Just read another exhausting opinion piece predicting that 50% of real estate agents will be gone in a few years - and that the disrupters are unstoppable.
Good grief - is this still even a meme?
I’ve been in this business for 30 years. Here’s something that might be a little surprise. For the past three decades, it has remained fairly consistent that:
60% of agents who start today won’t be in the business in 1 year.
AND 90% of agents who start today won’t be found in the business in 5 years.
BUT PLENTY of them will be alive and well and thriving in their careers.
BECAUSE it has nothing to do with disruption, new competition, old competition, money or any other boogeyman.
WHEN the NUMBER ONE REASON agents leave this business is STILL because they don’t make THEIR SALES.
I’m no genius, but it seems to me that:
If you don’t go to training, you won’t be in the business.
If you don’t attend the office meetings, you won’t be in the business.
If you don’t work your sphere, call FSBOs, send and receive referrals or talk to builders, you won’t be in the business.
If you don’t manage your time, stick to a schedule and focus your efforts -
If you keep giving away your own commissions whenever anyone asks for a discount -
If you don’t respond to online leads quickly and follow up with past clients consistently -
If you never attend the conferences or participate in the events -
If you wake up every day complaining and criticizing and catastrophizing interest rates or inventory or new competitors -
You simply won’t be in the business.
HOWEVER: Someone else WILL be in the business.
The people who do these things will still be around.
The people who learn to do new things will still be around.
The people who stick with things will still be around.
The people who will join the business will figure all this out, too.
For every sale the “boogeyman” has ever made or will make - PLENTY of sales have been made by lots of other professionals, too. Ten times more, in fact. Sometimes a hundred times.
And eventually, you know what? Every boogeymen has become just another part of the NORM. Of the diverse and interesting landscape of our wonderful industry. They even become, most of all, our friends.
Isn’t it time we all make a commitment to the optimism of the future? To stop dividing the business into slices of pie. To stop thinking of us and them. To dispute the voices of pessimism that trick us into thinking in only “win” and “lose” terms.
People have always left this business.
People have always joined, too.
The best of the best work in every model we can imagine.
Sometimes it’s old, sometimes new.
Where you go in the future has really little to do with the competition -
And everything to do with YOU!