Zeller - Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies

Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013948030

ISBN 978-1-118-72155-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-72153-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-72154-4 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-72182-7 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Introduction

W elcome! Youre about to move into the league of the most successful real estate agents.

Real estate sales is the greatest business in the world. In my more than 25 years as a business owner and entrepreneur, Ive yet to find a business equal to real estate sales when it comes to income potential versus capital investment. In any marketplace, a real estate agent has the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. (I coach many agents and teams who earn more than $3 million per year.) An agents income is especially significant when viewed against the capital investment required by the business. Most agents need as little as $2,000 to start up their practices. Compare that to any other business and youll find that most involve sizeable investments and burdensome loans to buy equipment, lease space, create marketing pieces, develop business strategies, and hire employees all to achieve what is usually a smaller net profit than what a real estate agent can achieve in the first few years. Its almost too good to be true!

Because of technological advances, including the Internet and social media, a new agent can create the appearance of success, marketplace stature, and marketing experience, far beyond the early stages of a real estate career. This gives new agents better odds at carving out a career for themselves. The timing of your decision to enter the field of real estate or advance your career could not be better. The industry has just come out of a significant market correction, and the number of real estate agents has been reduced by close to 40 percent. Were now reentering a growth phase in real estate where home values are increasing and the number of homes sold is starting to climb again.

Real estate sales paved the way for me to become a millionaire at a very young age. It has provided a solid income, many investment opportunities, an exciting lifestyle, and a platform from which Ive been able to help many others achieve their own goals and dreams in life.

About This Book

This book is about becoming a successful real estate agent, for sure. Its also about acquiring sales skills, marketing skills, time-management skills, people skills, technology skills, and business skills. Its about gaining more respect, achieving more recognition, making more money, and closing more sales. Its a guide that helps you achieve the goals and dreams you have for yourself and your family.

Im delighted to share with you the keys Ive found for real estate success and to help you avoid the mistakes Ive made along the way. (Im a firm believer in the idea that we often benefit more from failures than from successes, but that doesnt mean you have to repeat my failures.)

The techniques, skills, and strategies I present throughout this book are the same ones Ive used and tested to perfection personally and with thousands of coaching clients and hundreds of thousands of training program participants. Although technology has had an expanding influence on the real estate market in the past decade, the foundational skills of sales, time management, marketing, and people skills have not changed as much. This is not a book of theory but of real stuff that works and is laid out in a hands-on, step-by-step format. You can also find time-tested scripts in most sales-oriented chapters. The scripts are designed to move prospects and clients to do more business with you. (If youre a junior member of the grammar police, you may find that some dont perfectly align with your expectation of the English language. The objective of sales scripts, though, is not perfect sentence structure but rather maximum persuasion of the prospect or client.)

If you apply the information contained in this book with the right attitude, and if youre consistent in your practices and in your success expectations, your success in real estate sales is guaranteed.

Throughout this book I incorporate a number of style conventions, most aimed at keeping the book easy to read and a few aimed at keeping it legally accurate:

Throughout this book, I use the term real estate agent rather than Realtor unless Im talking specifically about members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Realtor is a registered trademark owned by the NAR, which requires that the term appear either in all capital letters or with an initial capital R. For your information, all Realtors are real estate agents, but only those real estate agents who are members of and subscribe to the associations strict code of ethics are Realtors.