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It’s no secret that agents are struggling, and brokers, coaches and leadership are being challenged more than ever to help their teams sort through the noise of National Association of Realtors settlements, interest rates and battling low inventory.
On a recent coaching call, we had an agent ask a question about where she went wrong. She was working with buyers who unexpectedly announced they no longer wished to work with her, and she was confused and upset, as they had been working well together for months.
What we discovered through conversation is that she didn’t have her buyers sign a buyer agency agreement, and she said, “We don’t really use those in my area, so if I pushed them to sign one, they would have walked away.” She admitted later that she hadn’t insisted on it because she was operating from a place of fear — business was slow, the NAR lawsuit headlines were looming, and she didn’t want to lose clients.
The biggest problem was that those buyers couldn’t know her value because she didn’t know her own value. That’s not an isolated experience. Agents from all over the country echoed her feelings, which opened the door to a much-needed conversation about agents learning to know their essential worth in a world that really does need them.
Your value doesn’t lie in the news or your bank account. Your value is in your heart. Here are some things you need to know if you are feeling low about what you have to offer your clients.
Know your worth
I tell agents that it is critical to do four things right now.
- Don’t wade into the “fights” about the settlement on social media.
- Decide what your fee is for working with sellers.
- Decide what your fee is for working with buyers.
- Master the commission conversations for numbers two and three.
What’s your fee going to be?
What is your time and expertise worth to leave your family and help a client? Is that 1 percent, 2 percent, 6 percent? You have to answer that question for yourself and then get really good at communicating why you are worth that.
If those buyers or sellers don’t like that number and don’t see your value, they can go somewhere else. That frees up your time to work with people who do see your value.
“But Darryl, what if they walk?” What if they do? If they aren’t willing to sign an agreement and work with you as a client, then they aren’t committed to you anyway. Then what? You spend hours or days or weeks working for free only for them to buy or sell with someone else? It’s better for you to cut that off early and move on to someone who can and will commit.
There’s an expression that is fitting here: “You can’t love other people until you love yourself.” In real estate, “You can’t demand what you’re worth if you don’t think you’re worth it.” Let me say that another way, “You cannot ask for a commission with conviction if you don’t feel in your heart that you’re worth that commission.” There’s no sales technique here, no metaphors or analogies, it comes down to you knowing, believing and owning your worth.
You are good enough, and I’m going to show you some facts to help elevate your own belief about yourself because I want you to have a breakthrough in how you perceive your own value.
- Your bank account does not dictate your value, I’m sure many of you check your bank account and you base your value on what the balance is. You think “Geez, this isn’t good. If my bank balance isn’t good, it means I’m not good. I’m not valuable, and I don’t make a difference.” Your bank balance is not who you are.
- If someone practices real estate without a license, they are committing a federal crime. There are a lot of sales professionals out there, but real estate is one of the few sales professions that you must have a license to practice. If you don’t have one and you are helping someone buy and sell real estate, you are committing a crime. You passed a test that, legally speaking, says you can now be in the real estate game and coach and guide other people in their real estate journey.
- The fact that you have a real estate license means you have earned the right to be in front of those homeowners. You have earned the right to charge a fee. You have earned the right to say to a buyer, “This is what I get paid, this is what I’m worth. Why? Because I have a license, and you don’t.” Obviously, you want to say it more professionally, but that is what you need to have in your heart to know your value.
Everything revolves around real estate
Sitting in your chair in your office? Your office is a piece of real estate. The White House is a piece of real estate. The mechanic’s garage where you take your car for an oil change? That’s real estate. The diner where you had lunch? Yup, that’s real estate, too. The Earth is a giant piece of real estate in this universe. Every profession, everything in the world touches the real estate industry, and that fact alone gives you tremendous worth.
It’s all about fiduciary duty
I spent some time looking at other professions to get a sense of where real estate falls, and here’s what I discovered:
- Expert knowledge: Doctors, attorneys, and real estate agents all have expert knowledge of their given worlds.
- License: Doctors, attorneys and real estate agents all must have a license in order to practice.
- Guidance: Doctors, attorneys and real estate agents all provide guidance to their clients and patients to help them make the best-informed decisions for themselves.
- Fiduciary duty: Doctors, attorneys and real estate agents all have a fiduciary duty to their clients to serve their interests above all others.
When I look around at other sales professionals like car salespeople or appliance salespeople, you know what I notice? They have no fiduciary responsibilities. Sure, they can have expert knowledge and provide guidance, but rarely do they need a license, and none of them have a fiduciary duty to the people they are selling to.
In your business, you need to stop thinking like a salesperson and start thinking like a coach.
Real estate isn’t easy. It’s not just blowing up a few balloons, hosting an open house, or researching comps. If it were easy, you wouldn’t need a license to do it.
Real estate agents are constantly problem-solving, negotiating, putting (and holding) the pieces of deals together, emotionally supporting buyers and sellers through their emotional rollercoasters, and so much more. We did a quick poll on the training to see who felt more a therapist than sales professionals sometimes and hundreds of hands went up.
What real estate agents do every single day can be difficult and sometimes draining. But when you can live from a mindset where you know that you are worth your fee and that you have already earned the right to be in real estate, every conversation you have will reflect that confidence.
Darryl Davis is the CEO of Darryl Davis Seminars. Connect with him on Facebook or YouTube.
