Making Money from Maui (or Wherever You Dream of Going)...

"I do it! I do it!" Do you remember when your kids were at this stage of life? Or maybe they are right now... Anyway, I remember my daughter, Bella, saying, "Bella do it. Bella do it. Bella do it," a lot when she was little. That first flash of independence--of wanting to do everything and wanting to do it now--can be such a moment of bittersweet pride for a parent. But that "I can do it all myself," instinct can be destructive as we transition into our professional lives, especially for us business-owners, can't it?

One of the blessings that being a Realtor has given to me is the freedom and flexibility I've needed as a mom. In fact, one of the reasons I chose this career specifically was because I knew I could structure my day in such a way that I could work while my kids were in school and then be at home when they were.

The reality of this business though is that it can take over your world 24/7 if you let it. It will take up the space it's given, which is why we have to be so careful about setting boundaries where and when we can.

You may be asking whether setting boundaries on your business is also limiting what you can achieve. And the answer is that yes, it probably would, but for leverage.

Many agents function in real estate solo. They've structured their business in such a way that if they themselves are not actively doing something, money is not being made. This is just as limiting as setting boundaries, if you think about it. There's only so much one person can do with the hours in a day. And there's only so much you can do before you burnout.

The shift comes when we embrace the idea of hiring people and establishing systems that allow you to leverage other means of productivity to run your business. In a practical sense, leverage means you could be on the beach in Maui while still making money for your business at home.

Do I have your attention now?

Thought so :-)

When we shift from I do it, to we do it to THEY do it, then you know you've arrived. I took a 2-week honeymoon last year. Two weeks of almost no wi-fi or cell reception and my team had sold 4 homes by the time I got back. It's so important to surround yourself with trustworthy individuals who can cover you when you need it, and systems that would allow anyone to come in and keep things thriving, regardless of your presence.

Here are examples of how to leverage your time and effort, taken from specific things I did in almost exactly the order in which I did them.

Pay for transaction coordination as-needed. Once a sale was under contract, I turned the paperwork over to people in my office who would act as a transaction coordinator for a fee. That freed me up to generate leads and meet with prospective clients.

Hire a part-time (or full-time), licensed executive assistant. Give anything that doesn't require your active involvement to someone else. Scheduling, maintaining your website, ordering office supplies, dealing with vendors, marketing tasks, etc. can all go to a skilled and trained assistant. They can get you involved in a task when you're needed.

Take advantage of automated systems. Keller Williams has tons of systems in place for agents to use, including email campaigns. I enroll everyone in my sphere of influence into one campaign or another. The campaign sends out regular communication to my contacts and reminds me of important follow-up activities. My team and I also create systems, customized to our business. We make everything as simple as we can and follow the procedures we establish. We have procedures for responding to client leads, for developing CMA's, for hosting open houses--you name it, we've probably got a system for it.

Hire other team members as dictated by your business. This may mean brokers, listing coordinators or contractors to help on specific projects that you don't have the expertise to complete efficiently. It doesn't help my business if I spend 100 hours designing a website, when a professional would have done it in 10. Those 100 hours are hours I'm not meeting new business leads, so it's not the highest and best use of my time. Speaking of which...

Find your highest and best use. This will be different for everyone, but for me, my highest and best use is generating client leads. Almost everything else can be delegated to someone else on my team.

iPhone Laptop

Maybe you're a mom like I was, looking for extra income. Or maybe you're not a parent, but are ready for a career change and love the idea of having your own business. Real estate could be the answer! Contact me and let's chat. I'm happy to share my experience with you.

Thinking About Being a Part-Time Real Estate Agent? Here's What You Should Know...

For a while now, I've wanted to write a post about the topic of being a part-time real estate agent. But it's a bit tricky to strike the right tone, so it's taken me a while to organize my thoughts and get them in writing. On that note, a quick disclaimer before we get started. It is possible to be a great real estate agent even if you aren't devoting 100% of your work life to it. (I started out part-time myself.) So, by no means do I want anyone to interpret this post as a criticism of part-time agents. In fact, part of this post is about how to effectively serve your clients and make a living when real estate isn't getting 100% of your professional attention.

But it is also important for new agents to know some of the disadvantages to pursuing real estate as a side business or a part-time venture, and to have a plan for addressing those potential challenges. So that's what this post is about.

Let's start with what I mean when I say "part-time." Unlike other jobs where part-time is defined by the number of hours you work per week, in real estate I think of part-time in terms of the professional attention and energy you're devoting to it.  If real estate isn't your sole professional obligation--if it's not the sole way you generate your income--then I consider you part-time for the purposes of this discussion.

Time for Change

There are many moving pieces when it comes to the laws, rules and forms that govern what we do, and they are often changing. This is one of the challenges to being part-time. We have monthly trainings for agents at our office about all of that, because it's so important. Attending trainings and getting lots of repetitions completing transactions, and their accompanying paperwork, is crucial to serving clients well and feeling confident as an agent. If you're working another full-time or part-time job, it can be difficult (and sometimes impossible) to attend those trainings, get that daily practice and stay on top of industry news and laws. And the financial/business consequences for missing something or making a mistake because there was a bit of information you didn't know, can be serious.

