5 Essential Tips for Beginner Real Estate Agents

Starting out as a new real estate agent can feel overwhelming. After all, now that you’ve gotten your real estate license, you are being tasked with running your own small business, likely for the first time.

In an effort to make the transition easier, we’ve created this list of essential tips for beginner real estate agents. Read them over to give you a better idea of how to get your real estate business off the ground, begin lead generation, and find potential clients quickly.

Beginner real estate agents: 5 tips for getting started

1. Find a real estate mentor.

Our first tip for any new real estate agent is to find a mentor who has been successfully working in the business for a while. For practical purposes, a real estate mentor is anyone who is willing to train a new agent such as yourself through the process of starting your own business and offering feedback, and guiding you with their real estate industry experience. Learning from a mentor like this can be a great way to get new insight into the real estate market. However, in this case, it’s best if your mentor has a decent number of transactions under their belt and can connect you to new clients and potential buyers early on.

Some real estate companies offer mentors as part of their marketing package. That said, it’s not always necessary to go this route. If you want to go with another type of real estate company, you can always ask what sort of mentoring they offer to their agents. Otherwise, you can invest in a real estate coach on a one-on-one basis

2. Join a real estate team.

If finding someone who can personally mentor you about the real estate market is too difficult, you can always consider joining a real estate team. In real estate, a team is a group of agents who work together and share commissions. Typically, teams are headed by a more experienced agent. Then, each real estate agent under the team leader is given a specific role to fulfill.

Typically, you might see a team that includes buyers agents, listing coordinators, and licensed assistants. However, each team is run in its own manner and may have its own structure.

When you’re first starting out, joining the team can be a great way to get started in the industry without having to deal with the stress of running your own business. Put simply, you can rely on your team members to help you learn as you go along.

3. Tap your network when you’re a beginner real estate agent.

If there’s one thing that every real estate agent needs to feel comfortable doing, it’s networking. In this case, your family and friends will likely end up being your first clients. With that in mind, as soon as you join the real estate business, you’re going to want to make sure that everyone in your immediate circle knows about your new career. Often family members will be happy to have you as their listing agent to help get your real estate career off the ground.

For most people, this means that it’s time to get chatty. While it’s one thing to make new business cards and to update your LinkedIn profile, it’s another to make sure that you come to the forefront of your family and friend’s minds when they think about buying or selling a home.

Particularly when you are first starting out in the real estate business, you’re going to want to take every opportunity to let your network know that you are in the business and ready to work. You should absolutely not hesitate to ask your connections for referrals.

4. Invest in marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, though, not every transaction that you do will be a referral. To that end, it’s important to step up your marketing game when you are trying to get your business off the ground and find prospective buyers. Ideally, you should try a mix of approaches, including the following:

• Cold calling: Calling people on the phone and asking if they are looking to buy or sell their home in the near future
• Direct mailing: Mailing people a postcard or letter that advertises your services
• Email drip campaigns: Building an email list and sending subscribers curated emails to get them ready to use your services
• Social media marketing: Maintaining a dedicated social media presence for your business is key for any digital marketing strategy
• Content marketing: Blogging or otherwise creating content that home buyers or sellers will find useful and will help drive them toward your website and increase lead generation

5. Set a schedule.

Particularly when you’re first starting out in the real estate business, it can be difficult to find the self-discipline to get work done. However, one thing that makes the process easier is setting a schedule. When you set a schedule, you give yourself a framework for productivity.

As you gear up your business, keep in mind that setting a schedule as an entrepreneur and real estate professional may look different than it did when you had a nine-to-five job. For example, your tasks for the day may not have an immediate payoff. Instead, they may be aimed at generating business long-term, such as getting professional headshots taken, searching online for prospective clients, or setting up your website.

That said, regardless of what tasks you need to conquer, writing out a to-do list will help you to prioritize what needs to get done. You can then use that to-do list to block out sections of time on your calendar. Once you have that done, you are good to go for the day. If you follow all these tips, you will surely be on your way to becoming a successful real estate agent.