The insight that changed my real estate career

PHOTO: WIliam Yip. SUPPLIED

By William YIP, touring real estate trainer and Director of Team YIP, #1 Real Estate Team in the First National Network.

At the beginning of my real estate career, I was really struggling. I wasn’t converting any appraisals or making any money.

As someone who had always been an employee, the most difficult part of starting out in real estate was accepting the concept that I was self-employed and that I was creating something for myself.

It was hard at the start, as the traditional way of real estate didn’t resonate with me. I was also uncomfortable with the way I was told to dress or the ‘tasks’ I needed to do. I have never liked door knocking or cold-calling. Wearing a suit and tie made me feel uncomfortable. It took me a long time to realise that I was having trouble converting opportunities because I didn’t believe in what I was selling, and I wasn’t being true to myself.

Real estate is a business of relationships & connection, but it is impossible to build any meaningful connection if you are not comfortable in your own skin/suit.

Things started to take off for me when I embraced my market niche, ditched the suit and tie and started being true to my personal values that shape who I truly am. Now, we run a world class real estate team, with a strong market following that believes in what we truly stand for.

To this day, I still dress casually for all my appointments.

In my spare time, I’ve shared my strategies and delivered training to thousands of agents throughout Australasia. I even train my competitors. Our way of thinking about real estate resonates with anyone who doesn’t fit the traditional mould. It also helps agents unlock their inner potential. A lot of agents who have been through my training have doubled and tripled their sales in a relatively short time.

Change your thinking, change your world. Having the right mental strategy is important to survive this industry, because it isn’t easy. Nothing is easy. Anything worth doing is always on the other side of fear and a lot of hard work. But I hope that I can help others reach their potential, achieve their goals and serve their communities well.

The better we all do, the better it is for our communities.

Passion Is Infectious

One thing I always tell people who are struggling is that everyone has their own market niche. It is a mistake to focus on the entire market and neglect the small portion that will follow you to the end of the world. Real estate is a simple industry – grow a database of followers who like you and keep in touch. One day, when they want to transact real estate, hopefully they call you.

In reality, you need only a very small portion of the market to follow you to have great success in real estate. To make $100k/pa, chances are you only need a 1-2% market share, so it is absolutely OK for 98% of the market to not use you.

That is why it is more important to be yourself. Own your niche in the market!

Let’s say you love wearing the colour pink and that makes you feel your absolute best… then it makes no sense to compromise that just because someone tells you not to. If you’ve got tattoos, do you really want to sell a house for someone who doesn’t like tattoos?

How do you make friends? You present yourself confidently and you deliver the things you believe in with passion and conviction. Do that, and the right friends will come. The problem with the old-fashioned approach in real estate is that, when you’re not comfortable with yourself, it’s hard to make a genuine connection with others.

An agent’s ability to engage and make a genuine connection is what makes a transaction go well. We are in a connection economy. Which is why anyone can do well in real estate, if you meet 100 people and can make friends with 2-5 of them – then you will do well in real estate.

Don’t focus on getting 100% of people to like you if that means losing a sense of who you are – you will miss the 2-5% that would have seen value in you and followed you to the end of the world.

Passion is infectious. People want to work with you when you are passionate about something and really, truly believe in what you are doing.

So be yourself, flaunt your tattoos, wear pink, ditch the suit (or wear one if you like), find your inner peace, nurture a niche, and become unstoppable.

William is a PropTech Group Industry Champion.

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