10 Common Mistakes Made by Underperforming Real Estate Agents
A real estate career can be extremely rewarding, provided you understand what to do and what not to do. Sure, anyone starting a new career is going to make mistakes, but mistakes made in real estate can be very costly.
Real Estate Agents make mistakes every day because they either don’t know how to avoid them, or they don’t know they’re making them, so it’s really important that you make yourself aware of the commonly made mistakes that may ultimately prevent you from reaching your full potential.
While a career in real estate sales offers a flexible schedule, uncapped income potential, and the ability to help others, you don’t want to be the agent whose career comes undone simply because you were unaware of the common mistakes and bad decisions made.
As you know, I’ve been working in the property market for more than 20 years and I’ve witnessed first-hand the common mistakes made by underperforming agents. In fact, I committed some of these mistakes myself when I first started in real estate sales.
I want to help you avoid making these common mistakes; to help you take your real estate career further and faster, to become a leading agent in the property market business.
So let’s dive right in and take a Look –
1. Choosing The Wrong Team
This may sound too simplistic, but one mistake I have observed by underperforming real estate agents is that they chose the wrong team for them. You need to choose a high-energy team that operates in a vibrant environment.
The success of your career is dependent on you being surrounded by happy, positive people. When you have a positive attitude it becomes much easier to cope with the daily stresses of life. Positivity brings optimism into your life, both of which spread like ripples throughout a sales office. Happy, healthy, positive people think about what they want out of life and how to get it.
So you can see that a positive attitude can change your entire life by giving you greater control. When the people around you are always happy and positive, you will be too; and when you teammates are closing sales, you will be too!
Also be aware of choosing a team with a culture of open sharing. You need to be able to converse with team-mates who have no hesitation in helping or giving advice, and vice versa. One of my team mottos is “We Rise By Lifting Others”.
There’s a lot to learn when you first start out in real estate sales, from dialogues and negotiation, ethics, standards, and legislation, all of which will be essential for the rest of your career, so it’s really important you start out with a good team.
Success leaves clues - Tony Robbins
2. Choosing the Wrong Mentor
This can be a tricky one, because many newbies starting their real estate career join an agency because they know someone there, more so than someone they could learn from. Do you know that this acquaintance or close friend has mentoring experience to help you achieve your goals?
Others choose mentors based on his or her sales performance. So what should you be looking for? You need to choose someone who is committed to teaching you the ropes and who has a proven track record of grooming top property agents.
Things to look out for –
· Check your prospective mentor’s track-record for mentoring salespeople.
· Check how much in sales their top 20% of agents are producing – this should be a minimum of 6 figures per year.
· Find out what their coaching beliefs, methods, and ideologies are: are they right for you?
Football coach José Mourhino didn’t play for a top club and was never a good footballer, but he turned out to be one of the best football coaches in the world. Why? His strength was his ability to unite his team. Under his clever coaching his team won many competitions due to his brilliant communicating skills and shrewd tactics; also because he expected only the very best conduct and behaviour from his players.
A good coach can change a game. A good mentor can change a life.
3. Not Having a Business Plan
You’re essentially starting your own business when you become a real estate agent, which is why a well-thought-out business plan is key to your success. Unfortunately, many property agents have no timeline or clear goals for achieving their objectives. It’s way too easy to spend money and time in ways that don’t pay off when you have no business plan.
When you create a real estate business plan it helps identify both your short and long-term goals, with a clear outline of how you plan to achieve them. A business plan helps define where you want to go, how you’re going to get there, and what it’s going to take to create a successful real estate business.
Below I’ve listed what I believe are the essentials for a good business plan –
· Start with your goals. Write down what you want, and make it clear, measurable, concise, and achievable.
· What services and areas do you want to specialise in? Commercial or residential, sellers/buyers/renters? One of the biggest mistakes underperforming real estate agents make is being unfocused, and with no specific goals.
· Know your market, which means answering the question “Who are you marketing yourself to?” One way of learning the local market, buyers and sellers, is to start communicating with people you already know, with a gentle reminder that you are now in the real estate business.
