When I first started in this voyage, I was desperate to get anyone to talk to me about real estate. Whatever they wanted to talk about, I was up for it. I would sit at a bar and listen in on any conversations, checking to see if they might be discussing interest rates or school systems. Anything that I could do to let them know that I was a realtor. After all, the bosses will tell you that the worst thing you can be is a silent agent. This is why realtors LOVE to tell you they’re realtors.
(I went to download an image of a “hey, look at me. I’m a realtor!” t-shirt, but there were about 7800 to choose from and I got overwhelmed. Go ahead and use the google machine if you don’t believe me).
I’m not much for the self promotion stuff, so that was a pretty difficult game for me. It sucked. Actually, it still sucks. If someone wants to know something, they’ll ask. If they do, then I can feel free to talk and talk and talk about appraisals and assessments and the value of property taxes versus income taxes. Otherwise, I’m just kind of annoying.
In the first year, I did all the stuff that I despised when solicitors would do to me. I knocked on doors of expired listings, I texted old friends to say hello but, really, it was so they could ask me what I was doing for work so I could tell them all about it. I’d do a ton of events that I didn’t want to do so I could show that I cared about the people that I was visiting. All sales positions are like this, of course, realtors don’t need a ton of transactions to make a living. They’re big ticket items, which makes real estate agents (especially poor ones in the early stage) even more desperate. And, so, we do annoying stuff for survival. Great times…