"Success Leaves Clues" is a proverb that is used by the community of successful businesspeople.
Many people have discovered that mentoring is a good approach to find those hints.
Almost always, people who want to take their company to the next level look for a mentor or coach to help them get there.
For individuals just starting out in the industry, mentoring is essential because obtaining your license did not adequately educate you about managing a profitable real estate firm on a day-to-day basis.
Why Mentorship Might Be Beneficial to You?
You are more likely to succeed, for starters. According to Stanford University research, 80% of CEOs use mentoring or coaching in some capacity.
Instead of going it alone, working with a competent mentor has been demonstrated to be a successful strategy. Regardless of your level of experience, a mentor offers a variety of resources that you might not otherwise have access to, including:
Perspective And Experience
In the real estate industry, it is relatively simpler to become preoccupied with running the business day-to-day and run out of time to work "on the business." A mentor who has been there will comprehend your trip and provide you with a new viewpoint that you might not currently have.
Accountability
Realtors work in a field that offers countless career opportunities. Having someone hold you accountable might reduce distractions and assist you in concentrating on the tasks that are important to your company.
Innovation
Your bottom line might increase if you find more efficient ways to run your organization. This might be in process efficiency to work more cheaply and efficiently.
By broadening your perspective and spotting chances you might be missing, it might also increase the amount of revenue you produce.
Additional Resources
An excellent mentor will probably have the assistance you need right now. There are numerous moving components in the real estate industry, including software providers, service providers, and other business essentials.
You will receive ideas, tools, and many other resources from someone who consults and mentors agents all over the country and possibly the world. These resources could be of immeasurable benefit to your company.
Information & Experience
Regardless of your degree of experience, there may be days when you feel like you are starting over. As diverse as its employees are, so is the company.
It is really valuable to be able to turn to someone who can advise you when you are facing issues and is impartial and objective.
Network
Real estate is a people- and relationship-based industry. The ideal mentor will introduce you to people who might recommend the company to you, assist you in carrying out a growth strategy, and present you with more prospects than you would otherwise have.
Friendly And Trustworthy
A good mentor will stick by you throughout your life. The most successful workplace partnerships last for many years. Over the course of those years, the relationship frequently developed into one of friend and confidant.
How To Determine Your Mentorship Needs
Real estate agents typically have a good notion of where the pain spots are in their business when they are actively looking for solutions.
To match yourself with the ideal mentor, it's imperative to be incredibly clear about the type of mentorship you require. These are some typical locations where agents might require assistance.
Development Of Your Business
You will need a mentor who will provide fresh ideas to create leads and move those leads through to the close if you want to grow the number of units you sell each year.
You might benefit from understanding how your existing procedures and personality correlate with possible lead sources given the wide range of business opportunities available to you.
Millennials looking for their first house are considerably different from empty nesters who downsize. Divorced couples who need to sell their home have distinct demands than relocating buyers wishing to settle in your neighborhood.
A competent mentor can show you where your skills and resources could be most useful.
Mindset
Just having the appropriate attitude regarding possibilities is something that many agents struggle with. Do you think like a leader or just another cog in the machine? This is frequently the first step toward building a successful business. "Your attitude determines your altitude," it has been claimed.
Operations
Even if you have a positive outlook and can "sell ice to an Eskimo," your operational procedures can impede your progress. Your greatest need would be a mentor with excellent suggestions for improving functional efficiency.
How To Spot A Good Real Estate Mentor From A Bad One
It's a very personal choice whether or not a mentor is right for you. However, it is crucial that you feel at ease with the mentor and the mentoring process within the partnership.
Conditions To Avoid
If you are strongly opposed to cold calling, a mentor who stresses business growth through this method will not be of any assistance to you. Similar to this, it won't be worthwhile in the long run to work with a qualified and experienced mentor who is too busy to help you when you need it.
Because their brokerage suggests it, many agents will participate in mentoring or coaching. They are introduced to it by a friend, but they discontinue their participation soon after, possibly because they are inconsistent.
What Effective Mentoring Really Is
A good mentoring program must be beneficial. That value is almost always established by financial metrics, such as the return on investment for time or money invested. Depending on the mentorship program, that value also needs to be a reciprocal relationship.
Consider This As Well
Relationships between mentors and mentees should also be compatible on a personal and ideological level. Morals, ethics, politics, and even religious beliefs may have an impact on a mentoring relationship's result, particularly if one or both parties are exceptionally outspoken about their beliefs.
If any of these aspects are crucial to you, talk honestly about them before the relationship starts.
Teams, Coaching, And Mentoring
Mentorship can take many different forms. Let's examine the three forms of mentoring mentioned above to decide which is ideal for you.
People who volunteer to work with you as a guide to help you develop are known as mentors. They are people who are currently employed in the field and are happy to assist others in learning about or overcoming obstacles related to it. Even while compensation is frequently given, this is not their main source of income. Mentors lack any professional credentials or certifications.
Coaches make money by willingly pushing others to reach new heights outside of their comfort zones. They provide various services, charge for coaching engagements, and have certain SOPs (standard operating procedures).
Agents can join a team that a team leader has already organized through the use of teams. There may be some direct coaching or mentoring from that team leader, but in general, it is not very common.
Undoubtedly, there are some exceptions. As a team member, you compete for customers with the other members. Giving and receiving advice and support to aid one another in growing is not particularly encouraged in this situation.
10 Inquiries To Put To A Mentor
You are aware of the qualities you seek in a mentor, but how can you be certain the person standing before you will support you in achieving your goals?
To determine whether you and your mentor are on the same page, create a questionnaire based on your wish list. Here are a few sensible inquiries you can make:
- What would you do differently if you were starting from the same point as I am at this moment?
- What do you think are my best and worst qualities?
- What are the top 3 things you can suggest for me to keep my business competitive?
- What time management techniques would you suggest I employ in order to prioritize my tasks more effectively?
- What one skill could you teach me to help my business grow?
- What would you have changed if you had known then what you know now before starting your business?
- How do you remain inspired?
- What one habit would you advise I adopt in order to boost my business?
- Who are some influential people in your industry?
- Who has had the greatest impact on your life, by far? Then why?
In a mentor/mentee relationship, it may be crucial for you and your company that you pay close attention to the answers to the questions as they are given, rather than just hearing them.
Advice: Steer clear of phrases like "I want to pick your brain." Warning: This may be a personal peeve of mine. However, this adage has a poor reputation in the mentoring community. Although the idea of meeting with someone to learn is excellent, the term has become overused and appears to have lost its meaning. Ask directly whether mentorship is an option if you wish to know.
Final Words
A tried-and-true strategy for helping realtors expand their companies is mentoring and coaching.
It makes sense to minimize the learning curve and avoid the hazards of learning what has already been tried by others if someone has already traveled down that path numerous times and laid out the map.
To put it briefly, mentoring can enable you to do more than you could alone.