It is in fact possible to become a real estate agent working part time.  As a matter of fact in some cases it is recommended that you only work part time when first starting out.  This is because start up expenses, like getting your real estate agent license and other necessities, can take a while to get in order.  On top of that a lot of people take a while to get acclimated.  It’s not uncommon for an agent’s first sale to take six months or more.  In this case it can be helpful to have a primary stream of income until you get off your feet.

The first step to getting your real estate agent license.

The most important thing to remember when getting started in real estate is that it’s all about networking.  You need to tell anyone who will listen that you’ve become an agent.  On top of that you need to tell them to tell anyone they know.  Getting your name out there is paramount to your success.  Luckily this doesn’t need to take you too far away from your daily routine.  It won’t stop you from completing any of your other responsibilities, but you do need to put in the extra effort.  

Next, you’re going to need to implement some strict boundaries.  A lot of the work required of an agent can be done from home.  However, clients have a tendency to call you out of the blue looking to see a property.  Your answering machine need to clearly state when you are and aren’t available.  People will understand if they know when you can reach you.  But this means you need to make sure that you call people back as soon as possible.  Clients will generally respect your boundaries so long as you let them know up front, and you stick to your commitment.

The last thing to remember is that becoming an agent, even a part time one, comes with it’s fair share of investment.  Just getting your real estate agent license can take anywhere from several months to a year and cost several hundred dollars.  Once you get your license you’ve got roughly a thousand dollars in advertising expenses.  This should cover the basic necessities: business cards, for sale signs, open house signs, a website, etc.  Then there’s membership, board, and association fees, and you can’t forget the price of gas in your car from driving people all over town.  All in all it’s a sizeable investment, so keep this in mind before you quit your previous job.

Hello, my name is Loren Robin.  I am, among other things, a real estate agent.  As a woman who’s lived a life beyond her wildest dreams I wanted to share a story of success with all you female real estate agents out there.  

I grew up in a lower middle class family.  At the age of 22 I returned to my childhood home in New Jersey from a failed attempt to get my life started across the country.  I discovered that my parent were getting a divorce, and they were putting the house up for sale.  I found myself broke, depressed, and gaining weight.  I had a high school education, no marketable skill, and no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I was completely lost, grasping for anything that resembled a purpose.  At night I waited tables.  During the day I watched an endless stream of realtors pass through the house.

Loren Robin is one of the top female real estate agents in the business.

One afternoon, a top-producing agent came over. The experience changed my life forever.  She was dazzling. She drove a baby blue Jaguar, and she had the friendliest personality I’d ever met. Her clients were running late, so we had a chance to talk for a while. She said I reminded her of herself when she was my age. “You have a great personality,” she told me. “You’d be really good at real estate!”  I couldn’t believe that this gorgeous woman, who was so full of confidence, believed I could step into her shoes! It was truly inspiring.

Finally, I found some direction in my life.  I got my real estate license in no time, and things started falling into place.  My first job in real estate was at Weichert Realtors in New Jersey. Even though I was terrified, I played the part well.  In my first year I made the Million Dollar Club; which was a huge deal for me.

After a few good years at Weichert I took on a new job at the biggest commercial real estate company in the state.  I met an amazing man while on vacation. We fell in love, married, and moved to Canada. Two years later I was pregnant with twin boys. It soon turned out my husband wasn’t who I thought he was.  Suffice it to say, I divorced quickly and moved to Florida with my twin boys.

At this point I’d tasted success, and I wasn’t ever giving it up!  Despite being the single mother of two young boys, I got a Florida real estate license.  After a few years I took a leap of faith, got my broker’s license, and started my own company. Everyone thought I was nuts. I had two small children, I was leaving a steady job, and I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into. I just knew I had to do it.

I was the president, owner, top salesperson, bookkeeper, etc. I worked nonstop and still did so many things wrong.  Even though it took me a while to get into the swing of things, the market was hot and the business flowed in.

I built a successful company over several years. One day, Prudential called out of the blue saying they wanted to buy my company.  We negotiated for a bit, and it payed off. They bought my company.  Most of my team and I went to work for them.

         In less than two years, I was the company’s top producer on the east coast of Florida. I had a handful of  full time assistants working for me, and plenty of support. But I was paying Prudential a fortune to be there. After shelling out their 6% franchise fee, 15% cut for the broker, 10-15% for advertising, the money I had left just didn’t make any sense.

After three years with Prudential I left to start my own boutique firm.  I called it Luxury Real Estate Group International, and I only hired rock stars! We started with five new home projects in a jaw-dropping office with major developers.

If you’d told me at 22 where that I’d make it to the top 1% of the real estate industry, I would have called you crazy.  I just didn’t think I was capable.  What more I managed to do it while raising two wonderful boys on my own.  The take home message here is that it’s hard to see our own potential, especially when we’re low.  Sometimes it takes someone else having faith in us, before we’re willing to have faith in ourselves.   I’m here to say that real estate isn’t about where you’ve been.  It’s about what you’re willing to put in to where you’re going.  On top of that it give you the confidence, and the people skills necessary to go into a variety of other professions if you so choose.

