Working as a real Estate Agent can be wonderful. You get to decide when you want to work, how much you want to work, and with whomever you want. There is no one telling you what to do or how to do it, you are in charge of creating your own success. But most importantly, you are doing something that is truly changing the lives of people by helping them buy or sell a home.

Real estate can be really lucrative. However, it can be pretty scary as well. Not everyone who jumps into this industry is cut out to become a successful agent. In fact, the majority of real estate agents quit within the first five years. But not many people will tell you about this side of the story. Believe me, being a real estate agent is no walk in the park and nothing will come as easy as they say it will.

I have seen a lot of agents fail in this Business over the years. After looking at the way they worked, their personalities, and the mistakes they made, I have identified ten most common factors because of which they failed to survive in this industry:

1. They’re Not Working Hard Enough

Among the many reasons that I’ve noticed over the years. The most common is that more often than not, people fall victim to the myth that real estate is a luck-out business. Whereas truly luck has nothing to do with the real estate business.

You get what you prospect!

Many of these agents take it as a day-to-day job like working a 9 to 5 gig and hope to make it in this business.

Well, my friend, it doesn’t work that way. To be a successful real estate agent, you have to be willing to make sacrifices, work at odd hours, and put your sweat and blood into what you do.

A successful agent would be available all the time to answer phone calls, reply to emails, and work those unpaid extra hours. The everyday activities will include taking a proactive approach and overcome all the obstacles like problems in generating leads, getting listing appointments and many other, they might face. They hustle to get the business they need to keep themselves and their families happy.

2. They Get Into Real Estate For The Wrong Reasons

Most people get into the real estate business because they want to make money. They rush to take a licence, win a lot of listings, and make a lot of money.

But that shouldn’t be your only reason for getting into this business. Well, first of all, you won’t get rich overnight and you certainly won’t be retiring anytime soon. To be successful in real estate, you first need to have the passion for working in this industry and helping people. It’s okay to dream about money but it shouldn’t be your number one reason to get into this business.

A successful agent’s number one priority will be to help people out with probably the most important decision in their lives by providing them enough value. If that’s the reason you want to get into this business then you can make a great career out of it.

And, if you aren’t doing it then you aren’t worth your salt.

3. They Haven’t Saved Enough Money To Live Their Daily Lives

Working in real estate means you won’t be getting a salary. You need to have enough savings to sustain your everyday expenses, at least for the next 6 months. There is no guarantee that you will get your first listing within the first week of your getting your real estate licence. It takes time to find business and even more time to close a deal.

To save yourself from a lot of headache and pain, you need to have enough financing for yourself and your business. It’s also important to set up financial goals for yourself. You have to plan everything out before you step into real estate.

4. They’re Not Fully Committed

One thing I have noticed over the years in the number of real estate agents who fail is they weren’t fully committed to doing their job. It’s sort of like they had a non-serious approach to it.

If you want to be a successful agent, you need to be fully committed to working and suffering for success. You have to hustle to get that business and persevere when you get rejected by clients. You can’t just make a half-assed effort and then give up. It’s a full-time job that requires your full attention and focus.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a part time agent or a full-time agent. But the main thing to focus on is putting in everything you have. You have to be fully dedicated to giving it your all.

5. They Don’t Set Goals For Themselves

For any real estate agent, setting goals and objectives for their business is very important. The inability to do that is a major reason behind an agent’s failure.

Being a successful real estate agent requires you to set goals for yourself and make a plan to achieve those goals. If you do these two things, you won’t lose sight of your objectives and will continue to achieve one milestone after the other.

Have a business plan to keep your life and business aligned with your goals.

And no, having a yearly goal to meet is not enough. You have to set up objectives after every 3 months and work on following your business plan. Let me put together a list of goals that you should keep in mind when you’re planning ahead.

• Number of sales in a quarter
• Number of listing appointments in a month
• Number of emails to send
• Number of prospects you need to reach out to

6. Lead Generation Is A problem for Them

Real estate lead generation is an art. Believe me, not everybody can generate leads in the same manner and that is why many agents stumble in this business because they fail to generate new leads on a regular basis.

To be a successful real estate agent, you must recognize your opportunities and know when to capitalize on them. There are various methods for lead generation like online marketing, door knocking, hosting open houses, prospecting, or attending events. You have to make the most out of these opportunities. As a new agent, you should effectively try out different strategies for generating leads. Find out what works for you and get things going.

7. Marketing Their Business Becomes A Problem For Them

In your real estate career, you might have seen examples of many agents failing in this business with your own eyes. The primary reason is they didn’t know where and how to promote their business correctly.

Today, marketing your real estate business with traditional offline methods is just not enough. You have to take your business online. Nowadays, the internet has made it so easy because of all the options it provides.

However, using online platforms to only promote yourself is the wrong approach. You have to think about what you post. I mean, people don’t want to know how much money you made in a year. If you could focus on providing value through market insights, current situations, monthly newsletter, marketing emails etc then there’s nothing more valuable than that and it would help establish yourself as an expert in your field.

So whenever you’re marketing yourself, keep one thing in mind and ask yourself is it going to provide valuable information? If the answer is no, stop and re-evaluate your marketing strategy. To be a successful real estate agent, you should continuously be doing that.

8. They Take Things Too Easy

One of the most common assumptions people often have is that being a real estate agent is an easy business. In fact, it’s the total opposite of that. You can’t give me one example of a successful agent who took things easily, neither can I.

In real estate, the incentives are enticing but to reap the benefits, an agent must always be working hard. Even more important than working hard is, working smart and capitalize on the strategies which are giving you results.

9. They Fall Out In Tough Times

One fact that is universally true in the real estate business is that no two markets are the same. Even markets located near to each other will behave differently. And that is how most agents who fail often get confused.

A real estate market is influenced by many factors such as the economy, mortgage rates, and demographics. Agents who fail are unable to deal with these changing conditions. One moment, it was all good, they were making money and the next second, the market started behaving unexpectedly and they couldn’t power through.

On the other hand, successful real estate agents are those who don’t get complacent during good times. They would continue to work hard and build up their business. It’s always a good idea to plan for the tough times that may arise at any time.

If you don’t want to get complacent and build a strong business network. I would suggest that you focus on the following things, even when the market is behaving in your favor.

1. Work on building a pipeline of prospects
2. Continue to make new contacts
3. Work on building a strong business network

10. They’re A Difficult Agent To Work With

Another major reason of real estate agents failure is that they’re hard to work with. People, buyers, sellers, clients, and even other agents don’t want to work with an agent, who makes other people uncomfortable. It could be their personality, their overall work attitude, and many more factors.

If a real estate agent wants to be successful, he/she has to work on people’s skills. A simple introductory greeting can make a difference.

Here’s a free resource which can take you through the 4 easy steps to creating an awesome elevator pitch.

In the real estate business, reputation counts for almost everything. If you have a bad reputation of being an agent that people don’t like working with. It’s going to contribute to failure. But, if you’re someone who wants to succeed, you have to make other people feel comfortable while working with you.

Remember, you’re not the only agent out there. If you’re not being nice, clients can always look for someone else.

Summing Things Up

Being a real estate agent is not easy. It requires all your efforts, your dedication, and your hard work. You can’t expect to survive in this industry without doing your due diligence. So it’s better if you learn from the mistakes others have made and try to avoid them as much as possible.

If you’re starting as a real estate agent and are having problems working anything out. Feel free to email me at [email protected] or leave a comment. I will be more than happy to help you out as much as possible.

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