“The history of the human race is the history of ordinary people who have overcome their fears and accomplished extraordinary things.” – Brian Tracy

Actually, I made $126,223!

I had no prior experience in real estate and no family members or friends in the field. In other words, I had no special advantages. To be honest, I started in real estate with a $46,000 debt! Not credit card or bank debt, but debt to friends and family. Debt that had to be paid back! It wasn’t a pleasant beginning. I remember one day waking up in the morning with my teeth clenched and my body tired! Nightmares the night before had left my muscles in knots. I was so stressed that I had difficulty opening my hands! I was completely paralyzed because of my huge debt. On that day if a bookie in Vegas had taken a bet on me becoming successful, my odds would have been 100 to 1! You get the picture.

To make matters worse, thirty days into my real estate career, my girlfriend left me. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world! I pinched myself every day to confirm that the “woman of my dreams!” was mine. She pinched herself every day to confirm that living with me was a “financial disaster” waiting to explode. Frankly, she thought I was a career loser!

You could say that “Lady Luck” had somehow overlooked me. However, I’ve since learned that it isn’t the cards you have been dealt, it’s how you play them! And that first year I played my cards to the tune of $126,000! I now believe that lady luck is opportunity meeting hard work.

This blog will give you detailed strategies, tips, and successful routines that will help you along your journey in real estate rentals. In this chapter I want to show you three overriding factors that let me achieve my success quickly: 1. Ongoing self-assessment to constantly improve myself 2. Leveraging my time profitably and 3. Dedication to continuing education.

Each was vital to my success. If you make changes to your business based on these three factors, you’ll find yourself in the fast-lane toward success!

“What Do I Mean By Self-Assessment?”

Believe it or not, a lot of my self-assessment involved simply keeping records! In the beginning, it was records of exactly what I had earned. In this business we get paid sporadically. A client signs a lease and you get a check. In my first month I was putting in a lot of hours and occasionally getting paid – but I had little idea of how productive I actually was. How much was I earning for each hour of work? At the end of that month I added up all my checks and divided the sum by the total number of hours I had worked. It turns out I made $8.63 an hour that month. Sure I was new at this, but I could be a cashier for that kind of money! There was no doubt in my mind that I had to improve my level of competence and raise my hourly income. By calculating my income in this way, I made the first step toward controlling my earnings and my life. You have to know where you’re starting from to control where you’re going. So I kept a careful log of my income and my hours over the coming months.

During my second month I averaged $10.62/hour. The increase was only 10-15% over the pervious month, but I could clearly see progress. In my third month I decided to examine which skills I most needed to improve. What changes could I make that would help me boost my hourly income even more? I decided to document all of my actions from advertising through signing the lease. In order to understand my own strengths and weaknesses, I needed to see evidence of what was working and what wasn’t. I tracked the number of calls received, ads posted, people met, and leases signed. At the end of the month I would know what I needed to work on in order to become more successful. Was I getting a lot of appointments but not converting them into leases? Was I posting a lot of ads but only getting a few calls? In my third month I made $15.65 per hour – nearly a 50% improvement over month two! Without my detailed record-keeping, I could not have improved so quickly.

Concrete records were crucial for me, and I highly recommend them for anyone in this industry. Agents tend to be optimistic folks. Unfortunately, optimism can border on self-delusion if you’re not careful. You earn a check for $2,000 one week, and it’s easy to feel like you’re making $2,000 per week. But the next week you don’t close a deal at all, and maybe the week after that you earn a commission of only $800. When you have the cold hard facts in front of you – you can’t fudge numbers in your mind. You can’t deny that your “apartment showing” needs improvement if you showed 60 apartments and closed only two deals.

In my fourth month I was lucky to find a brochure for a seminar by Tom Hopkins, the famous author of “How to Master the Art of Selling.” At the time my goal was to earn $44,000 in my first year – even though I had a debt of $46,000! I’d spoken to other agents and $44,000 seemed reasonable for a rookie. I figured I’d spend the first year getting comfortable with the business and learning the ropes. I thought I could get by on roughly $3700 each month; it would allow me to pay the interest on my debt. I would worry about tackling the principal once I had more experience in the field.

Then I went to Tom Hopkins’s seminar and everything changed. Quite simply, I was BLOWN AWAY by the amazing skills displayed and presented at the seminar. They demonstrated amazing command and control of the selling process with unbelievable closing techniques and sales tools. They showed the true power of tools such as goal setting and time management. I was so encouraged, motivated and inspired that the very next day I changed the goal from $44,000 to $120,000! This seminar not only enhanced my skills, it opened my perspective on just what I could achieve if I kept learning, improving, and giving it all that I have!

