Winter in Michigan is not for the faint of heart. Bitter biting cold wind. Regular snowfalls. Gray sky from November to April. It can lead many into inactivity through discouragement if they don’t do the right things to combat it. As a Realtor for a tiny brokerage in Michigan, I recall struggling with this in the winters. Real estate slows down to a crawl in the Michigan winters; so if you don’t have a way to combat professional discouragement, you can find yourself having a hard time. And to make matters worse, I was part of a brokerage where I was the only member. I had “partnered” with a real estate broker who only kept the brokerage open to supplement his income. So even he was not full time. And as far as I knew, I was the only active agent he employed. I was on an island. When business was good, the problems caused by being a one-man brokerage were masked and imperceptible. After all, I was actively lead generating and working real estate deals. But when things mostly came to a halt in the winters, there was no escaping inactivity through discouragement. In my current position, my full time work is serving realtors in Eastern North Carolina. I help them take care of their clients with our company product. This means I get a unique perspective traveling hundreds of miles per week engaging with thousands of realtors. This has given me the opportunity to interact with realtors who are very successful and realtors who are struggling to get any business. And I have found there are consistent things that are true about each. One of the biggest differences I have noticed between these two types of realtors is mindset. And one of the biggest contributors to mindset is culture and environment.
When I start a conversation with a realtor, I can often tell within the first minute or so whether they are doing well or struggling. One of the signs of a realtor who is thriving in business is they are in a hurry and have little time to talk. But this is not because they are rude. It is because they have to prioritize their time to be as productive as possible. They are people who I have to be intentional to get in front of. Face time with them is a scarce resource, and it almost never comes spontaneously. Once I do get in front of them for even a few minutes, there is another thing that is often clear. They are opportunists. They are always looking for how they can get ahead and synthesize multiple resources and human connections to create more value around them. They are not content to just have a conversation with me for a few minutes. They look for ways to combine what I am offering them with their network and other resources to optimize the moment. Another way they set themselves up for success is by surrounding themselves with people that are also successful. The most successful realtors have people in their lives who are doing much better than themselves, who are at the same level as themselves, and who are not yet as successful as themselves. This is because they want to have others they are pouring into and inspiring, others who they can compete with and sharpen one another, and others from whom they can learn and who will help them keep a vision of what is possible if they keep working hard. But the key is they are not alone. Show me a realtor who spends most of every day alone, and I will show you a realtor who is probably not going to be a realtor for much longer.
One of the benefits of surrounding yourself with other successful people is that they are regular daily reminders to you that success is possible. The natural order of the world around us is for people to tell others that something difficult can’t be done. In our current economy, the common people are acutely aware and regularly talking about how hard it is to be successful in real estate nowadays. They talk about how no one wants to buy because interest rates are so high. They talk about how no one wants to sell because interest rates are locked in at the old low rates. They talk about the outlook of the economy and the uncertainty of what lies ahead. The unsuccessful realtor listens to these voices, believes these voices, get discouraged, which leads to inactivity, and then gets more discouraged because no business is coming to them. However, I also meet realtors every day who are not listening to the noise, who are going after success with all their might, who are being creative and making connections and networking and thriving. I meet realtors every week who have only been licensed for a year or two years or three years and who are thriving. So what is the difference? Why are some doing well and others not?
It all comes down to mindset. And mindset all comes down to the people with whom you surround yourself. I met a young lady recently who wrote a course for first time home buyers. She wrote material to teach them about the process, and then created regular events inviting people to attend and learn about the first time home buyer process. She recruited her preferred lender and some other key people to attend and holds these classes once per month. She has gotten tons of business from this strategy. I know another realtor who created a YouTube channel to talk about her local area. She records videos and then hires out a video editor for cheap on fiverr to edit her short videos. She has grown her channel to thousands of followers and gets hundreds of leads per week this way.
When you have a campfire, the heat of the fire is sustained through having hot embers at the heart of the fire. Through their close proximity, together these burning embers feed heat to each other, mutually benefitting one another. But if you were to pull a hot coal out of the fire and let it sit alone, it will quickly cool and its heat will quickly fade. This is like me in the Michigan winters. I recall sitting in my basement office on cold gray winter days paralyzed with inactivity through discouragement. I was the ember that had no synergy of other hot embers from which to be sustained and to whom I could contribute my heat. Now, I am in real estate offices regularly. Some of these agencies are ghost towns and have no one there. In other offices agents are swarming. In these busy offices, there is a robust schedule of training opportunities, classes to deepen one’s learning, and organic real relationships built with agents who are sharpening one another. These agents are surrounding themselves with the right people, and in turn they are hearing and believing the right things, and their success is much more highly likely than the lone agent.
The opportunity is out there for the person who chooses to not listen to the naysayers and to surround themselves with the right people. But success does not happen passively. It never comes to you. You have to go out and get it. And that can start with choosing to believe the right things about what you can accomplish. It can start by choosing to surround yourself with the right network of people. And it always has everything to do with mindset and belief.
Inspired Resolve 