What are the skills needed to be a real estate agent?
- Disciplined In Their Work Schedule
- Coachable
- Must Take Action
- Ability To Communicate
- Ability to Negotiate
- Must continually learn
- Provide incredible customer service
- Must be honest & ethical
What is the definition of Skill
The ability to do something well; expertise. Look, this is no different than when you were 5 years old trying to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels for your first time. I assume most people reading this know how to ride a bike. Even if you haven’t done it for years.
I remember my first time falling off countless times. But it didn’t take too long where my wobbly self was cruising down my street with no hands! I was becoming confident which just led to more cuts, bruises and broken bones.
The point I am making is, a skill is learned, trained and practiced until you get better and better. You will still get bruised up along the way developing your real estate skills, but this is the process. As your real estate agent skill set develops you will develop more confidence as well.
Real Estate Agents Must Be Disciplined
Real estate agents must develop the skill of discipline. They must be declined to a schedule that will produce results.
I have a discipline skill challenge that you can start right now. Every morning when you wake up, spend 5 minutes at the same time every morning reading an article from this site and 10 minutes reading a recommended book from this site.
This will start to build your discipline and calendar skills. Not to mention some education and motivation. Moving forward, you simply just add simple tasks to your daily schedule and do not veer off. Again, I have seen so many real estate agents fail because they just won’t “DO.” Start right now!
Starting with baby steps like this is essential to developing a true work habit and your agent skill set.
Real Estate Agents Must Be Coachable
And incredible skill set real estate agents should develop is to be coachable.
I am not saying to go out and hire a coach like Grant Cardone tomorrow. You can get a lot of FREE reads as well as watch countless videos on sales, motivation, mindset, etc. I have many coaches who I follow including Grant. He gives me the inspiration, motivation and skills to get better and better.
Stick to a plan above and add something that will coach you daily and then implement. Knowledge without Action is like knowing where the freshwater is but you are too lazy to go and drink it because it is 5 miles away. You give up and die. This is what 87% of real estate agent’s businesses do.
Real Estate Agents Must Take Action
As mentioned without Action, nothing happens besides wasting your time (and others), your money and you ultimately destroy your belief system. Look at the chart under the title Afraid Of Failure.
Everything revolves are this simple word: Action. For without it we have no or limited results. We must develop the skill set of taking action in our real estate career.
Take for example, how good you will feel if one day you decide to do an open house. Instead of doing what most real estate agents do like putting signs out and baking cookies. You first prospect.
You door knock the day before of 200 doors in the neighborhood with this simple script – “Hi my name is Steve with Maxim Realtors. I am holding your neighbors house open tomorrow from 10-2 and wanted to invite you over for some food and beverages. Here are the details about it (Hand nice brochure). Do you think you can make it?”
Forget about the Open House tomorrow for a minute. How about the skill set of taking Action? If we knock 200 doors we will talk to at least 20 people. You may develop the conversation at their door and turn 1-2 of them into prospects immediately.
How would this make you feel? I bet pretty damn good!! Know your belief system goes through the roof and you feel that you have the potential to really make it big in this business so as long as you develop your real estate agent skills and take these actions.
Real Estate Agent Verbal Skills
You must develop your dialogue skills immediately. Let’s take the example again for open houses. I gave you a simple script for when you are door knocking. Go ahead and practice that script every morning for 10 minutes.
It is inevitable that you WILL get better. Are you aware that you can make a full time business just from doing open houses? Remember the definition of skill – The ability to do something well; expertise.
You want to get so damn good at this that no matter who comes in or what the situation is, you have it handled and generate business from it.
Develop your verbal skill set in asking the right questions at the right time and listen intently. This real estate agent skill is in my opinion one of the most neglected skills.
Real Estate Agents must develop Negotiation skills
I have seen some bad negotiations in my time. From real estate agents disclosing too much, killing deals or completely emotional.
Great negotiations have to be win win. Everyone must come out feeling some win even if it isn’t everything they wanted. Real estate agent must develop their negotiation skills in order to close more deals and service more people.
Want to develop your real estate agent negotiation skills? There are many YouTube videos out there as well as books like Getting To Yes that I think will help you tremendously in having an edge not just on agents, but buyers and sellers.
This book is an international best seller and will give you a good insight on building your skills so you can negotiate well and ultimately close more deals.
What are your market research skills
Understanding your local markets is vital and developing the skills of valuing properties, looking for trends and using this in your daily business will help you grow.
You should have a thorough understanding on what is offered in your local market from market conditions / trends, prices, schools, shopping / dining, good deals, traffic, waterways, demographics, etc.
One good resource when you become a REALTOR is using the RPR (Realtor Property Resource) site. This is only accessible to REALTORS. It is a wealth of information. It is also nationwide. So be sure you get with your local board and take a class on it.
MLS – Multiple Listing Service is what most REALTORS use to list and search property on the open market. In our market we have an app as well. I am looking on this app all the time. I am looking at market trends, trying to find my next deal and also deals for some other investors based on their needs.
Take your time on these sites and build your skill set to analyze. You will get quicker and things will make more sense if you put the time in.
Also, go look at property. Get out behind the desk and get into property. Being onsite to see, touch and feel is much different than a desktop analysis. I recommend working this into your schedule each week.
By knowing the market well, you just opened up a door to sell someone something else.
Client Support and Satisfaction skills
This is sales and you are dealing with people, so develop this skill set right away. If you are a grumpy, stressful person, then you may want to skip out on real estate.
We want to be sure we have a standard protocol on how we are working with people. Going above and beyond (within reason) will set you apart from the others. One of the biggest complaints from buyers and sellers from their previous agent was the lack of communication.
Read the article on How To Build Your Real Estate Team. In this article it talks about the different positions specifically for customer service. You will have to take these roles on initially until you grow.
If you do not know what customer service is all about, do the following to build your real estate skills in working with people. Go spend a weekend at a really nice hotel somewhere. Carefully watch how and what they do for you. Test them. Do they carry your bags in? Do they offer you water as you are checking in? Do they educate you on the area or hotel / amenities? Do they smile and are they welcoming? Call room service for directions, food, extra towels, an Uber. Watch how they handle things.
The hospitality staff for higher end hotels are usually highly well trained and you can learn a lot from them to develop your real estate skills. Sit in the lobby and sip a cocktail and observe. Take it all in. Let your creative juices run as well as you may come up with some great ideas.
Honest & Ethical
I think most people should just naturally be ethical and honest but always keep this on the forefront of your skill set.
Being truthful and doing the right thing is the most important thing you can do in your real estate career. So, don’t jeopardize this…
To Conclude, there are many skills needed for real estate agents to work on. Just be sure you are taking the time each day to improve these skills like any sport your were to play.
To your success!