Loren’s Step by Step Guide

Branding is one of those concepts that is frequently referenced, but never particularly well-defined.  We understand that good real estate branding ideas are important for our success.  However, when it comes to how and why we’re implementing them, things tend to get a little fuzzy.  The simple answer is that customers seek out an agent for one of two reasons. A personal connection, or recognition of a familiar and trustworthy brand.  The primary are a result of your networking efforts.  The latter are a result of your marketing efforts and the focus of this article.  If you’re looking to build a brand that sets you apart from your local competitors, then here are some guidelines to follow.

1. Depict and maintain a clear representation of your identity.

Real estate branding ideas should define your business’s place in the market.

The first step here is defining yourself.  Who are you? What do you do? How are you and your services special?  It is more than likely that you will already have the answers to these questions.  If you don’t, then think about what you, or your customers, have valued most about your services.  Any aspect of your business in which you excel above and beyond can be an aspect of your brand identity.

The second step is to consistently live up to the identity you depict in your brand.  If you represent yourself as punctual, you can’t show up late.  If you represent yourself as positive, you can’t be negative.  Your brand serves as a promise to your clients.  When you fail to deliver on that promise, then you’ve lied in the eyes of your clients.  Obviously no one is perfect, but you have to do your best to live up to the brand.

2. Expand the reach of your brand

You can’t be everywhere at once.  This is why you have a website, an email, a voicemail, a Facebook page, etc.  You must be sure that each of these automated mechanisms of your business also represent the image you want for your business.  If you’ve chosen an identity that fit you well then this shouldn’t be too difficult a task.  All you need is to make sure your personal touch shows through in every aspect of your business.

3. Collect testimonials

There is only so much you can do to cultivate a brand for your business.  At some point you’ll need the help of your satisfied customers.  It’s highly recommended that you ask every one of your clients to provide you with a testimonial.  Ask for their impression of the experience.  Review these testimonials, and post them to your website and facebook page.  This will prove an excellent way to build credibility with future clients.

Figuring out how to market a real estate agent online is easy once you learn how to do it right.  Only focusing on one aspect of online marketing is probably the biggest mistake you can make.  For example, a lot of people will just buy paid ads.  They incorrectly assume that internet marketing works just like print advertisements.  What they don’t realize is that paid ads are just a fraction of the puzzle.  In order to create effective online advertising for real estate agents you must familiarize yourself with the three pillars of internet marketing.

How to establish effective online advertising for real estate agents.

The first, and arguably most important, of these pillars is organic search rankings.  What shows up when you search something in a search engine: Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc?  You get pages and pages of links.  These links are posted in the order they are ranked by the search engine.  The search engines make these rankings by looking at a variety of factors.  Factors that typically revolve around the popularity of the site, and the frequency with which it mentions the words you just entered into the search bar.  As you might imagine, the link listed at the top of an organic search is the one people are most likely to click on.  As the list descends the links are increasingly less likely to be clicked on.  For this reason, it is in your best interest to get your link as high up on the organic search list as possible.  

The second pillar are paid advertisements.  These are commonly referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) ads: Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Yahoo Gemini, Bing Ads, etc.  As their name suggests, the cost of these paid advertisements typically correlate to the number of clicks your ad receives from users.  Since each click technically represents a new lead this can be an incredibly useful means of promoting your company, brand, or product.  This is the easiest aspect of online marketing to maintain because it merely requires you to purchase the space, and the search engine handles the rest.  Unfortunately there are two major downsides to paid advertisements.  First, most experienced internet users can recognize paid content.  They are accustomed to being bombarded by it.  And they generally consider it inferior to organic content.  This means a portion of users have developed a tendency to ignore paid content.  Second, a lot of users click on paid ads by accident, and have no interest in purchasing the product it’s representing.  This is only an issue because you still have to pay for their click regardless of whether or not the user intended to click on it.

The final pillar of online marketing is content.  One of the most important factors the search engines account for when creating organic rankings is the content linking to each site: blog posts, press releases, videos, images, facebook posts, etc.  Not only does the amount of content enter into consideration, but also the quality and freshness of said content.  For example, if your site has a massive amount of content but the newest stuff is a couple of month old, then you won’t get as high of a ranking as a site with less content that is still fresh.  The same goes for sites with lots of fake content (lorem ipsum articles, blank videos, etc) as opposed to sites with high quality content in a lesser quantity.  

This is an instance where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.  Any one of these techniques is almost never enough to constitute a successful online marketing campaign, but in tandem they are incredibly effective.  If you remove one pillar then the structure that’s built upon it will inevitably crumble to one degree or another.  Remember this when constructing your own online marketing presence.