Out of Control: 3 Deadly Mistakes
Agents Make with Their Careers

by Don Hobbs, Hobbs/Herder

Between myself and others on our staff who frequently talk with brokers throughout the country, we tend to hear the same things over and over again, from Florida to the Pacific Northwest, from Maine to our own backyard here in California. Then, with a little analysis, we can identify trends and patterns in the industry, one of which is very alarming to me.

In so many words, brokers have told us that the vast majority of agents simply refuse to take control of their careers. Some figure it’s due to complacency, while others feel their agents just don’t recognize the true opportunity in front of them. I’ve often said that being a real estate agent is a $250,000-$1 million a year business, minus the mistakes you make and the things you don’t do. From the sound of things, however, many agents are making huge mistakes that are costing them not only money, but quality of life.

We’ve identified three major mistakes agents make with their careers, and I’m going to share them with you this month. The biggest culprit common to all of them is the “job mentality.” Agents who want to be successful must realize that being a real estate agent is the same as owning your own business. You can either take control of your business or relinquish it to others. To achieve true success, you must take control and determine your own destiny.

Mistake #1: Relying on the Name and Reputation of Your Company to Generate Leads

This is agents’ biggest downfall when it comes to relinquishing control of their careers. Far too often, agents are content to wait for their company’s name and reputation to deliver clients to them. This is a direct result of the “job mentality.” Agents who understand that being a real estate agent is owning your own business do not sit around and wait for business to be handed to them, because they understand that’s not the broker’s role.

When I talk to brokers throughout the country, I tell them that it is not their role to generate leads for their agents. It never has been and it never will be. That is the agent’s responsibility. When speaking to agents, I say if your broker is doing lead generation for you, you can’t afford to rely on it. If you do, you’re giving control of your career—and ultimately, your life—to your broker.

When you don’t flex your marketing muscle, those muscles atrophy. Look at the people who are most successful in this business. They are not those who relied on their company to drum up business for them. To truly achieve greatness, you need to take matters into your own hands and develop an image and disseminate that image through a powerful, ongoing personal marketing plan.

Mistake #2: No Worries. It’s a Great Market.

The second major instance in which I see agents giving away control in their careers are those agents who tell me, “The market is so good, I don’t have to do any marketing.”

To them, a word of warning - with the good comes good, with bad comes bad. Not to be a naysayer, but all you have to do is look at the history of real estate to realize that markets do not stay “hot” forever. There are good times and there are bad. Just like the success novice investors experienced during the stock market’s dot-com boom, there are times in real estate when any agent can be successful. But there are also those times when every listing will be hotly contested. Those days are the reason you need to market yourself yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Again, if you don’t work your muscles, they atrophy. If you’re not marketing yourself on a consistent basis, you slip out of the personal marketing mode. What’s going to happen, then, is when your market cools, you’re going to try to do some marketing to generate business. At that point, however, having not flexed those muscles for so long, marketing yourself is going to seem like a chore. That’s just another reason why a consistent, systematized approach to personal marketing is an agent’s best bet for true success.

Don’t concede control of your livelihood to the market. Take matters into your own hands with a high-quality personal marketing campaign, and not only will you do well when the market is hot, but you’ll gain huge market share and destroy your competition when the market cools and they stop advertising and producing. To me, that’s the measure of a true MegaAgent.

Mistake #3: Relying on Referrals.

It’s the ultimate scenario for a real estate professional - everyone wants to reach the point where they can sit back and simply reap the rewards of a steady stream of business coming from repeat clients and referrals. Of course that’s what everyone wants. Everyone wants to win the lottery, too, but it doesn’t happen often or easily.

When agents tell me they’re going to begin working by referral only, I advise them that they still need some sort of funnel to get people into their system and keep in touch with their sphere, a group which is instrumental to their plan. There’s nothing wrong with enhancing your relationships with your referral base through personal marketing. The mistake agents make is forgetting that the bigger the funnel they create, the more people there are to provide them with referrals.

A personal marketing campaign is the best method of creating the best funnel you can create. It puts you in control rather than relying on your sphere of influence and past clients to remember you. The service you provide - unless truly remarkable - is probably not as great or memorable as you think it is. And let’s face it - people’s lives are busy. You are not the first thing on their mind. They need reminders in the form of marketing pieces that keep you fresh in their minds.

The problem with all of these scenarios is that once you relinquish control of your career, it becomes more difficult to wrest it back. Fortunately, the solution is simple. Don’t give up control of your career. They say there are three types of people in the world. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder, “What Happened?”

To be one of those who makes things happen, grab your career with both hands, point it in the direction you want to go and provide the necessary tools and support to get there. The only way to truly be in control of your career is to treat it like your own business and invest in it accordingly.

In closing, I’d like to ask you to take a step back and evaluate whether you’re in control or out of control in your career.

Copyright Don Hobbs. All rights reserved. Don Hobbs is cofounder of Hobbs/Herder, and is one of the most respected experts on personal marketing and effective business systems in real estate. He speaks to thousands of agents and brokers every year, consults with the industry’s top agents and companies, and contributes to several major industry publications including Realtor® Magazine and Broker Agent News. For more information, please visit www.HobbsHerder.com.