The more transactions you close, the better you get at negotiations. This is a really critical point. The skill of negotiating and communicating on behalf of your clients is one you get better at the more you do it. It's like a muscle that gets stronger with practice. I pay attention to things that the agents I'm negotiating with do and say. The things that are really smart and effective, I remember and use myself the next time I'm in a similar situation. The things they do that are ineffective, I make note never to do. You can learn so much by observing agents on the other side of the table from you. Learn from their successes and mistakes.

Ask

You might be wondering what to do if being a part-time agent is the best fit for your life right now. As I said, I started out as a part-time agent, and I want to leave you with some advice if that's the road you need to, or want to, take yourself. There are two ways to structure a part-time real estate career that I think are really solid approaches.

Join or build a team. On a team you'd have someone to serve as your transaction coordinator. This person would manage the extensive paperwork process involved in the buying or selling of a property and provide you with accounting and administrative support. Someone else might host showings for your clients, or conduct the initial meeting with new listing clients for you. At Keller Williams you can do this by paying these support positions on an as-needed basis. Transaction coordinators are paid per transaction completed and other admin support is paid on an hourly basis. So, if you're devoting 50% of your energy to real estate, in this scenario you're hiring out the other 50%.

Build a career on referrals. I think I mentioned this in the post about ways to structure a real estate career, but this also applies if you want real estate to be a part-time or side venture. Get your license but don't fully activate it. At Keller Williams, if you refer a client to another agent within the company you will receive a percentage of the commission on whatever transaction comes as a result of that referral. You don't actually show any homes, represent any buyers or negotiate any transactions in this career model. This works really well for some people.

These are probably not the only ways to structure a successful part-time real estate business, but they are my favorites. If you're a part-time agent who's had success using another model, feel free to post about your experience in the Comments section. And as always, please ask any questions you wish via Comments or by contacting me here.

My Top Safety Tips

This is definitely not a fun topic to think, write or talk about. But it is an important one to address. Because the truth is that every job comes with its share of risk—just going about our daily lives comes with a certain share of it—but there are things we can do to mitigate the specific risks you might face as a real estate agent. So, I’m going to share a few of my best tips for staying safe at work. Have your team’s loan officer (or someone else you trust) reach out to buyers prior to your first meeting. In this conversation, my loan officer asks for their address, employer and contact information so we can verify they are legit. I require this before I ever show a home to a stranger. 

Make sure someone in your office knows where you are. Also tell them with whom you are meeting and when to expect you back or when to expect hear from you, anytime you go out for open houses or private showings.

Meet new clients for the first time at your office. When meeting with a client who has hired me to help them purchase a home, our first meeting is always at my office. Always. The whole time I am gauging whether they are someone I feel comfortable serving. If not, I sometimes refer them to another agent in my office who I think might be a better match. That’s mostly based on feeling like our personalities, or their expectations and my approach aren’t a good fit. If I felt like there was something off or unsafe about them, I would not send them to one of my colleagues without full disclosure of my concerns.

Verify the information you can verify. When dealing with a new listing/seller client, I always check that the address they’ve given me is a legitimate address and that their name matches who the county has on file as the owner of record for that property. If it doesn’t, I use a prequalifying script to call them and ask a few more questions BEFORE I go out and meet them at their home.

When conducting an open house or a private showing, arrive early and familiarize yourself with your surroundings. Learn where the exits are and the quickest way to reach them from each area of the house. Avoid entering spaces where you can become easily trapped—closets, laundry rooms, basements, attics, small bathrooms, etc. Stand outside in the hallway and let the client walk in on their own and check out the space.

Always have your cell phone with you. There are also personal security apps you can buy for your phone that would help law enforcement locate you in an emergency.

Trust your gut. If you’re uncomfortable don’t second guess yourself. Remove yourself from the situation. Your safety is more important than possibly hurting a client’s feelings.

A few other things you can consider:

• Bring a buddy with you. Maybe you make it a rule that you always have your assistant, partner or a colleague with you when you show homes to a client for the first time or host open houses.

• Be careful about the information you share on social media or your website. Posing for pictures in front of your house, your car, or wearing expensive jewelry is probably not a good idea.

• Take a self-defense class. You may never need to use what you learn, but just having those skills in your pocket can bring you some peace of mind. This is a good tip for everyone, not just real estate agents.

I hope these tips are helpful to you! I don’t want you to be fearful—I feel really safe as I go about my day because I follow some pretty basic safety rules. But it’s important to look at the ways where there might be some vulnerabilities safety-wise and come up with a plan to address those.

As always, feel free to send me questions by email or leave your thoughts in the Comments section below. Thanks!

The One Question You Must Answer...

Hi there! Another quick video post for you today. As you think about starting and growing your career in real estate, it’s important to think about what sets you apart from other agents and why clients should/do choose to work with you. This is a topic I’ve thought a lot about, and this video reflects my thoughts on it.  Click here to watch! I thought it might be helpful for you to see what I identified as my value proposition and how I communicate that to prospective clients. As always, feel free to get in touch with questions, or share your thoughts in the Comments section below. Thanks!

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.

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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.