then my first opportunity to take the exam was the following Monday afternoon. There were a couple of other days/times, but the only other one that would have worked for me was about 10 days away. Rebecca said, and I believe this is a direct quote, "You're ready. Take it on Monday." So I did.

You would think that having the exam on the calendar would up the stress factor, but weirdly it decreased it. I think knowing that it was going to be over by Monday afternoon and having a set date to work back from in terms of arranging my study time, really helped.

Reviewed Areas of Weakness. As I said, I took the sample exam on a Thursday and wrote down the 8 or so places where I failed the practice exam. That sounds worse than it is, really, because there were like one or two questions per topic area. So "failing" it often meant missing one question on that topic.

So, after each sample exam I would write down those areas of struggle and review them. I'd review them first in the textbook and then again in the Rockwell Broker's Cram lesson. What happened for me was that after each subsequent sample exam, the number of areas of weakness decreased. Makes sense, right? By the last sample exam, I was scoring in the high nineties, and once even 100%, so by the end there were very few areas left to review.

Took Every (and I Mean EVERY) Sample Exam and Quiz. There were 12 sample exams on Rockwell and I took every single one of them. I worked back from the date of my broker's exam and figured out how many I needed to take each day in order to take them all by noon on test day. This was probably the most helpful thing I did because it got me used to how questions on the exam would be structured and helped me identify places where wording baited me into picking the wrong answer. They were GREAT preparation. I also took every quiz in the Broker's Cram lesson along the way. By the time I finished the last sample exam I felt really confident.

Reviewed Every Sample Exam Result. When I finished an exam I would look at the questions I got wrong first and I would make sure I understood where I went wrong and why the correct answer was correct. Then I would review the whole exam, looking at the questions I got right too. Here's why: sometimes I was just guessing between two answers I was unsure of and happened to pick the right one. So, I made sure I knew why each correct answer was correct, regardless if whether I got it right or wrong on the test.

Accounted for Memorization. The sample exams often repeated questions, as did the quizzes. They tell you not to rely on memorization, but the reality is that I did remember some answers after I'd seen them a couple of times. So, what I tried to do was when I recognized a question and remembered what the answer was, I would go through each of the other answers and say why it was the wrong one. When those terms or concepts then appeared on the final exam in a different context/in a different question, I knew what they meant and could apply them in whatever context they appeared. So even if that exact sample exam question didn't appear on the real exam, it still helped me prepare for the real exam. Does that make sense?

Made a Few Flash Cards. There were a few areas where I continued to have a hard time, so I made some flash cards and would review those for 5 minutes or so throughout the day. Formulas were one and then I also did a few for laws that I was having a tough time differentiating from one another. In all, I probably had about a dozen or so.

Read the Tips for Multiple Choice Questions Rockwell Provided. These were great. I wish I'd known them when I was in college. Highly recommend you read these over if you can. They're located in the Broker's Cram lesson, I believe...

Okay, on to the day of the test. I took my last practice exam at about 10:30am and my test was at 1:30pm.

It took me about 10 minutes or so to settle down once the test began. My hand was shaking a bit on the mouse at first, but that stopped fairly quickly. I made sure to read each question carefully--that was key. I also tried to answer the question before I looked at the possible answers (this obviously works better on some questions than on others). I then read each answer carefully. There were a few I was uncertain about, so I marked them for review and then moved on.

Because I was so nervous for the first handful of questions, I decided to review all of my answers. This is something Rebecca told me not to do and I totally understand why. BUT I made some rules for my review. I only changed an answer if I realized that I had misread the question. If it was a question where I was just torn between one answer and another, I kept the answer I chose originally. I think I changed 2 answers and I think they were math-related. All were from the first quarter of the exam, as I recall.

Then I was done. I went out of the room and the proctor accessed my results and told me that I passed. So, huge relief there.

If you're studying right now, I wish you the very best of luck! And if you've already got your license, please share any of the study/exam preparation tips you found helpful below.