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Welcome to the third edition of Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies! You’re about to move into the big leagues, populated by the most successful real estate agents.

Real estate sales is the greatest business in the world. In my more than 30 years as a business owner and entrepreneur, I’ve yet to find a business equal to real estate sales when it comes to income potential versus capital investment. In any marketplace, a real estate agent has the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. (I coach many agents and teams who earn more than $3 million per year.) An agent’s income is especially significant when viewed against the capital investment required by the business. Most agents need as little as $2,000 to start up their practices. Compare that to any other business and you’ll find that most involve sizeable investments and burdensome loans to buy equipment, lease space, create marketing pieces, develop business strategies, and hire employees – all to achieve what is usually a smaller net profit than what a real estate agent can achieve in the first few years. It’s almost too good to be true!

Because of technological advances, including the Internet and social media, a new agent can create the appearance of success, marketplace stature, and marketing experience far beyond the early stages of a real estate career. This gives new agents better odds at carving out a career for themselves. The timing of your decision to enter the field of real estate or advance your career could not be better. The industry has seen a steady and exciting improvement in sales and opportunity in the last few years. New agents are entering real estate sales in very high numbers. Real estate is in a strong growth phase in which home values have risen back to peak pre-recession market pricing.

Real estate sales paved the way for me to become a millionaire at a very young age. It has provided a solid income, many investment opportunities, an exciting lifestyle, and a platform from which I’ve been able to help many others achieve their own goals and dreams in life.

About This Book

This book is about becoming a successful real estate agent, for sure. It’s also about acquiring sales skills, marketing skills, time-management skills, people skills, technology skills, and business skills. It’s about gaining more respect, achieving more recognition, making more money, and closing more sales. It’s a guide that helps you achieve the goals and dreams you have for yourself and your family.

I’m delighted to share with you the keys I’ve found for real estate success and to help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made along the way. (I’m a firm believer in the idea that we often benefit more from failures than from successes – but that doesn’t mean you have to repeat my failures.)

The techniques, skills, and strategies I present throughout this book are the same ones I’ve used and tested to perfection personally and with thousands of coaching clients and hundreds of thousands of training program participants. Although technology has had an expanding influence on the real estate market in the past decade, the foundational skills of sales, time management, marketing, and people skills have not changed as much. This is not a book of theory but of “real stuff” that works and is laid out in a hands-on, step-by-step format. You’ll also find time-tested scripts in most sales-oriented chapters. These scripts are designed to move prospects and clients to do more business with you. (If you’re a junior member of the grammar police, you may find that some don’t perfectly align with your expectation of the English language. The objective of sales scripts, though, is not perfect sentence structure but rather maximum persuasion of the prospect or client.)

If you apply the information contained in this book with the right attitude, and if you’re consistent in your practices and in your success expectations, your success in real estate sales is guaranteed.

Throughout this book I incorporate a number of style conventions, most aimed at keeping the book easy to read, with a few aimed at keeping it legally accurate:

❯❯ Throughout this book, I use the term real estate agent rather than Realtor unless I’m talking specifically about members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Realtor is a registered trademark owned by the NAR, which requires that the term appear either in all capital letters or with an initial capital R. For your information, all Realtors are real estate agents, but only those real estate agents who are members of and subscribe to the association’s strict code of ethics are Realtors.

❯❯ The word agency describes the relationship that a real estate agent has with members of the public, or as they’re sometimes called, clients. When clients list a home for sale, they enter a contractual relationship with the agent who will represent their interests. That agreement is called an agency relationship. Every state and province has a unique set of laws stipulating how consumers and real estate agents work in an agency relationship. These agency laws have been reworked and clarified over decades. Throughout this book, when I refer to agency agreements, I’m describing the real estate agent’s relationship with buyers or sellers, depending upon whether the agent is the listing agent or the selling agent.

❯❯ Bulleted and numbered lists present important information in a quick-skim format. Watch for lists marked by numbers or check marks. They contain essential facts to remember, steps to take, or advice to follow.

❯❯ Whenever I introduce a new term, I italicize it and follow it up with a brief definition.

Foolish Assumptions

As I compressed a career’s worth of real estate experience and coaching advice into these pages, I had to make the following assumptions about you, the reader:

❯❯ You’re already a licensed real estate agent. If you haven’t yet taken the real estate license exam, consider the book Real Estate License Exams For Dummies, 3rd Edition, by John A. Yoegel (Wiley, 2017).

❯❯ You’re looking to rev up your real estate business, whether you’re just starting out or have been in the business for a while. You may be deciding which real estate company to join. Or you’ve already launched your career with a good company and are now looking for advice on how to climb the success curve faster and higher. Or maybe you’re interested in refining specific skills, such as prospecting, selling, running your business more efficiently, or building customer loyalty.

Icons Used in This Book

This wouldn’t be a For Dummies book without the handy symbols that sit in the outer margin to alert you to valuable information and advice. Watch for these icons:

When you see this icon, highlight the accompanying information in your brain. Jot it down, etch it in your memory, and consider it essential to your success.

The light bulb marks on-target advice and tried-and-true approaches that save time, money, and trouble as you achieve real estate success.

When there’s a danger to avoid or just a bad idea to steer clear of, this icon sits in the margin issuing a warning sign.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. Go to www.dummies.com and search for “success as a real estate agent” to find these goodies. To view this book’s Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.

Where to Go from Here

The beauty of this book is that you can start wherever makes the most sense for you.

If you’re a newcomer to the field of real estate sales, I suggest that you start with Part 1, in which I consolidate all the start-up information that you’re likely to be looking for.

If you’ve been in the trenches for a while and simply aren’t having as much success as you’d like, start with Chapter 3 or 4 and go from there.

If you’re pressed for time, facing a crucial issue, or grappling with a particular problem or question, turn to the table of contents or index to look up exactly the advice you’re seeking.

Wherever you start, get out a pad of yellow sticky notes, a highlighter pen, or your note-taking app and get ready to make this book – and all the information it contains – your own key to success. I send you off with my very best wishes!