Thread: Established

Greetings everyone,

I'm new into the business and currently working part-time but will be transitioning from active military to full time agent. Looking for any advice on how to get my self established before I retire in November? Any suggestions/comments are appreciated.

Originally Posted by CoastalJacksonville

Greetings everyone,

I'm new into the business and currently working part-time but will be transitioning from active military to full time agent. Looking for any advice on how to get my self established before I retire in November? Any suggestions/comments are appreciated.

Here's some advice...get a website. Oh wait, you've already got an awesome one! Good luck!

Thanks for the support and I look forward to building my business.

Thank you for serving our country.I appreciate your commitment and sacrifice.

Best of luck in your new career as an agent. It's a tough time getting into real estate right now with the market taking a down turn in many regions throughout the country.

Since I do not know anything of your sales background, skills, and personality I will make some generalizations:

Getting started in real estate can be very tough. Usually, friends, family, work, and church contacts are a good place to find a listing or two of your own.

In my opinion, there are two places you should initially spend your time. First, go on all of the agent home tours in your area. Even if you have been in town for years, you can usually learn something new about each neighborhood. It's also great to familiarize yourself with the listings in your area.

Second, accept as much "up time" in the office as possible. Yes, it can be boring and in most locations these walk-ins don't lead to sales. But it does give you a chance to hone your skills with potential customers and clients.

When it comes to marketing (print, media, web, radio, TV) spend your money wisely. Just because 90% of the agents in your market advertise in the local real estate magazine or newspaper does not mean that's right for you. You may be better off spending your time networking. Think about it - the top agents in almost every market make a living off of referrals, past client lists, and in many cases their web contact databases.

If you have a new web site you may want to invest in pay per click services and then eventually graduate to hiring someone for search engine optimization.

PPC can get expensive if you go after the most popular phrases (i.e. Jacksonville real estate), but there are plenty of other phrases you can go after. Usually the phrase "your city + MLS" is fairly cheap.

But I bet there are 100+ phrases in the Jacksonville market that will cost you only $0.05 - $0.20 per click. For example, there may be some planned communities or golf communities that are popular in your area. Individually, they might bring in only 20-50 visitors per month. But when you add them all up it is significant traffic.

What I like about these niche phrases is that because they are so specific they are more likely to bring buyer client traffic to your site rather than just window shoppers.

Good luck in your new career!

Thank you so much for your input and boy you really gave me a lot to think about. However, I'm up to the challenge and being a top recruiter for the the past five years will come in handy. I pray that you are prospering in your area.

Originally Posted by CoastalJacksonville

However, I'm up to the challenge and being a top recruiter for the the past five years will come in handy.

Excellent! I'm sure you will do great. Or, with all of the rain you and I are getting over the next few days, I should say "swimmingly". Stay dry!