OCT 22, 2022
A few weeks ago, at a final walkthrough of a client’s home, I spoke with the seasoned real estate agent the sellers hired. We chatted about the market, our first deal together, client horror stories, and a bunch of random crap. She mentioned how refreshing it was to work with the new generation of agents that were on top of their files, and specifically how pleasant it was working with me — seriously. After her compliment, she was shocked to learn I had been doing this for < 1 year.
When I started as an agent in late 2021, I knew that the low barrier to entry meant a lot of consumers were not satisfied with the level of client experience + service their brokers provided. This was confirmed when I began to build my own book of business: each of my clients found & retained my services because of a horrible experience with their previous agent. I’m not saying agents suck, what I am saying is the easier it is to qualify for something, the lower the quality of output.
My monthly content output has been steadily improving as I’ve become more comfortable with my Youtube channel (check it out here). There are a lot of unknown unknowns for me as I venture into bolstering my brand through social media marketing but I’m blown away but how much of a low hanging fruit it is. With basically $0, you could start telling the world about your business — If you’re able to spend a bit of $$$ you can be lethal with your messaging and targeting. Not to mention all the cheaply available online courses that teach you to be better.
That being said, it hasn’t come without a tradeoff. If you’re willing to work without paying yourself and sacrifice your free time, I think hope it’ll be worth it. Most entrepreneurs are cognizant of falling into the trap of busy work when working towards their bigger picture. It’s easy to get your legs caught, usually when you’re in survival mode it’s hard to remember the long-term. The challenge of figuring out what’s actually worth doing vs. what’s a waste of time, only time tells us.
Let’s say you know the direction you want to take your company — you have a vision of what it should look like. But that comes with 2 assumptions: (1) Your current vision of the future is the best & (2) What you’re doing now is getting you closer. If you asked me last year what my goal was, I would have said: Buy my first commercial building — far removed from where I am now. That’s the issue most entrepreneurs face: we have to make decisions with the cards we’re currently playing, the inherent risk of the game.
As time goes on, and the longer you’ve survived, your decision-making muscles improve and strengthen to where you’re able to rely on gut choices and not look back. The struggle with building in the first few years is reconciling the current grunt work with the ever fluid vision of the next few decades, all while wondering if anything is even working at all.
