CHOOSING YOUR TEAM, CHOOSING YOUR NICHE

Series on working with High-End Clientele: How to choose the people who will have a major impact on your career

Hello my friends!

I am very excited to announce that I have recently begun writing a book! I’ll be talking about working with high-end clientele. How to choose the people who will have a major impact on your career?!

I’m going to spend several blog posts exploring the themes that come up in my book.

First, you may or may not know - I cater my real estate practice to high net-worth individuals. There have been many ups and downs and strange twists of fate that have led me to this career and now I feel I’m finally in a place where I can share this knowledge with you.

I’m going to use this article to give you some straightforward advice - if you want a more in-depth explanation of these principles or to hear about the experiences that led to these revelations, you’ll just have to wait and buy the book!

The reason 85-90% of real estate agents give up in the first 5 years is because they rely too much on their own trial and error. In a business where you can’t expect to make literally any money in the first 3-6 months, you need help getting through those months swiftly and smoothly. You need to align yourself with people who know what they are doing and who can help you be as successful as you can be, as quickly as possible. When you start your journey in real estate, you need to pick a team. This is how you will learn the business, it will help you make connections and get leads. Thinking you should go it on your own in order to keep your whole commission is faulty thinking. A smaller percentage of some money and the opportunity to learn, get leads and make connections expeditiously is much better than 100% of no money, struggling to figure things out on your own, without support and people who have the expertise to instruct you. In the beginning, you need lots of hand holding and support. In order to feel safe and secure, you must have a team, especially a team leader, you can trust and who can hold your hand and guide you at every step.

Certain teams will have niches and it’s important to be aware of those so you align yourself with a team that works the corner of the market in which you’re interested. However, don’t commit to an area of focus when you’re just starting out. You need to get an overview of real estate as a whole. Spend a year or so with your first team. Use this time to learn the ins-and-outs of business and survey the various nooks and crannies of the industry. At the end of the year, decide if you like where you are enough to stay or go out and expand; explore and find your true niche. If, later on, you realize you don’t like the aspect of the business you’ve chosen, don’t be afraid to try something different. It might take a little while but you could find that you don’t like the focus you’ve picked or you may see that you like something else more. Always go where your passion is, don’t be afraid to leave something just because you think that that is where you “should” be or where you’ve already invested time.

They say “the riches are in the niches” and this is true - if you pick the right niche. When seeking your calling, first and foremost - the province you stake out has to make money. That is what my upcoming book is about - working with a clientele that pays dividends - high net-worth individuals. A niche is easily understood by clients. When you choose your clients, they will choose you. If you specialize in a certain kind of client, that client will know it is you who understands them and can serve their needs better than anyone else. Niching adds value by being easily understood and it becomes much easier to market.

Key in your selection should also be your personality, your interests and your values. Find a game you want to play. You can only do something for so long, if it doesn't line up with your values. You won’t be able to sustain it. Niching is important for your emotional well-being because the people within your niche - your teammates, your colleagues and your clients - are the people with whom you will be spending your time. It’s best to have the same mindset. If you do this, you’ll just naturally want to spend time with each other. You will like working with these people and it will be easier to understand them and for them to understand you. Working with like-minded individuals will also keep you on task and motivated.

It’s important to be able to relate to your clients so you can create a rapport, whether it’s a seller or buyer. You should aim to have common ground or interests so you have something to talk about and a base with which to build a good relationship.

Once you have decided on a forte, you need to find a team whose strength is that forte. Go deep into your bailiwick and find people to oversee your development who are playing at a higher and deeper level within that pursuit. However - you choose a team based first on the leader and then on the importance of the niche.

The most important member of the team, obviously, is the team leader. You need to learn from people who have dominated the market. But, they will be one of your first mentors so you need to trust, respect and admire them. The leader should be a giving person who is sincerely interested in your growth and the growth of everyone on the team.

Not encourage bad behavior here - but you should basically stalk the leader. Don’t follow them around on the street or anything, but do your research and find out all the information you can on them. Google-stalk them, look at their social media, find out about the type of deals they do. These are the types of deals you will be doing.

When you have found out everything you can about the team leader and you think you’d be a match, interview the team members. Do you like these people? Find out about their experiences. Ask for their thoughts about the team, how well it has worked for them and their career. And, most importantly, take the opportunity to find out about the team leader. Despite being perfect on paper, you have no idea how this person is to work with until you’ve asked people who work with them. They could be a raging ego-maniac and that is something that would be good to know before making the jump and committing to the team.

When you start out you need the guidance and support. Niching is an important part of picking a team but don't choose a niche first. Spend the first year on a team to get an overview of the entire field. Decide on your team based on the leader and members. There are many reasons to select one specialty over another but when making that decision, two things are most important; there has to be money in it and you have to align with the values and interests of that line of work and the people with whom you will be interacting. Once you’ve picked an area of the industry, you need to find a team that specializes in that area. However, the most important thing about your team choice is the leader, not the niche. Stalk the leader. Then interview the team.