New Agent Networking

[Austin Allan]

I recently passed my Colorado Brokers exam and am now considering making a career switch into real estate. I currently have a job and am not planning on quitting to pursue real estate full time, just yet. I want to focus on expanding my network and putting marketing pieces together so that when the time is right some of the bricks are already laid out for me. 

I have attended a few local meet ups here in Denver and plan on continuing to frequent those but am curious to any other recommendations that anyone has as methodology to build a network. I am going to be diving deep into the marketing side of the business as well, besides BP is there any other good sites that produce high quality content for real estate agents? I have been working at a small business for the last 4 years and am a proponent of having a well established plan that can be followed and executed it because I have seen its benefits. Is there any recommendations on format for creating such a plan that relates closely to real estate or does a 1-2 page business plan still work well in this industry.

Thanks for any help, insights and, recommendations!

[Chris Lopez]

@Austin Allan Don't worry about having a really detailed or thorough business plan at the beginning. There's too much that you just don't know. A simple plan that is 1 to 2 pages will suffice. As you start taking action, you can get more detailed.

You really don't need to get too fancy. I keep my weekly tasks very simple by categorizing them as "money making activities." It's a simple way for me to determine what I should spend my time on. 

Does reading XYZ and cleaning my office make me money? NOPE

Does networking and putting quality content make me money? YES

It's a really simple YES or NO decision for me then.

I simply work backwards from my desired outcome. If you want to make 100k year, then figure out how many deals that I would have to do. Standard commission is 2.8%. Assume a 70/30 split (You keep 70, brokerage keeps 30) 2.8% * 70% = 1.96% 

100k / 1.96% commission  = 5.1 million dollars in real estate to sell. 

Divide that by the average home cost (5,100,000/400,000) = 12.7 deals. 

How many people do you need to network with to achieve 13 deals?

Of course, I'm not assuming expenses in there... but hopefully you get the idea.

I agree with the others, find a team or mentor that you can work with.