All Forum Posts by: Kareem Lyons

If you're not willing to make cold calls or door knock then you might be in the wrong industry. Being an agent means you're a 100% commission based sales person. Make no mistake about it. And a salesperson who doesn't want to sell is going to have a tough time. 

You're on an investing forum so have you put much energy into the investment side of things? That has a lot more options and ways to make money and build real wealth. 

@Kareem Lyons here is two suggestions to generate leads:

1. Knock on doors. Introduce yourself and let the home owner know that their neighborhood is desirable to buyers. Tell them you have talked to buyers interested in that area, but there is a shortage of nice homes. Ask if they have considered selling for the right price. Many will say no, but some will ask what price. Tell them you need to walk through the home and work up a listing price estimate. Tell them you will research comparable and give them a price within two days. Prepare a professional looking report and meet with them to review. Once you get the proposal in their hands, you will follow up with them regularly until they are listing with you.

2. Do open houses all weekend. If you don't have listings, offer to do open houses for other agents. Some agents have too many listings to do all the open houses or others may not want to tie up a weekend. The reason you want to do open houses is to meet buyers and sellers. You need to approach people during the open house and talk to them. As them where they live now and what type of house they are looking for. Let them know you may have some off market listings you could share with them. This isn't a lie if you do step one - talking to potential sellers. People are more likely to talk to you if they think you have something to offer - in a hot market, off market listings are appealing. You can find both buyers and sellers at open houses. Before people list their house for sale, they often start casually going to open houses to shop the market. Just a word of caution on open houses. Half the open houses I go to, the agent stands there and says nothing to me. The other half the time, the engage and work me as a lead source. Don't bother with open houses if you just plan to stand there.

As a final comment, your age can be an advantage or disadvantage. Some people may view you as less experienced. Be up front about your situation. Don't try to pretend like you are a 20 year veteran Realtor. Your advantage is that you are young and hungry. Since you don't have tons of clients, you can devote more time to the clients you have. Share that with people. Tell them you will work twice as hard as the more established realtors.

Good luck! 

Kareem Lyons you need to get coffee with a new person every day. Do this every single day and hustle to build your network. Stop sitting at your computer all day and stop wasting money on **** Zillow leads. Get out there and hustle, go to meetups, go to networking events, meet people, shake hands and pass out cards.

If you can get coffee and talk real estate with one person per day I guarantee you you’ll be busier than you can handle within a year.

@Kareem Lyons

I see so many negative words in most of your responses. Can't. Don't. Won't. People are giving you some great advice. Not saying you are turning it away or being rude. You aren't. But, one thing that has helped me a lot in life in general was when I made an intentional effort to stop myself with phrases where I am saying "I Can't", "I don't", "I don't know how", etc.

Then I started trying to find ways, without realizing, to adjust my situations so I could respond with positives. Also, just finding ways to respond positively that would then also positively affect what was being discussed. 

You are already on here asking for help. That is a step. Now, when people are offering ideas/advice, instead of saying you can't or you don't know how... approach these things from an "I'd like to learn about that", "That sounds like something I could do", or things like that.  It has an interesting effect on the brain over time. At least for me it did.  

One thing I wanted to recommend you avoid is handing out letters/going to people's doors.  I had seen that discussed on here before and agreed with people that said someone showing up at their door as a realtor or investor would immediately turn them off.  Straight up, it's pretty annoying to have people show up at your door trying to sell you something or talk to you about something like selling your house.  So, I would definitely avoid that.  Seems like there is a lot of really great info for you in here though. Soak it up and move forward. No more "I can't"!!!

Be confident!  Go start learning about all these things people are talking about that you don't understand. They can't explain it all to you but you can find so many resources both here on BP and just by googling or even searching Youtube.  These days you say you aren't sure how to fill? Fill them with education!!! FREE EDUCATION!!!! 

Now FLY!!!

So you're saying that everyone's telling you to generate more leads, then you're not doing that and saying that you don't have enough quality leads? 

Hate to break it to you, but starting a new business is hard. Stop social media and watching training videos. Nobody is going to become your client because you're reposting articles on your facebook page with 200 followers. 

Don't spend money online or on mailers. That's a good way to put yourself in the hole and with little experience, you'll have a hard time closing them anyhow. 

I think you're overthinking it. If you're not successful sitting at the computer, then get off the computer. Go knock on 50 doors per weekday and 100 on the weekends and you will see results 100% guaranteed. If you don't believe it, just try it for one week and you'll see the difference. 

When the sun goes down you should be at every relevant networking event you can find. 

Lastly, read a book on the Pareto principle and apply it haha. 

Good luck out there! Persistence is the thing that will get you where you want to be!

@Kareem Lyons

How many contacts are you making a day?

@Kareem Lyons

I'll second @Zach Sikes advice on joining a team. There is no way I would have made it in this business if I had just started as an independent agent like you are doing. It can be done, but in my case I probably would have fizzled out. I spent a few years with a team until I was established enough to break off on my own. 

Yes, team commission splits and workload can be brutal but education and experience almost always come at a cost. No doubt you can find a high producing agent/team in your area who could use some help. You'll probably get the lower end leads and duties until you prove yourself but at least it gets you out on the streets and active.