You have been telling me how to do my job, and now I am telling you how to do yours. Today it feels like therapy, and from where I sit your job looks easier than mine.
It starts when I get up in the morning. I turn on the news and the talking heads give expert advice on how to sell real estate and where the market is headed.
I try not to listen as they give buyers and sellers advice. Real estate is in the news, and for some it is a hobby. There are people who just "know" how to sell real estate, because apparently no experience is necessary.
Selling real estate can be rewarding, but working on a 100 percent commission basis — especially in this economy — is not for wimps, and I fear that most experts would starve to death before they could make a sale.
It takes a lot of courage and hard work. There are no guarantees and there is no employer-covered health insurance or paid vacations.
I don’t think people have to be real estate agents to understand real estate agents or to understand how the business works. As an agent, I know I can learn from other industries, and I often do because they have something to teach me, too.
The fastest way to lose credibility with a real estate agent is by acting like an expert on selling real estate or running a brokerage. It may not seem like rocket science, but it isn’t something you can become an expert on by hanging out with a few agents or by reading a book.
You cannot fake your expertise when advising agents because we can see through it, and for some reason it becomes annoying in a hurry. I want to say, "Please don’t take that tone with me."
Expertise in marketing, technology, sales or social media will suffice. Numbers, statistics and white papers are always welcome.
One of my friends, a California real estate agent, suggested that the people who are trying to tell her how to do her job should be forced to shadow her for a month. The idea put a smile on my face.
It might not be a bad idea to shadow an agent on a few appointments to get a feel for what it is really like to give a listing presentation or help a buyer find a home to buy.
From an outsider’s point of view it must look like an easy job and it must be easy to wonder why we don’t do a better job. We like to make it look easy, but it isn’t easy.
You may see the latest shiny object as an obvious fit for my business yet you have no idea what it is I do all day or how I do it.
It would be nice to explore a product and brainstorm with a group of people on how to use it in the real estate industry rather than have some expert tell us we have to have it and that we are idiots if we don’t use it.
It is nice to read about new ideas or attend a class without being preached too. Some days I am made to feel like I single-handedly made housing prices drop.
We are bombarded by people telling us what to use and what to buy and how to do our jobs. Many of us are looking for answers as the real estate sales slump continues.
It is a challenge to stay profitable when home prices have fallen so low. Teach me something new, introduce me to new technology, but please stop telling me how to do my job … unless you have some experience to back it up.
