Perspective From the Trenches by Mike Pallin

What attracted you to real estate? I have asked this question at the beginning of every Floyd Wickman Program, and the top four most common answers have been consistent for over 25 years.

1:  The number one thing that attracts people to selling real estate is the freedom and flexibility to make their own schedule. As an employee, someone tells you when you must show up, when to take a break, when to go to lunch, when you can go home, when you can take vacation and how much vacation you get.

The best part of being in real estate is you get to be your own boss. (By the way, that’s also the worst part.)

2.  Second is the immediate opportunity to earn more. Commission sales, and real estate specifically, requires very little formal education or investment to geometrically increase your earnings.

There is no ceiling on the income you can generate. (By the way, there is also no floor.)

3. Third is working with people – the chance to serve, to solve problems, to help people realize their dreams, to make a difference is people’s lives.

Most salespeople have also agreed that the more production they do, the more problems they have to solve. Ironically, too many salespeople want more production and have already decided they can’t handle any more problems.

4.  Four, the reason real estate attracts people is they love houses – owning them, showing them, fixing them up, investing in them and marketing them. Housing is a basic necessity, never goes out of style, always in demand, can be glamorous, and more often than not, is the most important financial decision people make in their lifetime.

By the way, the most successful people in real estate know they are actually in the sales business via real estate, and that is the key to their success. They take all the things they like about this business and put them in the reward column. And they take all the things they don’t like about this business and put them in the “other” column – stuff I have to do in order to enjoy the reward.

Not once in over 25 years of training salespeople has someone told me that they got into real estate because, “I love prospecting.” Prospecting is, hands down, the #1 most universally disliked part about being in real estate. And yet, all the rewards enjoyed in sales are a direct or indirect result of the prospecting done.

What’s the point? Maybe it’s no secret, but to some it’s a kind of eye-opener. You don’t have to like everything about selling. You just have to do enough of the things you don’t like doing so that you can enjoy the things you do.

If you were to make two lists – things I like doing, and things I don’t like doing, you will find something useful if you’re being honest.

Those two categories, ‘things I like doing’ and ‘things I don’t like doing’ aren’t about doing – they’re about how you feel about doing  them.

I feel good about choosing my own schedule. I feel good about determining my own income. I feel good about helping people. I feel good about selling houses. And so it is easier for me to do those things, because I feel good about doing them.

But I don’t feel good about prospecting, so I don’t do it. Incidentally, it doesn’t matter why I don’t feel good about prospecting, it just matters that I am aware that I don’t feel good about prospecting. All change starts with awareness.

I’m not suggesting that you change how you feel about doing something in order to make yourself do it. You can’t change prospecting into something you like doing, no matter how many psychological tricks you use. But again, you don’t have to like everything about selling.

Assuming you can’t have someone else do it for you, I am suggesting instead that you focus on how you feel about having done it. For instance, I don’t like prospecting, but I love the feeling of having prospected. I don’t like doing paperwork, but I love the feeling of having the paperwork done.

Make the feeling of having prospected the only reward for doing it - not the leads, not the appointments, not the referrals, not the production. Forget the end result and connect with how it will make you feel when you have done it.