The real estate market is hot!
With a stable economy, low unemployment, an increase in millennials buying homes, high savings account rates combined with a low mortgage rates, makes for a very attractive market to people wanting to become real estate agents.
The median gross income for real estate agents is between $41,034 and $52,195. But you didn’t get into real estate to make the median income.
What does it take break 6 figures? It takes planning and a lot of hard work. If you want to be successful in anything you need to plan and work your butt off.
Best way to plan
So, the best way to plan is by starting out with a business plan. Yes, a business plan. There are several reasons why, one being that as a real estate agent you are seen as an independent contractor and as such you are in business for yourself. And like any other small business, in order to be successful you need a business plan.
A business plan is a document that shows you and the reader how you’re going to achieve your goals.
By having a business plan you get valuable information that will help you focus on where you are and where you want to be. With that, a business plan provides information like:
87% of buyers go through real estate agents.
51% buyers the houses they want to buy online.
The economic condition is making consumers demand more new and luxury homes.
The breakdown of a business plan is like this:
Title Page
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
General Company Description
Product and Service
Market Analysis
Marketing Strategy
Operational Plan
Management and Organization
Competitor Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Financial Plan
All these sections work together to create a map from point A to B.
So, how can a business plan help you?
Simple, by assessing your current situation and basically mapping out the information you need to know to work smarter.
Ask yourself?
Who else is working in your zone?
Have you created your budget?
What are you doing to get leads?
Where are you networking?
When do you plan on starting?
How much do other agents spend on marketing?
What zones are you currently working on or wanting to work on?
What type of agent do you want to be, a sellers agent or a buying agent?
Are you going to work as a fee split based agent or a commission based agent?
Keeping you accountable?
Who are your competitors?
A business plan will also help you with your marketing. By showing you how the industry is doing, how your market is doing, where to find your target market. For example, did you know that 56% of Millenials found their home on the internet?
The real estate industry is huge, you have a lot of competition and you have to stand out!
That is what the business plan will help you do, stand out by finding where you are and focus in on where you need to be.
Work Harder than your Competitors
Recently, I've been watching this vlogger on Youtube, Ryan Serhant. If you haven't heard of him, he's a real estate broker in New York, where there are 80,000 brokers, and one of the stars of million dollar listing. In his vlog he talks about how he got into real estate after the housing market crash. How many other agents started during that time and failed.
So what was different with him?
He worked his butt off. He worked when his competitors weren't working, weekends, holidays, etc. And it paid off. He is now probably one of the most recognizable real estate agents in the U.S. and has a networth of about $20 million dollars.
In one of his vlogs he says how he got some really great advice. He said, "The one thing you have over everybody else is hard work. The one thing you can do that no one else can take from you is hard work. If you work harder and you work longer hours you work more days than everybody else eventually you will catch up and eventually you will surpass them. Because everybody else has to go to the movies...go to the beach...sleep, hangout...they want to do whatever they want to do and it's only your fault if you don't take advantage of their down time and make that my uptime... The only thing we have is time."
So work hard! This is your leverage, this is how you are going to beat out your competition!
Gary Vaynerchuk, in a Youtube video, 95% of You Will Ignore This 2018 Marketing Strategy In this video he talks about using Instagram and why now is the time to use Instagram and Instagram influencers.
But you have to do it, you have to work hard. Be on the offense, be optimistic, and eventually it'll pay off.
And don't forget, don't dream about success, work for it! Get your business plan and work hard.
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