What it Takes to Become a Successful Real Estate Agent

One of the greatest things about working in real estate is that how hard you work goes a long way to determining just how successful you will be. When your career is in your own hands it can be incredibly powerful and motivating to know that when you put in the work, huge success can follow. Great agents who reach the top of their fields often have very similar characteristics and run their businesses in similar ways.

Here are some things successful agents do to reach the top of their game.

1. Work Ethic

It's no secret that to succeed in real estate you will need to be prepared to outwork your competition. The more people you’re able to get in front of, the more calls you make, the more leads you generate, and the more listings you’ll win which ultimately leads to more sales.

While there’s only a set number of hours each day, successful agents make sure they are using every one of them on the highest value activities they can. These are the activities that ultimately grow revenues. A great way to create more time in your day is to leave the repetitive admin work to be handled by your CRM. Utilising Eagle Software’s automation means that follow up emails and SMS messages are already taken care of, giving you more time to spend on revenue generating activities. 

Learn more on how automation can save you time and money through these helpful resources:

• How Agents Can Benefit From Real Estate CRM Automation
• Save Time and Effort With Automated Real Estate Marketing
• Webinar - How to Save Time and Maximise Lead Generation Using Marketing Automation

2. Teams

If you’re trying to be successful in real estate, there comes a point when the amount of tasks you need to complete on a given day becomes too great. This is when you need to start looking at building out your team.

Great agents are always looking at ways they can effectively fire themselves from certain jobs, and then hire people to help free them up. This can be in the form of virtual assistants, junior staff or back office staff. It’s very difficult to compete against a team if you’re just a one-person operation. Most successful agents will tell you that their biggest mistake came from not building a team fast enough.

3. People person

If you don’t love speaking to people then real estate might not be the right career for you. Successful real estate agents have to have the ability to communicate and connect with all types of people from very different backgrounds.

You also need to be able to hold people’s hands through what is often the largest financial transaction of their lives. This isn’t always easy and being able to communicate clearly and personably will go a long way to determining your success.

You’ll also need to have a good memory and remember all the little details of properties and the people you come in contact with. This helps build rapport and trust with people and shows that you’re a true professional.

Eagle Software’s Mobile App allows you to easily take notes and record information you’ve just collected on phone calls or in-person conversations on the go. By recording those small, personal details in conversation, you’ll be able to refer to those notes in future conversations and check in on how their son’s soccer game went, or how their birthday is coming up soon. These personal details go a long way in developing a trusting relationship with your potential buyers and vendors. 

4. Systems

If you’re looking to scale any type of business, you need to have a set of systems in place so that you can continue to grow. The way you operate the business, your marketing strategies, the people you employ and the technology that you use all form part of your systems. Top agents have their systems honed in and running like a well-oiled machine.

Having strong systems in place doesn’t happen overnight, it continues to evolve as your business grows and your operations expand. The most important thing is that you have a system in place and the will to continue to improve them over time.

5. Technology

Real estate technology has come on in leaps and bounds in the last decade and now virtually all agents will be using various forms of technology to help them generate new business and manage their current client load.

The cornerstone of most successful agents is normally their CRM - here's why. To be successful in the industry, you need a powerful CRM that will allow you to have access to all your information and contacts both in the office and on the road. As mentioned, because so much of the industry is built around relationships and people, it will be nearly impossible to become a successful agent or a top performer without a quality CRM that integrates with other key tools in your technology stack.

Discover why Eagle Software is the best CRM solution for you and your agency. 

6. Staying power

The final key trait of any successful agent is what type of staying power they have and how they respond to being knocked down. In any type of sales business, you’re going to have to be prepared to face the word ‘no’.

But as any successful agent or salesperson knows, every ‘no’, is just one step closer to the next yes. Oftentimes, the most successful agents out there are the ones that can keep on getting up after being knocked down. How you respond to the hard times, or during downturns in the market, will ultimately be a big indicator of what type of success you’re going to have in the long run.

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