The Secret of Successful Agents

Real estate is hard.  No one probably mentioned that when you first started. 

If you've been an agent for very long though, you now know exactly what I mean.  Still, there are some really successful agents out there.  How do they do it?  

I’m often asked what makes some agents more successful than others.

Many people think that successful people are more talented, smarter, or just work harder than everyone else.  But the fact is, none of those things by themselves determine whether someone will be successful.

Let me show you why.

Back in the 1920’s, Dr. Lewis Terman believed that the higher your IQ, the more successful you would become.  So he conducted a study of 1,500 child prodigies. He hand selected the best and brightest children to see if their IQ would predict their level of success.  To Dr. Terman’s surprise, that’s not what he found. Child geniuses didn’t necessarily end up more successful than their lower IQ peers. In fact, many children who had far less intelligence turned out to be far more successful.

Since Dr. Terman’s famous study, we now know the same is true about talent.  Those with superior talent do not necessarily end up succeeding more.  Just turn on the TV or read the news and day after day you will see athletes and business leaders who squander their God-given talent and those with far less talent pass them by.

I’m not suggesting that intelligence or talent aren’t advantages.  They are.  But one’s IQ and talent doesn't predict your overall success.  People with far less talent and intelligence can become just as successful if not more so.

How People Become Successful

So what then makes some people more successful than others?

The answer can be found in mother nature.  The tallest tree in the forest comes from a good seed.  But it doesn’t outgrow other trees simply because of its seed.  It becomes the tallest tree because it was planted in good soil, had plenty of water, and no other trees blocked its sunlight.  In other words, the tallest tree doesn’t become taller because it is special.  It becomes taller because it has hidden advantages over the other trees.

The same is true of successful people.  They’re not successful because of some rare and triumphant collection of special individual qualities — like talent or genius (remember Dr. Terman’s genius study).  They simply have hidden advantages.  Over time, these advantages snowball and lead to more success.  Sociologists call this “accumulative advantage.”  For example, great athletes didn’t start out that way.  They were only slightly better than their peers. But a system of accumulative advantages gave them training, resources, and coaching, and through this special treatment, they became better than everyone else.

And the same is true in real estate. Top producers didn’t become the top salespeople because they are better real estate agents than everyone else. They sell more homes because they’ve had small advantages that have accumulated over time which led to their success.

Remember the foreclosure market a few years ago?  

Thousands of homes across the country were foreclosed on, yet only a handful of agents received these listings. Most agents could have just as easily sold those homes. Instead, banks flooded a few agents in each city with listings until the foreclosures ran dry.  A handful of agents made millions.  The same was true of short sales. The first agents who ventured into short sales and specialized in short sales went on to sell more homes than anyone else in the office during that span.

Foreclosure and short sale agents weren’t special or more talented. They were just in the right place at the right time.

Real Estate Success

So what does this mean to you?

It means that you can be successful in real estate, too.  You don’t have to be the smartest or best agent in your area to sell more homes.  You just have to know how to discover your own hidden advantage in real estate.  

Hidden advantages can vary from having a parent in the real estate industry who then passes on all of their clients to their son or daughter, to taking advantage of new technology, like Facebook or YouTube to attract new clients by the buckets full.  You can even use the tried and true marketing strategies that have helped agents sell homes for years.  The point is, there's not just one hidden advantage that agents have to fight over.  They're everywhere if you only know where to look.

What's your hidden advantage? Without one, you'll be like the other trees in the forest that could become the tallest tree, yet never reach their full potential.

Here's to your success,