I co-founded and owned what became the 13th largest Century 21 franchise in the USA. I did the majority of the training. We hired hundreds of new and experienced agents each year maintaining an average active agent count of around 95 in our single office.

Here is some of the advice I gave each prospective or new recruit.

1. Make sure you have a cash reserve to cover your personal and real estate business overhead for 3-6 months.

2. Treat your real estate business like you are in business for yourself even though you are not by yourself. Sound business principles still apply.

3. Networking and relationship nurturing are the keys to the kingdom. Prospect, prospect, prospect. (The agents that were proactively prospecting for clients were three to four times more successful than the ones that merely placed ads and waited for the phone to ring.)

4. Avoid the busy-work-trap. That is, do all the non-income producing work during non-prime time hours. If you can be prospecting, showing property or writing contracts, do it. Don't organize your desk, configure your CRM, write your ads, etc., in lieu of the activities that will earn your income. This happens more frequently than you might think.

5. Ignore the naysayers. My best agents earned between $250,000 and $500,000 regardless of the housing market or economy. Ironically, some of them were "intentional" naysayers. It was part of their strategy to discourage the new people.

6. Become a student of the business. Attend every conference available. Read every book. Listen to the CD's/DVD's on how to master the art of selling real estate (to borrow a title from Tom Hopkins).

I've traveled the country training real estate agents & brokers. Give me a call if you have any further questions or would like a coach to accelerate your learning curve and success rate.

All the best!

Kevin McCarthy