Once I had my new goal, I concentrated on the areas that needed improvement each month, and continued to steadily enhance my skills. In my sixth month I earned $27/hour. In my twelfth month I made $207/hour. The only way I could have possibly gone from $8.63/hour to $207/hour in twelve months was through the meticulous record-keeping that gave me the information and motivation to perfect my skills and increase my productivity month-by-month. Below you will find the results of my first year in the real estate business.

You have to know where you are and where you’re going at all times! It happens all too often that an agent will have a great week, and then the following week it slows down. A great agent can never let that happen! You need to maintain discipline every single day, and that discipline is kept in place through detailed data management – record keeping! The data of my constant self-examination keeps me focused and in touch with reality. I have a concrete plan of exactly what I have to do – I need to place so many ads, receive so many calls, show so many apartments, and close so many deals. Each week I increased my target numbers based on the success of the week before. Consistency, discipline, and careful monitoring of my progress allowed me to earn $126,000 in my first twelve months!

Incentives & Rewards

Many brokers offer incentives for success. My office had a $3,000 incentive for the highest producing agent over six months. I promised myself that I would win that prize, and – with my eye on that goal every single day – I did! My office also had a $10,000 incentive for agents producing over $220,000 gross for the year. By focusing on that objective and using my data to continually strengthen my skills, I won that too!

These incentives stoked a competitive fire that helped motivate me, but it’s important to note that my competitiveness was primarily with myself! If you are competitive with yourself, or rather, with your past – you focus on what YOU are doing and not what others may be doing.

If your office doesn’t offer incentives, give some to yourself. Make a goal for next month and create a reward that is meaningful to you – a day-trip to visit an old friend, a spa treatment, or dinner at some place you usually can’t afford. Dangle a little carrot in front of yourself in times when the going seems up-hill and you need a jolt of motivation to keep you going!

I believe it’s important to reward yourself for your successes along the way. Treat yourself to something when you pass a milestone or reach a goal. I understood early on that if I simply got my commission check and rushed on to the next deal, I wasn’t going to enjoy myself in this industry. So I decided to reward myself. Every time I got a check, I would take the next hour or two for myself. I’d go see a movie even if it was the middle of the afternoon or go out to a nice lunch, or take a quiet walk in Central Park – anything that was enjoyable to me and had nothing to do with work. It was a small gesture, but it was important. It let me slow down for a short time to savor my life and celebrate my success. You’re going to be working long hard weeks, don’t forget to take moments to reward yourself! It’s something a hard working agent does and deserves.

Leveraging – Spending More Time Where the Money Is

At my three-month mark I realized I was spending way too much time on tasks that weren’t directly earning me money. It was necessary to post ads and chase after paperwork, but these weren’t the type of activities worth $207 an hour! It was time to delegate.

I started by hiring an intern who agreed to work for me over the summer before she started college. Her name was Heather. I can candidly tell you that she was smarter than I was! She created a system for my database, she placed ads on time, she even secured paperwork from clients ten times faster than I ever could! Suddenly the things I considered hassles were lifted off my shoulders and handled smoothly without my involvement. Now I was free to spend more energy and time taking calls, showing apartments, and closing deals!

That summer was a turning point. After those three months I knew I needed more than an intern. I needed someone that would stay with me over the long haul. I said to myself, “Gary, you have come to the point where if you devote even more time to the aspects that bring in the money, you can easily afford a full time employee!” This is when I hired my first paid assistant.

About eight months into that first year, I saw yet another way to expand. I began seeking out junior agents who wanted to learn from me. We made a small team where they advanced their careers more quickly because I was teaching them and keeping them from making the same mistakes I made, and my income grew because I got a cut of their commissions.

“Wait a Minute! What Did Your Broker Say?”

Didn’t mind at all! An agent is an independent contractor. Even though I was working for my broker in his office, there are no restrictions for teaming up with other agents. Anything that helps agents close more deals is fine by the company!

Look for ways that you can surround yourself with others who will contribute to your success. They say there is strength in numbers, and it’s true. But keep in mind that the significant influence on my success was not just to hire an assistant and junior agents, but to hire a competent assistant and motivated junior agents! You want people who are focused and dedicated to success! Don’t think that you can do it yourself. When the time is right, seek out your team.

Education

The third piece of the pie in my first year’s success is simply the commitment to continually learn new things. That sounds like common sense, but it’s more rare than you might think. I thought I was learning new things all the time, but it wasn’t a dedicated effort. Learning through trial and error, or when you pick something up from a co-worker, or when you happen to come across an informative article – while better than nothing, is still a haphazard occurrence.

Steven Covey, the acclaimed author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” separates activities into “urgent” and “important.”