· Keep a record of your expenses. Write down every expense you can think of, for your cell phone, transportation, advertising, marketing, and so on. Then make a plan and follow through, ensuring that all expenses are paid whilst still allowing allocated time and budget for your new business venture.
· Create a marketing plan. Do you have a plan to advertise your services? The easiest way to start marketing yourself is through the people you already know. Make a plan to contact your circle of people – family, friends, neighbours, and so on - then follow through.
4. Not Keeping on Top of the Property Market
Your role as a real estate agent is to be an expert in the local property market. An astute property agent will have a thorough understanding on local market conditions and residential property trends.
When a potential client comes to you looking to buy a house, they are relying on you to advise on the demographic of who lives and works in that area, including information regarding schools, shopping, hospitals, and community events and groups.
Unfortunately, many real estate agents fail to stay abreast on property news and trends and are unable to offer advice to their clients. You simply must understand your market area, which means you must spend time doing your research.
Not only should you know the median property price in your area, you should also be fully aware of property trends, new infrastructure, local business updates, and so on.
This valuable information which can be obtained by our mobile app, Huttons Link Up, could then be distributed to your database via a weekly e-newsletter, thus establishing yourself as an authority on the local real estate scene. This type of research is absolutely essential if you want to succeed in your real estate career.
5. Not Learning Time Management Skills
Everyone should learn how to manage their time, and none more so than property agents. All top performing real estate agents have excellent time management skills. Every moment of their day is planned to ensure their focus is on high payoff activities, because that’s how they reach their goals.
There are always going to be distractions throughout your day, and if you lack time management skills you’ll quickly discover there are not enough productive hours in your day, which will ultimately have a negative effect on your income potential. Time is money in real estate sales and you need to make every minute work for you.
I always plan a weekly timetable to guide me to do the necessary things in order to achieve my goals.
6. Ineffective Spending on Marketing
Perhaps the hardest part of being a real estate agent is finding the business. Many agents simply don’t want to spend money on marketing and advertising, while others spend their marketing dollars in ineffective ways. They overspend on marketing because they’re spending their money in the wrong places.
It may seem that print marketing, like real estate magazines and newspapers, are the obvious visible channels, but they don’t necessarily yield high returns in today’s marketplace.
Below are some of my earlier days advertisements.
Before you start spending money on advertising, why not sit down and make a list of all the people you know in your personal sphere of influence. Use social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn to promote your new real estate business. Attend networking events and publish your own articles.
Use every opportunity to put your name out there and make sure your contacts know you’re open for business. You’ll find that building out your referral network will serve you really well in the long run.
A good rule of thumb is that you should spend between 20% and 30% of your total yearly revenue on your business advertising campaigns. A clever, personal marketing campaign at the beginning of your career is the perfect way of getting your name out there.
7. Not Hiring An Assistant Soon Enough
Don’t think of hiring an assistant as an expense; is actually an investment – one that will pay huge dividends. Your focus should be on what an assistant will bring, rather than what it will cost you.
When I was doing sales in the first few years of my real estate career, I myself made this very costly mistake. I was closing many sales with very good commission and was reluctant to hire an assistant. So, after five years of working very long hours, I eventually burnt out.
Consider the following -
· What would ten extra hours of prospecting a week do for your business six months from now?
· How much would your stress levels reduce if you could pass off three of your least favourite tasks in this business?
· What would it mean to your spouse and children if you were to spend those extra hours with them?
My personal assistant, Rena Lim from 2005 to 2012.
Take it from someone who’s been there; if you hire an assistant you will be paid back physically (less stress), financially (increased business), and emotionally (more free time for family and friends, and hobbies).
8. Not Making the Best Use of Social Media
Neglecting, or avoiding, social media can seriously damage your property business. You may feel this is a problem typically associated with older generations; however, this is a classic mistake that younger real estate agents make too.
In the past, the real estate game wasn’t considered to be a high-tech business, but things have changed dramatically. Personally, we have become very dependent on cell phones, computers, and tablets, and so has the real estate business. And I’m not only referring to advertising services; today we’re seeing homes featured on a number of social media platforms and this advertising reaches clients who otherwise may never have seen these properties.
