Starting your real estate career is just like starting any other new business: it takes time, effort, and money. In real estate, there is a growth stage and you keeping a job while you are building your business can be a great way to pay your bills and learn as your business expands. To be successful as a part time real estate agent, you need to focus on the highest and best use of your time and you need to keep you mindset focused on selling real estate.
In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn how to be successful as a part time real estate agent.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we have a listener question it comes from Miran Hill and she is based out of Lubbock in West Texas. Miran was asking about how to best allocate your time when you're working another job so if you're working a part time job or if you're working a full time job how can you balance that with building your real estate career.
[00:00:37] Today we're going to jump to some really cool strategies that you can use if you currently have a part time job or if you're even thinking about getting a part time job because you can still create an amazing business for yourself with a part time job. And I'm saying part time job but this can apply to a full time job as well. So let's just jump into a few of the concepts around this.
[00:00:58] First off you don't have to apologize for having a part time job or a full time job paying your bills supporting yourself and your family should always be number one starting your career in real estate or growing your career in real estate can have a couple of tough months. And if you need that income on a monthly basis then sometimes we just have to get a part time job. And that's okay so don't apologize for this. Understand that it's just part of growing your business. If you look at any other startups out there most of the time what they're doing is they're going to raise money so that they're still able to put food on the table and build their business or if they're not if they're bootstrapping it so if they're just starting it from scratch then oftentimes they're keeping their part time job if not their full time job as they're starting up their business. So real estate is no different. You're starting up a business you're growing a business and because of that you will need to have some income in order to just keep your lights on. So nothing wrong with having a part time job.
[00:01:57] We are going to get to some strategies and how you can maximize your time when you do have a part time job but you can make a great agent. It's not a failure to have a part time job. You can in fact even make a better agent because you don't have that pressure of selling real estate and getting the next deal because you do have some income coming in. Now the other school of thought here is that you're not going to work as hard if you do have other income coming in. So getting that part time job actually slows your growth. Now I'm not of this mindset. I honestly think that you can do a lot better if you don't have the same level of financial stress. And there's this whole concept called commission breath and it's when people really really want the money and how they come across people pick up on this. If you don't have as much that financial stress then chances are you're going to be more of a relaxed agent as you move forward.
[00:02:50] The big thing about this is you do have to dedicate the time. So this is where the part time agent versus full time agents struggle comes in is if you are not going to be a full time agent are you going to have the time and the dedication to put towards your real estate career.
[00:03:06] Let's jump into that right now. First off make sure the job that you select has some level of flexibility. This should go without saying but you do need some level of flexibility so that you're able and go out and show properties in the evenings and that sort of thing. Also it can really benefit you if you're working in the real estate field or if you're doing something that is really helping you with relationship building skills communication skills these are transferable skills that will help you in your real estate career. So you want to always keep your mindset on real estate and whatever you're doing as a part time or full time job is either related to real estate or you're learning skills you're getting some level of knowledge and skill from this part time job that you can then put towards your career. This is extremely beneficial and it's something that's overlooked. Oftentimes we just look at the part time job as being something that's taking up time and giving us a little bit of income. But it can actually be a huge positive if we end up working towards something that helps our skill level.
[00:04:08] Now if Malcolm Gladwell is right and you do need 10,000 hours in order to become successful in your career or in whichever skill you're learning then theoretically it's going to take you longer as a part time agent in order to reach mastery or your highest level of production. Okay, I understand that but I don't fully get on board with that because if there are those transferable skills like we were talking about then this can all be time that's well spent as well as providing you some income.
[00:04:38] If you're concerned about the timing that you'll have if you're working eight hours a day six hours four hours a day and you don't think you'll have the time in order to be in real estate. Well let me tell you you need to understand your highest and best use of your time. If it's not closing deals so if you're not out closing deals showing properties in that sort of thing the next highest and best use of your time is probably prospecting. So you have to understand this because when you're not at your part time or full time job what is it that you're going to be doing. And if you're not out on listing presentations and closing deals than you should be prospecting. Here's the thing is most full time agents don't prospect as much as they need to. All we recommend is two hours and in the show notes I'm going to link up my prospecting worksheet so you can download that and start working through that. You can get that done in two hours a day.
[00:05:29] If you have two hours that's enough time for you to prospect and then start putting appointments in your calendar for down the road. So listen, if you're prospecting for two hours a day and you're actually doing dedicated prospecting activities. So I don't mean just kind of letting the time go by but true prospecting activities. Then you are prospecting more than probably 95 percent of other agents out there. So with a part time job if you have two hours a day and even if maybe that's one day a week you dedicate to your prospecting because you're part time job is say like Monday through Thursday so you dedicate Fridays for prospecting. However that looks as long as you have on average two hours a day then you're doing fine where most people go wrong is they have their part time jobs but they do not prospect. They're just waiting for the deals to come their way and their mindset can be on the other job and it can be on other things. So their mindsets not on growing their real estate business.
[00:06:31] If you're going to do something else outside of real estate even if that's not a job even if you have other large commitments outside of real estate then you need to understand the highest and best use of your time and that is prospecting. And here's the thing most people know this that if they do want to become successful in this career they need to prospect on a regular basis. But here's the other thing. Most people don't do it because it's hard. It can be boring it can be rejection heavy and because it's hard is exactly why those that are able to do it become successful because they do what others aren't willing to do. And if you have something else occupying your time and you still have those two hours or so a day and that part time job is teaching you other skills or you're gaining some sort of experience from it then you are moving along at a great pace.
[00:07:22] Finally just watch your expenses in particular watch your personal spending. So this is something that can make life a lot easier for you. If you decrease your personal expenses if you are starting up your business you're in that startup phase it's going to be a grind. You need to live within your means and below your means and if you look at your monthly budget I can almost guarantee that there can be hundreds of dollars sitting there that you can cut. So I'm talking about coffees I'm talking about luxury food I'm talking about all sorts of things like that that you don't necessarily need and if you are in one of these situations where you're really trying to watch your business spending you should also take a very close look at your personal spending. So there you have it. You can be very successful as a part time real estate agent just make sure your mindset stays on a real estate and you're focused on the highest and best use of your time. When you have a few hours to dedicate to real estate. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really appreciate it and we'll see you in the next lesson.
[00:08:26] This episode of Rev real estate school has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.
Source: Fit Small Business, The Balance, Inman
