Life cycle of an agent..

Going in sync with my interviewing process of do's and don'ts - I wanted to go into more of the life span of a real estate agent. 

Out of  25 agents that I might interview and hire less than half stay with it.  It is a frustrating career.  I see my agents start out all gung ho  ready to make that fortune, and then they quickly fizzle.  When I started out as an agent, real estate was hot.  Real Estate just sold like hotcakes.  If you listed it, you most likely sold it - in less than a week for full asking price.  It was so easy. 

Now with the combination of everyone and I do mean everyone having a real estate license inventory being high,  prices of homes being high as well as less buyers, I have to admit - its harder these days to get a sale.  But - we are still selling.  Just more work.  More showings. 

One of the things that most agents are under the wrong impression is the amount money we make.  Alot, if not majority of agents have this weird notion that as soon as they get their license they are going to enter into an office and BOOM - have three listings handed to them and a closing next week.  I don't know where people get this idea from, but the first thing I tell my applicants is be ready NOT to make any money for at least 3-6 months.  That is providing you make your first sale in a month. 

This is how their frustration begins. After about 3 or 4 months and they have called a few for sale by owners and got NOTHING.  They got a few ups and got NOTHING.  They went on a listing appointment and got NOTHING and no money was made.  They start to question how many hours have they worked and have NOT gotten a pay check.  They start to feel that I have not given them enough time or training (blame usually starts with me or the broker).  They listen to what I say and then do the opposite.  They start to feel pressure when I ask them if they are doing any marketing for themselves.  They wonder why I have them do an open house and then get mad when they find out that they did 5 open houses and another real estate sold that home off MLS. 

They wonder if this is really for them, they start to realize that not all the buyers they took out for the past 8 weeks are qualified to buy a hamburger.  They start to feel that they are working for me and I am not helping them enough.  They then become "Learned".  What I mean by that is they feel that they can go work for someone get a regular pay check and "do real estate on the side".  That is when I hand them their license and terminate them.  They won't be coming back.  There is no such thing as a part-time real estate agent. 

But, every once and a while - there is that one or two - that just make it.  They just clicked.  I did not have to hold hands for a long period of time.  They listened and then acted.  They worked for themselves and not for me.  They made money.  They became good at selling real estate.  They now call me to just get that extra reassurance.   They are doing all of this on their own.  They fell once or twice along the way, but they are sailing  selling all on their own.   They are independent contractors!