(Warning: Please make sure you read all the way to the end!)By Mike Pallin, President of The Floyd Wickman Team

No one in the world wants to see you succeed more than Floyd Wickman, and the same goes for all of us on The Floyd Wickman Team. If you’re just getting started in real estate, or trying to get restarted, there are some facts you need to know.

Last year the one million members of N.A.R. closed slightly more than 5 million transactions, or roughly 10 million sides. For those of you who are quick at math, that’s an average of 10 commissions per salesperson, and on the surface that sounds OK.

But when you dig a little deeper, you will learn that 2 out of 3 members of N.A.R. actually closed “one or fewer” transactions last year. What’s fewer than one? If you said, “Uh, zero?” you would be correct. Which begs the question, why would you want to be part of this thing called real estate to do zero?

Now some of those “one or fewer” people are brand new. Some of them are part of a team where the lead agent gets credit for everyone’s production. Some of them are licensed members for reasons other than producing. But that doesn’t explain such a huge lopsidedness in the distribution of production, does it?

In the general population the unemployment rate has dipped just below 5%. Of all the people in the U.S. who could work, or are looking for work and want to work, only 5% can’t find a job. If you define being unemployed as making no money, and let’s say that 5% ratio held true in real estate, that would mean only 50,000 licensed real estate agents would be “unemployed.” But the reality is 13 times as many, over 650,000 agents, are making no money.

Here’s a question Floyd has been asking for many years, and it seems more appropriate than ever today. “Why do so few get so much, and so many end up with so little?”

The truth is the system is rigged. The deck is stacked against you. It is not a level playing field. If you are getting started or restarted in real estate, the chances of earning even a decent living are slimmer than ever.

Why?

One of the main reasons is that new technology, sophisticated systems, and teams with specialists, have made it possible for fewer people to handle more closings, and handle larger listing inventories. For a brand new licensee to compete for listings against a well-known, well-funded team with market momentum isn’t even a fair fight.

This is not meant to discourage you from pursuing your dreams. Real estate sales is a wonderful commission opportunity. Most of the people in real estate got “nudged” into it by someone they know, and I don’t want you to start thinking you were sold a bill of goods when it all starts to get frustrating and seem unfair.

And it will . . .

Unless . . . someone teaches you how to be an effective listing agent who can compete with the entrenched old guard.

Unless . . . someone mentors and coaches and guides you to build relationships that result in repeat and referral business.

Unless . . . you become skilled at dialogue selling, the most important selling skill that knocks out any competition.

And unless . . . you are willing to follow a history-proven method of producing at least one listing or sale per week.

Don’t be discouraged, and don’t give up yet. There is an answer.

All that you need to succeed, and so much more, is available to you in one complete little program. It takes 42 days to go through the training – 7 days in class, one day a week, with 6 full days off and 29 days in the field – learning by doing. It’s called The Floyd Wickman Master Selling Skills Program. We don’t do magic and we don’t do miracles. We just level the playing field for you.

If you look around your company at the veteran agents who have been successful over time, you will most likely find that many of them were “Wickmanized,” and attribute their success in large part to Wickman training. Our graduates have a tendency to lead the field, because they have become effective listing agents, with well–run repeat and referral based businesses, who are masters at dialogue selling.

If they can do it, you can do it, too.