I talk to new agents and soon-to-be Florida real estate agents every day.  Sometimes they are studying for the exam.  Sometimes they are preparing to take the class.  Sometimes they just got their license.  I’ve noticed a few mistakes the newer agents make.  It’s the same mistakes over and over.

1. Shopping for advice they want to hear

Every now and then, a new agent calls me and asks for help.  I suggest they call expired listings.  With an expired listing, you don’t have to overcome the objection of hiring an agent.  They’ve already hired an agent.  They call one expired listing.  No one answered.  They called a second one who is going to relist with the original agent.

Calling expireds didn’t work, so they ask their assigned mentor for an idea.  The mentor tells them that they should contact every person they know to let them know they are working in real estate, and see if anyone is in the market or knows someone in the market.  That seems like a lot of work, plus it could be awkward.  Instead the new agent only calls their ten closest friends and family members.  That didn’t work.  I guess the mentor doesn’t know what they are talking about.

The new agent then asks another agent who joined the firm three months ago.  This agent is making TikTok videos.  “What a great idea!  Let’s make a silly TikTok video.  Let’s do two a week.  They are bound to go viral,” these two agents say to each other.  After three months, neither of these new agents has gotten any traction from their videos.  They decide that the market is saturated with Realtors and quit.

Here’s the issue… two veteran agents gave them good advice.  That advice was too far out of their comfort zone, so they shopped around until someone gave them the advice they wanted to hear.

Real estate has changed a lot in the past 20 years, but there is one thing that has not changed in the past 100 years: The only way to get business is to get in front of prospects.  You have to get face to face with a prospect.  You aren’t going to get anything signed until you get eyeball to eyeball with the prospect.  This leads to mistake number two.

2. Spending time with non-prospects

When I first got my license, I sold timeshare.  At that time, every sales rep at the resort got three tours, or three prospects, a day.  In timeshare, the sales reps do not have to find their own prospects.  The sales reps only sell the product.  In my training class, there were 30 people.  Many of them were like me – they had never sold timeshare in their life.  Most new sales reps had at least one sale by the end of the second week.  After 30 prospects, you are bound to sell at least one of them.

How do we transfer this to residential brokerage?  If you are spending 30 hours a week, working on your social media page, sitting in classes, and talking to other agents, you aren’t going to go far.  Likewise, if you are talking to people who cannot and will not buy a house, you aren’t going to go far.  You need to be talking to actual prospects.

How do you know if they are a prospect?  A prospect is someone who needs or wants your service, can afford it, and is going to buy it from you or your competitor in the near future.

On the buyer side, they need to be pre-approved or have proof of funds.  If they are not interested in getting preapproved, don’t show them houses.  So many new agents want to show them a bunch of houses because they are worried that if they let the buyer go, they might buy a house with another agent.  If that’s your concern, refer them to another agent and get the referral fee.  Let someone else waste their time.

Another indication is whether or not they are making offers.  If you find a house that meets their criteria, they can afford it, but they don’t want to make a reasonable offer, these are not buyers.  They are tire kickers.  Refer them to another agent and focus on finding an actual prospect.

One of the reasons that new agents like spending time with non-prospects is because it feels productive, you are doing something.  Also, some new agents are scared to death of having an actual prospect.  This leads us to mistake #3.

3. Not understanding the paperwork

New agents need to sit down in a quiet room and read the contracts – the listing contract, the exclusive buyer agreement, the showing agreement, the sales contract, the as-is sales contract.  All of them.  Read every single word of the contract.  Don’t skim it – read it as if your new career depended on you understanding it.  If there is something you don’t understand, ask your broker or sales manager what it means.  If they won’t help you, call the Florida Realtors legal hotline.

Once you’ve read the entire contract, practice filling it out.  In other words, write down some information: Bob and Mary, a married couple, looking for a homestead, need a house in Great Big Estates, need at least 5 bedrooms, willing to pay up to $2 million, willing to pay the buyer’s agent 3%, need the house by September 2026, etc.

