Your First 365 Days in Real Estate

How to build a successful real estate business (starting with nothing)

Shelley Zavitz

• Publisher: Harriman House
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780857197610
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Financial Accounting
• Index: Business

Your successful career in real estate starts here!The first 365 days of working in real estate can be one of the most tumultuous times in your career - full of hard lessons, heart breaks and hard work. Just because you have a license, doesn't mean you have a business.But if you get the important stuff right, a great future is yours for the taking.This honest, eye-opening and completely practical insider's guide shows you how to get where you want to be - even if you're starting from nothing.Author and successful real estate agent Shelley Zavitz reveals in unprecedented detail:- what to expect the first year of your career- how to implement systems that will impact your business in the next 90 days- how to build a marketing plan in a digital world- how to work your contacts to start your referral pipeline- how mindset can make or break your business and what to do about it- why surrounding yourself with the right people is essential.Shelley shares her own story as a new real estate agent - including how she built a brand starting with a network of just four people in a totally new city.The book also comes complete with worksheets, hot lists and examples of great branding so that you can catapult your business into the fast lane right now. Your First 365 Days in Real Estate is the number-one resource for new agents in the industry - don't miss out on your potential as a realtor without it.www.newrealtor365.com

Chapter 1:
What the Hell Was I Thinking?

Or, How I Stumbled Upon My Coach, Accountability Partner, Visionary and Mentor

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

—Oprah Winfrey

When life twists on you

I’m Canadian. Actually, I’m probably the worst Canadian you know. I don’t drink beer. I don’t like maple syrup. I’ve shed my accent and use of the word ‘eh’. In winter I’d rather be strutting on a misty beach in Oregon than stuck in an ice-fishing hut with a case of Labatts and three of my closest friends. I scream in an ice-cold car and am an absolute wimp about being in any suboptimal temperature in general.

There are three things that help me keep my passport and that’s my love for a good rye whiskey, the ability to navigate where the puck is in a hockey game on TV, and a strong inner moral compass that tells me if I do nothing in this world other than help people and be kind, then I’ve marked my place in history.

I dedicated all of my 20s and early 30s to radio broadcasting. I decided when I was 21, after only about nine months into my first copywriting job, that I wanted to be a creative director. I achieved that when I was 24, becoming one of the youngest female creative directors in Canada (according to the CEO). I went on to become the creative director at Virgin Radio in Vancouver, BC. My job was to inspire a team of writers and producers to be their very best, to take risks and challenge the status quo. They ended up winning several national and international awards and I was so proud to be a part of it. My next career evolution was to help start-up radio stations launch their brands. It was exhilarating and challenging every single day.

Life, though, has a way of twisting on you just when you think you’ve got ahold of it. One day, everything shifted. My personal life was drawing me away from Canada to the United States—and I had to jump.

Man, did I jump. I let go of my successful career, my home, my friends and personal network, and moved to the US to be with my partner. Even now I grit my teeth when I think back on how hard it was.

For better for worse, I was at the beginning of something.

After some introspection, I decided to take up a career in real estate. There are two things I know a lot about. Radio broadcasting and investing in real estate. I had done both for most of my adult life. I decided not to pursue radio, because I felt, ‘Heck, if I’m going to blow up my life and start again, I want to make some real money.’

Radio is a great gig, but it doesn’t always pay to love your job.

So, I’m in a new city, with a couple of friends, a house we’ve bought that smells like cat and flesh decay (which I’ve decided to renovate), and zero ideas of how I’m going to even get into an actual career in real estate (as opposed to doing up and selling on properties over time). Over dinner, I casually mentioned to two of my four friends in town that I was thinking about getting into the business and wanted to know what they thought of it. Both chimed in with surprising optimism.

“You would be great at it.”

“If anyone would be someone I’d trust, it’s you.”

Then it moved to:

“Hey, let me get you in touch with our agent.”

And the rest was like a snowball that created the avalanche. I met with their agent for coffee, and then others from different companies. Which led to meetings with managing brokers, which led to a meeting with the most important person in this story. A person I now call Coach.

Coach was my first gift that year. She was the president of the company I was considering signing with. As soon as we met, I felt in my gut I was headed in the right direction. She covered the usual questions about my past, why I had moved to Portland, asked when I was going to enroll for real estate classes and told me about the company.

Then, she asked me the question that changed everything for me:

“How much money do you want to make?”

I had never had to answer that question before. CEOs and managers determined what my pay grade was. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was allowed to choose.

I said I didn’t know and she smiled and said we could figure it out down the road.

As we wrapped up the meeting, she said: “Oh yeah—and we have a rookie of the year competition. You sign up for the new agent program with us, and the competition is open to you for two years.”

Until this point I hadn’t really been sure that I was all in on the real estate game. But this was something I could sink my teeth into. You’ve heard me say that I wanted to make ‘real money’—that was true, but I had a limited grasp of what exactly that would mean at the time (and, as you’ve seen, had no idea how to answer the question of what precise real-life sum it would entail). I didn’t think a wee Canadian girl, who grew up on a gravel road in Southwestern Ontario, deserved a fortune. What I could do, though, was strap on my cleats for the 200-yard dash to rookie of the year.

I met Coach for the first time on a Monday and was enrolled for the course by the afternoon. She inspired me. I was so excited. Yes! I’m ready.

Tuesday morning, I woke up and thought: ‘Am I crazy? I’m going to build a referral-based business in a new country, in a new city, with a support network of four people?’

I rolled over and went back to sleep.

That day I did everything but open my computer and begin t...

Table of contents

• Contents
• About the Author
• Introduction: My First Day
• Chapter 1: What the Hell Was I Thinking?
• Chapter 2: The Wake-Up Call
• Chapter 3: Showing Up
• Chapter 4: One Database to Rule Them All
• Chapter 5: The Power of Yes
• Chapter 6: The F Word
• Chapter 7: Mindset
• Chapter 8: The Ego, Friend or Foe?
• Chapter 9: Marketing
• Chapter 10: Hurdles
• Chapter 11: Giving
• Chapter 12: References, Guides and Templates
• Acknowledgments
• ‘White Flag’ by Joseph
• Publishing details