Real Estate Is Not Rocket Science
I am like a broken record.
Each week it is the same message, said in a different way (or not).
Real estate is not rocket science.
- Real estate is a Blue-Sky business. You can start at ground zero, and there are no limits to your productivity. You don’t need a pedigree, money, a network, or a fancy education. You don’t need to be familiar with the geographic area. All you have to do is show up and do your job. There is never a lack of opportunity, only a lack of focus and effort. The only one who can get in your way is... YOU.
- Real estate is a relationship business. You are not in the business of selling property. You are not in the business of doing deals. You are not in the business of chasing dollars. Again, this is not a glorified beauty pageant—although you wouldn't know it by looking around at all the agents bragging about selling gazillions of dollars in homes and being number one in their market. That noise is irrelevant. You are in the people business. You are in the relationship business. You are in the business of helping people find their place in the world—find home. This is sacred. There is no other way to explain it.
- Real estate is a progression - Contacts → connections → relationships → leads → pre-appointments → listings → sales → repeat & referral. At each step in this progression, you are looking to build more and more trust. You are always positioning yourself as a trusted advisor. Trust over value. Relationship over transaction. Your clients are not "paychecks".
- Every deal is a miracle. The idea that if you do X things, you’ll always get Y result—that’s a false claim. As much as some trainers and speakers want you to believe that the business of real estate is formulaic, it's not. You can’t make miracles happen, can you? Well, every real estate deal is a miracle. A thousand little things have to line up for it to happen, and the vast majority of those are outside your control. You can only be ready, and wait patiently for the day and the client to be ready too.
- Hopes and Dreams are on the line. Your job as a real estate agent is to sell reality to people whose hopes and dreams are not based in reality. Every seller thinks their house is worth more than it is. Every buyer thinks they can buy the perfect home for half of what it actually costs. These hopes and dreams are based on emotion, and you can’t overcome emotion with facts, logic, and reason. Getting your clients to accept reality is no easy task—reality doesn’t compare to the fantasy world of their hopes and dreams. But until you can guide them to think realistically, they can’t move forward. This is a skill. And this is why mastering Tactical Empathy is so important.
- Every force imaginable is conspiring against you. Everyone in this business is trying to make you work harder for less money. Your brokerage, your clients, your competition, the market…even your own internal stories. You need to recognize this, or you’ll become a commodity. Commodities are interchangeable; they compete only on price, and it’s a race to the bottom. The moment you start competing for business by overpromising results and discounting your commission, you’ve entered that race. It’s unwinnable: There’s always another agent who will promise more and charge less. Don’t fight that current. Instead, step out of it. Own your power, know your worth and only work with people who will pay your full fee.
- Real estate is a battle for consistency. What you get paid most for in this business is consistency. Not creativity, not smarts, not innovation. Those things may be important in other businesses, but as I’ve said, real estate isn’t rocket science. It’s simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple. Consistency means going an inch wide and a mile deep. Everyone wants to do the opposite, to try a little of everything so they can find the quick fix and get their instant gratification. Forget that. Just get better at doing your job every day by doing your job every day!!
- Real estate is a 30+ year career. Everyone comes into this business thinking about the next 5 minutes, the next deal. That's a recipe for disaster. Real estate can and should be a career that lasts 30 years or more. If you do it right, you’ll go through three stages. In the first decade, you’ll focus on building your client base and mastering the fundamentals. In the second, you’ll expand your base and optimize your processes. In the third, you’ll ride the wave you’ve spent two decades creating.
To achieve true staying power in this business, you need to make decisions based on the long run, not the short term. As humans, we tend to overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade. It’s unrealistic to expect quick returns. If you don’t understand this, you end up in what I call the doom loop: constantly chasing leads, convincing them to hire you, and pushing them to close the deal.
That’s a transactional orientation, not a relational one—and again, this is a relationship-based business. Building those relationships takes time, just like farming: you have to plant the seed and nurture it to get the harvest. If you don’t, you’ll be banging your head against the wall every day. So, stop hurting yourself. You’re not getting anywhere, just running on a treadmill. The way to get off the treadmill is to build a repeat and referral business.
No one tells you any of this on day one, and most agents never learn it. They just suffer through a few years of grueling struggle and either drop out of the rat race or resign themselves to it over the long run.
What I’m here to tell you is that doing well and being well are not mutually exclusive in real estate. In fact, unless you’re doing both, you’re not really succeeding. But you can’t do both until you understand the reality of the business you’re in and start making decisions accordingly.
Those decisions compound over time. When you make bad ones early on, they stack up against you. Let’s say you discount your fee to win over a tough lead. You do it because you think in the moment that something is better than nothing, and it’s just one time…but it’s not one time. You’re setting a precedent. If they refer you business or return to work with you again, you have to deal with the fact that you discounted your fee before. A discounted fee can become the gift that keeps giving, and not in a good way.
If you make great decisions instead, they stack up in your favor. Focus on the fundamentals from day one, and you’ll not only save yourself a huge amount of grief but also build a strong foundation for sustained growth. Each nurtured client relationship will bring referrals, and the more of these relationships you cultivate, the faster they will snowball into a steady stream of business.
It’s this power of compounding that brings wealth or poverty, not one deal. So, the sooner you start making the right decisions—based on the reality of the real estate business (as outlined above), not the fantasy—the sooner you’ll see your business and your life transform.
One of the best decisions you can make in your business is mastering your CRM. As I have said time and time again...
CRM is your most powerful business-building tool.
We start our next 10 Week CRM Bootcamp on May 1st (see below).
Every time we do this program we refine it and upgrade it.
Outside of Mindset...This is the most important activity in your business!!
If you know this...And you haven't found the motivation or felt too overwhelmed to tackle this process...
Here is your chance.
If you are already using your CRM...This program is your opportunity to take your skills and effort to the next level!!
