There’s nothing worse than fear of the unknown, which is precisely the distraction of so many good real estate professionals today.
Many years ago during a changing economy, I found myself in a real estate market of 17% to 19%+ interest rates. This type of market was all new to me and I knew I would have a tremendous challenge ahead, struggling to earn a living and raise my young family of six at that time. Well, it didn’t take me very long to understand that change was among me. The “old” way of doing business wasn’t working, and a new path lay ahead of me. I took a proactive initiative and disciplined myself into learning new skills so that I could educate my prospective sellers and buyers who weren’t confident with the real estate industry because of negative information they were hearing through the media. Yes, the media was negative then also!
My goals were clear. I had to set out and find my own direction before I could begin to give direction. I prepared action plans of what services and systems I could offer my clients. I had to dig in and truly understand the markets I serviced, assess each area of my expertise and on a daily basis because things changed that quickly, just as they do today. (Oh, if back then I had the privilege of the technology offered today).
Once I achieved my goals, encouragement came in the form of people asking me questions, they wanted to be educated. That, by itself, was enlightening to me. Confident in my newfound skills, I felt it my professional responsibility to guide them and help them understand every aspect of the home buying or home selling process. And it took so much pressure off of me because there wasn’t a need to “sell” anymore. People didn’t need to be sold, simply informed. The fear of the unknown was gone, and the fun began.
From the beginning of my real estate career I had a long term commitment to this industry.
I hope you do as well.
Never before I saw opportunity like right now. Specially for professional agents that are connected to the right lenders and keep updated about what is going on in the market. And are out there talking to people. Everybody wants to buy right now.I am telling you…If you are in front of people, you are picking up business. If you are in the office and watching the news you are going out of business. I like to be a participant not a spectator. a book good reading right now would be “Shift” By Gary Keller.
To a successful 2009,
How true! We’re in what I call a “New World of Creative Real Estate Practice”. The only constant about real estate is change. Cycles always go around, we’ve seen a lot of them. We must analyze what’s going on today. Relearn, update concepts, retool and prepare for new strategies. Having 45 years experience in this industry, I’m looking forward to tomorrows challenges. Be optimistic, one day at a time!