If you are looking to become a better real estate agent, learning from mentors who are in the field is an excellent way to grow your progress. Conversations with agents who are currently in the field will give you great insight and other perspectives into some of the current positive and negatives of being a real estate agent. Understanding these can help you grow in areas that may be common pain points for agents to improve upon. Growing a specific set of personal traits is another great way to become a better real estate agent. Personal skills to grow as an agent include sociability, self-reliance, organization, and perseverance. We feel organization and perseverance are the most important.
Organization Skills
Every job requires some sort of organization skills but in real estate this trait is one of the most important an agent can have. Between paperwork, property showings and serving multiple clients an agent needs to time manage their days to keep things moving forward. Poor organization skills will lead to missed sales and loss of clients. Providing quality service while being organized are two of the strongest traits mentioned in positive agent surveys. Word of mouth is your best friend as an agent because happy clients will lead to more clients.
Practicing Perseverance
As an agent you must have perseverance as a trait or grow into a skill if it does not naturally come to you. Deals fall through and you can lose clients but you can’t take it to heart. Pushing through the lows periods of the job enables agents to become better at what they do, and ultimately lead to more connections and business. Deals fall through all the time whether it is on the buyer side or the seller side; things just happen. Also, some clients and agents just don’t click during the real estate process so losing a client can happen even to the best agents in the region. How you overcome these will lead to success.
Professional Sociability
The quality of being sociable across business environments is a valuable trait to grow as a real estate agent. A real estate agent doesn’t have to be a complete social butterfly but being pleasant and relatable will help! Attending local networking or holiday and event-themed events can also lead to potential clients. This doesn’t mean you have to be “always selling” however; everyone you meet – even if they are not interested currently in buying or selling – could lead to clients in the future. Sociability isn’t only for gaining new clients. While negotiating through a deal on a property, an appropriately sociable person can provide comfort throughout the ups and downs that can come with a real estate deal, through the relationships they have developed with buyers and sellers.
Practicing Self Reliance
While an agency or real estate brokerage will help you grow as a real estate agent, the trait of self-reliance is important for an agent to nurture. It is up to you to stay motivated, stay organized or get buyers and sellers. This means a lot of hard work, prompt and confident communications and being available to existing and potential clients.
Agents who grow and get better at all of the skill traits above will have a head start on others who may need to work on some. Even if you have these traits, it is good to step back once in a while to review how you are growing and modernizing them, and what ways exist to improve on them.