Now, transfer that information into an Exclusive Buyer Broker Agreement.  Do the same with the Showing Agreement.  What if they were listing that house?  Can you do the Exclusive Listing Agreement?

You do not want to practice on your clients.  You need to be able to fill out the paperwork, in a reasonable amount of time, with a nervous person watching you.

Here’s what happens to new agents who are uncomfortable with the paperwork: the unconscious insecurity with the paperwork leads them to never ask closing questions.  Then they wonder why they aren’t getting any listings.  Most of them never realize that that’s the problem, and never even admit it to themselves.  Let me be sure you got that: you will never ask a client for the sale because you don’t know how to do the paperwork.  You will never realize that’s the problem.  You will continue to blame it on the client, on the market, on the commission settlement, or anything other than your own insecurity.

4. Choosing the wrong brokerage or team

It is very difficult to pick the right brokerage or team.  First of all, the new agent doesn’t really know what to look for in a brokerage.  They focus on things that don’t matter.  They are worried about the commission split.  They are worried about whether the training is in-person or on livestream.  They are worried about whether the company provides free coffee.

What matters most is this: is this a place where I can be successful?  Do I like the broker or sales manager?  Is this culture one that encourages success?

Once you get there and find out it’s not what you thought it was, leave.  But before you leave, ask yourself this:

• Am I leaving because they are pushing me to get out of my comfort zone, so I don’t like what they are saying? (Bad reason to leave)
• If I’m not getting the support I need, have asked for that support? Think of it like breaking up with someone.  There are extreme situations where you would breakup with that person with no warning, but this is extreme.  Normally, you would talk to the person, try to work it out, etc.  So talk to the broker and try to make it work.  If it can’t work, part ways.  But sometimes you can make it work.

5. Doing What They Want To Do Rather Than What They Need To Do

If you have never done face-to-face sales, there are parts of real estate that might be way out of your comfort zone.  I am of the generation that grew up on the phone, not text, so I’m pretty comfortable on the phone.  I’ve also worked in a call center at a timeshare resort, so I can ask for the order over the phone.  (By the way, the “order” is this case is scheduling the appointment.)

There are other people who would rather hang upside by their toenails before they asked a direct closing question or even make a phone call.  Those people will spend all day fixing their website, posting on social media, taking a class at the Board of Realtors, and then making their vison board.  They will do anything other than get face-to-face with a potential client.  Three months later, they blame it on the broker, their mentor, the market, and anything other than themselves.

Here’s the thing: sales is tough.  Selling yourself is even tougher.  The only way to sell yourself is to get face-to-face with a potential client and get them to like you.  If that is too far out of your comfort zone, there are a lot of jobs in real estate that will be appropriate for you, but being a real estate agent is probably not one of them.  If you want to succeed as an agent, you need to be willing to get comfortable contacting strangers and getting them to meet with you.

Can real estate agents succeed if they make these mistakes?  Maybe.  Sometimes.  Can they succeed if they make all five other them?  Not a chance.

Keep in mind that not everyone that works in real estate is a full-service residential sales associate.  If you aren’t good at the phone, but love social media, maybe being a real estate agent isn’t for you, but you could work as the social media marketer for another agent.  If you don’t want to prospect, but enjoy the other aspects of real estate, maybe you should work for a developer or a timeshare resort.

If you don’t have a license yet, and think real estate might be the industry for you, enroll in the prelicensing class at Demetree School of Real Estate.  If you are a new agent, and are struggling, you are welcome to give me a call.  If I can help, I will.

Please note that Karen Climer has no affiliation with Climer School of Real Estate.  Her father, Ron Climer, sold Climer School of Real Estate in 2014.  It has since been involved in several mergers and acquisitions and is owned by a large investment company.  Karen owns Demetree School of Real Estate in Orlando, Florida.