Heavy Lifting

"This is the heavy lifting time of the business." -Dean Cottrill

LOL...I feel like Jerry Maguire having a flashback to his mentor. Dean, gone a whole 7 days at this point, is already this mythic sage whose past words are what I draw on. :)

For real, Dean used to always say some form of the above, and he has a good point. For a comparative metaphor, I'll say that a plane uses 80% of his fuel on take-off (this is true). Starting a business in a highly competitive market is similar. The mistakes are costly, the learning curve is steep, the margin for error is small, and the building of marketshare is expensive and time-consuming. I joke with my clients when I first meet them while telling them the story of how I got in the business: "And I did my research and found out that 84% of agents don't make it past their first 18 months in the business, and I said, 'Sure, sign me up!!' (Insert hardy chuckle, and turn page.) But, seriously..."

So, here I am...at the office at almost 2am, 30 minutes from home and needing to be in northern Baltimore at 10am, and I took some time to eternalize this moment for anyone who might happen to stumble along this blog at some point. :) What am I doing here at almost 2am? Well, the "heavy lifting" of being a second-year agent. I'm in that funny place where the 40+ hours of marketing and self-promotion that I needed to do to survive and establish myself in the business is meeting up with the 40+ hours of client care and meetings that happen when you are successful in the business, and I'm having to figure out how to do everything I do better, yet quicker, all at once. Tonight, I was actively directing 3 transaction, thinking about 6 others, writing e-mails to a wide array of leads, clients, and friends, planning my next client appreciation event, preparing and printing off almost 1,000 letters to be mailed out over the next two weeks, etc. I laugh when people talk about how over-paid Realtors are...the average one who believes that just has no idea.

'But how come discount brokers and redfin can do it for cheaper??' Well, they don't do what I do...simple. In some situations, discount service will get by and, when it does, it can put a little extra money in some peoples' pockets; however, when it doesn't, discount service is (more often than not) terrible costly (there are studies done by a wide variety of organizations to back this up with hard figures; contact me if you are interested in more information here). 'But homes are 3 times more expensive now than they were 20 years ago; why should you get the same percentage commission?' Yeah, and gas is more expensive, printing, Realtor dues, marketing tools, photography, internet marketing, showing services, client gifts, lead generation...blah, blah, blah. The price of homes going up does not mean that the salaries of Realtors should exist in a vacuum, because nothing else does; or, should we only be competent and professional enough to handle the sale of a several-hundred thousand dollar home with no hope of ever being able to afford one for ourselves?

Oh, man, it's too late for a normal no-holds-barred "Greg-rant". One day, maybe I will re-approach the topic of discount brokers and why I feel so strongly about being a full-service broker (short answer: I pay for my own salary and give my clients more all at the same time!), but not today (or, should I say tonight...um...early this morning...whatever time it is :) ).

Now, I go home and snuggle up next to my wife and sleep for a little.

Peace,
Greg