Real estate agents come in all shapes and sizes. They also have a variety of behavioral traits and personality types. To be able to support agents and help them be the most successful they can be, some brokerages (my own included) start off with new agents by conducting a DISC assessment.
If you’re unfamiliar with the DISC assessment, taking one online might be a fun way to start your day. The DISC assessment helps to show you some of your dominant behavioral traits (as if you didn’t already know them) which ultimately may help you analyze or strategize on the best ways for you—with your unique behavioral traits—to be the best real estate agent you can be. Easy example: if the DISC shows you as low interpersonal, you might be slightly less successful than others at drumming up new business at a large gathering.
Despite those behavioral traits in the DISC, I’ve put together a list of 5 things that will help agents be more successful (slightly tongue in cheek, but nevertheless and sadly, somewhat real).
You’re Meant to Be a Real Estate Agent if You…
- Can take a baseball bat to the knees 3 times before noon and still keep moving on with a smile. Real estate agents get bad news so many times a day, but need to be plugging along and not carry those bad vibes into their next communication. Sometimes you lose a listing, you learn that your old friend or even your mother hires a random agent, or your client wants to cancel—all before 11 am. The most successful agents always keep more in the sales pipeline and do not take anything to heart.
- Get Phone Calls Late into the Evening. Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not advocating that you answer them. In fact, I’ve long preached that you need to set your schedule and stop responding to business calls, emails, and texts when your day ends. But agents often get calls from clients or other agents late into the evening. In fact, my very own husband (our office sales manager) had two calls from agents after 9:00 pm last night.
- Have an email inbox flooded with spammy sales pitches. My personal email inbox is truly like a game of whack-a-mole. I try to unsubscribe periodically to all those promotions or leads and products that I do not need, but for each unsubscribe, it appears that I get about 5 new emails trying to sell me something else. Don’t get sidelined by all this stuff you do not need. Pick a few products or platforms that work for you and then just keep moving forward. If you are uncertain about great products and platforms, check out some of my old posts or speak with an office colleague you respect to get some ideas for tips and tools.
- Drive a fine automobile. There has long been a generalization that all agents drive luxury cars. And, of course, all we do is look at nice homes and eat fancy lunches. Part of the original lure of the fancy car was that we would actually drive clients to see homes. Well, in 2021, many homes are viewed online and driving a client to an appointment barely ever happens anymore. Nevertheless, many agents feel that luxury automobiles send a message that you are successful, which instills confidence in those who hire you or use your services.
- Have a business card with your photo on it. When I started out in the business, I really did not understand the value and importance of a business card with a photo on it. But, then, when I got short sale “famous” (during the Great Recession when I toured the US teaching agents to work in the short sale/foreclosure market), I realized that lots of people actually felt they knew me and hired my company because knowing my face made them feel that we “knew” each other already. And, that was well before social media. So, now and for several years previous, I am a huge advocate for having a decent social media presence and also having your photo on your card.
There are all sorts of traits to being a successful agent, but if you had to do a litmus test using the 5 items listed above, I’d bet you’d see a color change ☺
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