Weekly Sales Tips: Finding Your Sales Calling

What does your journey in real estate sales look like?

I started in resale and after a few years, I made the move over to new home sales. I want to talk to those of you in home sales today. Is that the right move for you? Or if you are in new homes, should you consider resale? I’d like to provide a little career perspective here.

How did you get your start in real estate? It’s a question that gets asked all the time, and it’s always an interesting answer. Me, I started in real estate thanks to Ed Beckley.

Back in the day, Beckley had a cassette series and the corresponding seminar called “No Money Down”, and he was going to show us how to get rich buying real estate with other people’s money.

I was working at a restaurant at the time and because of that, I worked late hours. I would get home still wired. I watched a lot of late-night television, and I met Ed Beckley on an infomercial. He told me all about how I could make a fortune in real estate with no money down using other people’s money.

I was so fired up, I bought the cassette tapes even though I couldn’t afford them. I studied ferociously everything he said. I didn’t really have the wisdom to realize many of the things he was teaching were, in a technical sense, illegal. So, needless to say, that flamed out quickly, but not before fanning the interest in real estate, in the business, and in homes.

And so I endeavored to pass the real estate exam, which took me only two tries. Thank you very much. Then at age 24, I was out there pretending I knew how to sell homes. Oftentimes we fall into opportunities, but then do we evaluate whether they are the right opportunities?

I did okay in resale. I wasn’t flourishing. Maybe if I had stayed with it longer than a few years, I could’ve turned that corner. I wasn’t finding great success and asked myself, why not? Well, because when you look at the difference between resale and new home sales, it really comes down, more than anything else, to this point. In resale what is the key skill that you have to have?

I would argue the most important skill you have to have in resale is lead generation. You have to be prepared to find leads to find new business. All the time. You have to know how to get new business. You have to prospect for the business. You have to be out there letting people know that you want the business and when you get that lead, you have to get them to believe you’re the only person they want to do business with. It’s all about lead generation.

In new home sales, it’s much more about lead conversion. The customer comes to you. It’s about showing them you have the best option out there. So that to me, is the single biggest difference between resale and new home sales.

I was decent at lead generation, but at the risk of sounding arrogant, I was great at lead conversion. When I went into the new home sales world, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. I was a fish taking to water.

So this is my question for you. Are you trued up? Are you in the job for the right reasons? Is the job that you are doing conducive to your success, to your skillset? Does it match your capabilities?

My advice to you is to become friends with someone on the other side. If you’re a realtor, find a good friend in the new home business and become their breakfast buddy. If you’re on the new home side, find a realtor who does the same thing. Learn about their life, learn about their lifestyle, learn about their success and their frustrations, and share yours as well.

At the end of the day, you’re going to find out that either, A, maybe you need to make a move, or B, that there should be an extreme sense of gratitude that you’re in the right place. Whatever you do, be true to yourself. Work in a career that you can thrive in and then appreciate that you’re exactly in the right place.

Another place to network with residential real estate sales professionals is over in our Sales365 community. If you haven’t heard about Sales365, join the community for FREE. It’s a healthy social network just for sales professionals like you.

Until next time my friends learn more to earn more!