Urgent vs. Important – What’s the Difference?

In the rental business an urgent activity would be attending to a client’s phone call, being on time for client meetings, showing an apartment, or advertising. These are the activities that directly earn you money. However, renting apartments can be so time consuming that we neglect the “important” activities which, over time, will improve our ability to master those urgent tasks, and allow us to excel in the field.

“What’s an Important Activity?”

Here are two important activities that were extremely valuable to me.

Reading books for one hour every night on real estate, rentals, or sales.

It really hit home for me when I attended a seminar that opened my eyes and changed my attitude for life. The seminar was by a man with the magnificent name of Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. He said something that has greatly impacted my career:

“In five years you will be somewhere, but where you will be depends on the books you read and the people you meet.”

He made it clear that anyone who read a book about his or her industry for one hour every day would be considered an expert in that field within 5 years. People who acquired information at that rate, even if they recalled only part of what they read, would have an impressive store of knowledge and would likely be implementing techniques that were extremely effective.

Think about it, how many agents or brokers do you think read one hour every day? Very few! That’s why what Charlie said was the easiest and simplest way I could separate myself from the pack!
By educating yourself, even a little bit every day, you’re continually enhancing your skill set. Each day you take the tools you learned the night before and apply them to your selling process – anything from a whole new strategy to a single word or phrase to use with a client. This way, you continually test and refine your new knowledge and work to perfect your ability in the field in ways most agents do not! It will increase your business in ways you can’t even imagine or predict!

If you commit one hour of every day to an educational book, audio CD, or DVD, you only increase your competency by 1% a day, within 100 days you’re twice as proficient as you were before – and within a year you’re almost 700% more skillful!

Once I started reading consistently, it resulted in a major change in perspective. I was finding ways to do business that took others twenty years to figure out! I was discovering things I never would have learned if I hadn’t read those books.

Try it! Read every day for one month. You might end up surprising yourself!

Invest at least one hour every day in educating yourself. I don’t mean magazines and I don’t mean general books. I mean books on business, advertising, social media, rentals, real estate or sales – that’s it. From new ideas, to new ways of solving a problem, to skills and tactics you never would have thought of – constantly learning is vital to your success!

In addition to daily reading, attend seminars or training courses or visit the annual Real Estate Expo. You never know when one person’s expertise could be the key to your own success!

I really discovered how learning could enhance my career about three months into my first year when I attended a one-day seminar by Tom Hopkins, author of ” How to Master the Art of Selling.” It cost $495, which – given my $46,000 debt – was expensive for me. However, I was hopeful that it would help me increase my income, so I decided to go.

This seminar changed my life!

Hopkins taught me to look at clients in a whole new way. He said that you’re not in the business of showing an apartment, you’re in the business of renting an apartment. He also taught us 8-10 closing skills that vastly increased my chance of sealing the deal. It was genius! When I implemented these techniques over the next few weeks, they increased my business by 400-500%! Over 8 months my hourly earnings jumped from $27/hour to $207/hour. That $495 for the seminar felt like pennies compared to the $95000 those techniques brought me in the following nine months!

Learning From the Best!

“If you could find out what the most successful people did in any area and then you did the same thing over and over you’d eventually get the same results they do.” – Brian Tracy

In my first and second year in the industry I took a few occasions to learn from the very best in the Manhattan rental business. This was a crucial step in my education. I would call my competitor as a client and request their top agent. I learned a tremendous amount of skills by meeting these top agents and observing how they handled me. I even recorded what they said so that I could listen to them later. A top agent can demonstrate skills and techniques in one hour that could otherwise take you years to learn!

Obviously I can see the moral hazard of this; I was being dishonest and wasting the time of a fellow agent! To justify this, I sent each agent I met $200 cash anonymously. I waited one week so they didn’t connect the money with me, and then sent the cash in an envelope with a note saying “Thank you for your services.” I met with maybe five or six agents this way. The $1200 I spent compensating these unknowing agents probably brought me $20,000 in future income.

Are You Ready?

In addition to these three factors, be prepared for some HARD WORK! I was working 8 (this is not a misprint!) days a week from 8 am to 8 pm. This business isn’t easy, especially when you are just beginning. In an office of over 50 agents that year, only 5 made over $120,000 in rentals. Amongst them, I was the only rookie! I share this with you to express that a lot of hard work is a given. Be prepared to give your very best!

The exhilaration at the end of the year was so awesome that all the hard work was worth it. It felt like I had risen from the depths of depression to the heights of excitement and happiness – especially given that I was now debt free! Words are too light to explain the actual experience and feelings! I hope you are able to experience the joys of your own success. Simply delightful! Simply wonderful!