Learn how to showcase your power base through tangible personal achievements, which measure your success for clients and colleagues.
This is the final article in a five-part series analyzing a real estate agent’s power base. For part four of this series, see: Familial ties and your real estate power base
Personal achievements in real estate
You’ve balanced your assets. You’ve implemented plans for further education and civic engagement. You’ve put your familial ties to use and grown your real estate business’s reputation. Now what?
An agent’s accomplishments in life need to be strategically displayed to benefit the agent and their business. Personal achievements are not simply bragging rights by some association; they are tangible evidence of what the agent has accomplished that speak to their tenacity, abilities and power in the industry. These lifelong achievements set the agent apart from their competition without the need to first sell a prospective client on the value of their services.
An agent’s personal achievements may include:
- awards, acknowledgements and recognition;
- unusual skills or extracurricular activities;
- career advancement, such as from a sales agent to a broker-associate or an employing broker;
- additional education and government-issued licenses; and
- ownership of a brokerage office.
Achievement through career advancement and authority
Perhaps the most obvious way an agent can showcase their achievement is through professional advancement. Careers in real estate may begin from positions as minor as an unlicensed assistant for a provider of real estate service. However, when that assistant invests the time, effort and expense to get their sales agent license and eventually their broker license they demonstrate they have talent. This public career progression advertises professional success, a magnet for new clients.
Additionally, an agent may choose to compound their license with additional licenses and endorsements. These licenses certify the agent’s knowledge and educational investment in related professional areas, such as:
- mortgage loan origination (MLO);
- escrow;
- contracting; and
- corporate brokerage, as a licensed corporate officer.
An agent who has been or is involved in multiple facets of the real estate industry displays their implicit ability to understand and negotiate all aspects of a transaction without having to say so, and thus generates more income for themselves.
Further, an agent who has invested in their professional advancement through licensing can choose to start their own brokerage office, thus becoming an employing broker. As the employing broker of the office, their authority is readily displayed for clients and colleagues alike — both of whom are more likely to respect and seek their advice and skills, constantly increasing the broker’s income.
Presenting awards to influence your business
Regardless of an agent’s rank, the agent needs to consistently seek other means of showcasing their personal achievements. For example, an agent’s personal achievements can come through professional milestones, like hitting production goals and receiving awards. Awards are most often given through the agent’s brokerage company and might include:
- top-producing agent;
- top-producing office;
- dollar thresholds (“Over $15 million sold!”); and
- regional, state, national or worldwide accolades.
An agent or broker who receives awards can use them to enhance their reputation, particularly through marketing. Awards often have symbolic logos, which the agent can put on their business cards and other marketing materials. Clients recognize these special emblems and phrases like “Top Producer” or “#1,” and are instantly more inclined to choose a professionally recognized agent for their needs.
Additionally, an agent can display awards and other acknowledgements in their office space. This includes plaques, certificates, trophies and other symbols of the award(s) the agent received. Clients and colleagues who meet the agent in their office will see the agent’s personal achievements displayed in a professional setting, enhancing their perception of the agent’s professional success.
Awards, authority and your power base
Awards and professional authority indicate an agent’s position of power over their peers in the real estate. An agent with indicators of success in many types of real estate activities easily supports the merit of their services, proof their achievements are receiving recognition.
However, an agent’s power base needs to perpetually grow to continue benefitting their business. For example, when an agent gives one good push to earn enough money to invest in assets, then expends no further effort to support their continued acquisition of assets, they’ll likely find themselves rushing to catch up with the agents who expend continuous energy improving the different elements of their power base.
Agents can continue expanding their power base by adding extracurricular skills and activities to their professional accomplishments. An agent with additional achievements unrelated to real estate shows clients their diversity of involvement and capability. For example, agents may showcase:
- skills in speaking and understanding other languages;
- teamwork skills attained through sports or other organized activities;
- licenses and achievements unrelated to real estate, such as a pilot’s license; and
- intellectual or physical accomplishments, such as musical composition or marathon athletics.
Although an agent’s power base is expanded by evidence of their current personal accomplishments, there are always new and different things to be done. As the agent’s business and income grow, so do their professional needs — expanding office space, hiring assistants, increasing marketing efforts, etc.
Just when the agent thinks they’ve reached the pinnacle of success – their comfort zone — it’s time to start back at the beginning. The more effort agents invest, the more success they will have — when set out in a meticulous plan to cultivate a solid, expansive power base.