Does every real estate agent make the same amount of money?
Of course not! And often the people who make the most, aren’t the people who work the most…
It’s really interesting to study the career trajectories of people in real estate. And I bet it isn’t that hard to find a Judy and Matt scenario where you sell real estate.
But, How Does This Happen?
I fundamentally believe the discrepancy between your income and what you want to earn resides in books.
It looks something like this:
The cool thing about real estate is that all of the knowledge you need is already written down in books.
You just have to read them.
Here are my favorite books for real estate agents in 2016:
#1: The Sales Acceleration Formula
By: Mark Roberge, HubSpot
If you liked “The Ultimate Sales Formula,” you’ll love this book.
The Sales Acceleration Formula will teach you how to use data and technology to consistently improve your numbers. If you like what I teach here are Easy Agent Pro, this book is a must buy.
It teaches you how to systematically build a sales team to handle inbound real estate leads.
My favorite part of the book is where he breaks down a spreadsheet used to analyze applicants personality traits. It looks like this:
When recruiting for your real estate team, you don’t just want to hire anyone you can get. You want to study what personality traits positively lineup with success at your company.
And then you want to grade them during the interview process on how well their personality matches up with your ideal candidate.
This can dramatically change the type of people you bring on board!
Next, Roberge shows you exactly how to use LinkedIn and other job boards to find the best people for your team. His scripts are very effective. I’ve used this one to get in touch with some awesome sales applicants:
Finally, The Sales Acceleration Formula shows you exactly how to onboard new reps for optimal success.
It’s a great book! And a must read for anyone in real estate.
#2 The Education Of A Coach
By David Halberstam
As Tony Robbins says, “Success leaves clues. People who succeed at the highest level are not lucky; they’re doing something differently than everyone else does.”
Bill Belichick is unarguably a great NFL football coach. He’s winning Super Bowls every time I turn around. And doing so in an era where the average NFL coach lasts 38 months!
Think about that… that’s barely longer than the average agent stays in real estate!
Here are some of the best take-aways from this book:
- Belichick decided there needed to be one set of rules for everyone. Special players could not skip on the rules. He would pass by getting great players in favor of getting people who played better as a team.
- He studies film and has an encyclopedia-like knowledge for the game. This is quite inspirational. How many of us truly know what the competition’s pitch is? Or really are the most informed of all local laws, areas, living conditions, etc? Are you the best of the best?
- He worked for no pay several times in his career when he was just getting started.
- He never played professionally. So, he has to earn his players’ trust with purely being able to out game plan the opponent.
#3 The Martian
By: Andy Weir
Looking for a good book to inspire your creative side?
This book (now turned into a movie) is a great piece of fiction. I highly recommend breaking up the ‘heavy’ reading material on this list with something light like this book.
The Martian is the diary of an astronaut who has been stranded on Mars during a failed mission. This book documents his experiences and the creative problem solving he uses to stay alive on another planet.
I highly recommend reading this book.
#4 E-Myth
By: Michael Gerber
E-Myth is the first book every business owner and real estate agent should read.
It’s that good.
We all spend our days rifling through emails…
…posting to Facebook.
…returning phone calls.
But:
We rarely focus on the core things that will grow our business.
This book helps you figure out exactly what you want from running your business. And shows you how to build a system that generates that income for you.
You need to understand this:
You are in the business of generating real estate leads.
And you need to build systems that generate those leads for you.
E-Myth will help you do these two things better.
READ MORE SALES BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS HERE
READ LAST YEAR’S BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS HERE