It’s networking on your social media platforms that delivers the highest chances of getting leads. Whatever you do, don’t ignore social media – maintain and continue growing your online presence by staying active on all social media platforms.
You can connect to me in FB here - https://www.facebook.com/garychuagimkie or find out more about my group here https://www.navislivinggroup.com/
I want to point out another mistake that property agents make. Many of them only use social media as a real estate tool, which can be both impersonal and repetitive. To become a highly successful real estate agent you need to be genuine and engaging.
Remember that your audience will want to connect with you on a human level; they want to meet the person behind the real estate agent. Then, hopefully, they’ll want to do business with you.
There’s a certain magic about the real estate profession, and the secret to success is to grow and maintain long-lasting relationships. Remember to be a real, genuine person first, and a salesperson second.
9. Not Developing Real and Lasting Relationships With Clients
The truth is that your real estate business can’t afford not to have real and lasting relationships with your clients. The relationship between you and your clients is critical when it comes to real estate sales because it all comes down to trust.
Referrals are such an important part of the real estate game. People need to know they can trust the person who’s handling their biggest asset, and they’re much more likely to take advice from someone they already know.
The relationship between you and a client should not begin and end with them buying a property. You now know a lot of information about that client, like their personal situation, their financial details, their family, and so on.
It’s very important that you maintain a connection with all your past clients, whether it be via social media or occasionally through email. It’s these same clients that will play an important role in your referral network.
10. Not Thinking like a Business Owner
This may be my last point, but it’s probably the most important point of all. If you want to succeed in real estate sales you must have a business-owner mindset. Don’t get so focused on finding your next lead that you lose sight of the big picture.
Highly successful real estate agents consider themselves not only real estate salespeople, but a brand. Using an holistic approach, they build their real estate career as an independent business owner. This includes branding themselves, managing their advertising and marketing, regularly upgrading their knowledge, and whatever else it takes to create and grow a profitable business.
You have to know what you have to do tomorrow before you sleep tonight. Your daily activities must lead you to your long term goal. You must have the mental fuel to get you to take action every single day.
In Conclusion
Most property agents today have only worked as employees – they’ve never been in business for themselves. They consider getting into real estate as a new job when, in fact, they are going into business for themselves, which is an entirely different mindset.
A career in real estate can be very exciting and very lucrative. Once you’ve learned the tricks-of-the-trade you’ll have opportunities for limitless potential and freedom.
Unfortunately, this same business has a an extremely high failure rate. This doesn’t have to be you! Carefully study the above 10 common mistakes made by real estate agents and you’ll already be way ahead of the competition.
** Please share this article if you find it useful or know someone who can benefit from it. Thank You.
To Your Success,
Gary Chua is the co-founder of Navis Living Group
—A 1300 agents-strong division with Huttons real estate agency, and the fastest growing group in this competitive industry. Gary is also a mentor to many real estate agents and team builders, for two decades and counting.
Before devoting his work full-time to grooming realtors, Gary was himself an distinguished real estate salesperson. He first stepped into the industry at age 30 in Year 2000 and having been Top 50 Achievers in his 5 years of sales, he understands the hurdles and challenges facing both new and experienced agents, and is thus equipped with a wealth of knowledge to aid and teach the property agents whom he takes under his wings.
In 2005, Gary realised that his true calling was to groom and coach the next generation of real estate agents. It was also the year that he consciously diverted almost all of his time and effort into recruitment activities, putting his personal sales aside and taking a hit in his bottom line.
Through sheer grit and determination, Gary's vision took hold as his team expanded, eventually growing to become the largest division in its agency, and also one of the largest in Singapore. It cultivated numerous top producers and achievers throughout the decade—some of whom have clocked in more than S$1,000,000 in commission in a single year, broken many sales records, won many local and international awards, and helped many real estate agents achieve outstanding results and realise their financial freedom.
Click here and subscribe to my Youtube Channel Gary Chua The Real Estate Agent Mentor