“Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.”
—Scott Adams
Let’s talk baseball for a minute.
As a little kid, when you want to play baseball, all you need to do is sign up, pay the fee, get your equipment, and show up to practice and games. It doesn’t matter how well you play. You’re automatically on the team, and you will see playing time on the field.
Things change when you get older. You don’t just get to be on whatever team you sign up for. You have to go to tryouts. And to make it on the team, you have to be pretty good at what you do.
You can’t just practice hitting so that you know you can get a line drive or knock it over the fence. If you can hit like Babe Ruth, but you miss every ball that comes your way, you won’t make the team.
Maybe you can run down a fly ball better than anybody else on the field. That’s super. However, your arm isn’t strong enough to get the ball to second base, let alone slinging it all the way to home plate. You won’t make the team like that, either.
In baseball, you must hone multiple skills if you want to have a successful career. You must be able to field grounders, pop flies, and line drives. You must have quick reflexes that enable you to catch the ball and immediately get it to the appropriate teammate with accuracy. You must be able to differentiate between pitches coming at you, so you know when to swing. And you must be able to get your bat around on a fastball and make contact with the sweet spot.
If you cannot do all of that well, then you will not play baseball successfully. Your career will be very short-lived and not much to write home about.
The same is very much true in the field of real estate. You can’t just be really great at writing up a contract and achieving success. You can’t merely be an excellent communicator and find success as a real estate agent.
If you want to be a successful real estate agent, then there are quite a few skills you need to have under your belt in order to make that happen. I’m going to list the skills you need to begin practicing.
18 Skills You Need as a Real Estate Agent
First up, I want to cover soft skills. These are more interpersonal skills. These may already come very naturally to you, or they may require quite a bit of practice. Just think of each of them as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Communication Is King
You must know how to communicate well to build relationships with clients, vendors, builders, and other agents. You are going to come face to face with people who are scared, excited, anxious, angry, and disappointed. Buying and selling a home is not a quick process. And it can take its toll on your client.
You must be prepared to be there through all of the ups and downs … and even be the target of some of the angst! You will need to learn how to tell the truth without coming across as harsh while being mindful of all they are
Communication is the most crucial soft skill for you to master. And it isn’t just about words. There is body language, knowing triggers, understanding boundaries, and being mindful of their finances.
You’ll need to learn your clients’ preferences for communication, as well. Do they prefer email, text, or phone calls? Make sure you are adept and adaptable in every form of communication. You also need to find out if your client prefers regular updates throughout the day, once a day, or once a week. If you do too much, your client may get annoyed and tune you out.
Just as you need to be mindful of your client’s preferences, you’ll need to be mindful of the communication needed for your other professional contacts. All of your communication should be respectful and made in such a way that it is building a good reputation for you among everyone you work with.
You can improve your communication skills by working on your verbal communication, non-verbal communication, written communication, and active listening.
Active Listening
Active listening does not look like talking over another person. Active listening is purposely closing your mouth while another person is speaking or trying to find words to use. And it isn’t distracted listening.
This type of listening is certainly a skill that requires practice. The majority of people are not great listeners. We tend to be great interrupters. We must practice waiting until people finish speaking before we talk.
Once they have finished speaking, repeat back what you’ve heard them say and follow it with questions. It will keep you from making assumptions about what people are telling you.
Active listening can even mean taking notes on what is being said. Just make sure you tell the person speaking with you that is what you’re doing. This is especially wise if you struggle to remember everything a person has said to you.
People Skills
Remember, your clients are not just another number or notch on your belt. Your clients are people with thoughts, feelings, and lives that are impacted by the way the home-buying or selling process goes. They are affected by life’s circumstances just like you.
This also means that they would appreciate it when you pay attention to their life events! So, wish them a happy birthday and a happy anniversary. Ask how things are going as they get settled into their new home. Show them that you care.
Recognize Body Language
This is a biggie. The body can completely contradict what the words are saying. Pay attention to the body. The body will give you clues as to how people are truly feeling throughout the process.
You cannot read body language without being visually observant. It may take you several interactions to fully grasp what someone’s body language is communicating to you. Watch their facial expression, their eye contact, and the way they hold their body.
Reading Social Cues
Boy … You have probably witnessed a person who has zero luck at reading social cues. It’s painful. Please don’t be that person! But if this is you, then you must make it a point to learn how to do it!
Social cues vary from culture to culture. You will need to pay attention to this if you have an international client or professional contact. Showing disrespect to them could kill your deal because you remained ignorant of what is important to them. Learn the appropriate social etiquette when entering into relationships with people from various cultures.
Patience
Patience is a virtue that many of us could use a little more of! And believe me, you will need plenty of it in the world of real estate. It is a career of unpredictable bumps in the road. There are inspections to pass, zoning permits, construction delays, financing issues, and more. Real estate deals can take anywhere from several months to a few years.
What’s more, you will have ample opportunities for practicing patience when you’re trying to find more clients. Some clients are ripe and ready to go. Other clients will require attention for a much longer period of time before they are ready to commit.
Tact
Tact may come naturally to you, if so, good for you. That’s fantastic. Or you may need to work very hard at using tact when you communicate. You must learn how and when to communicate when it’s time to let go of a real estate deal.
You will need tact to make sure that your decisions are based on facts and not feelings. And you have to guide your clients accordingly to help them make the wisest, shrewdest decisions possible. Tact will keep you from just ditching your client and help you to make peaceful decisions.
Additional Skills
Those skills are just the tip of the iceberg for what you need to practice in order to succeed as a real estate agent. Now, it’s time to talk about all the other skills you need to propel your career forward.
Fail Forward
That’s what Will Smith calls it when you learn from your failure and get better. Take each failure and use it as an opportunity to learn. Do not sit in blame, shame, or self-pity. Dust yourself off, move on, and don’t make that same mistake again.
Be Driven to Succeed
You must be driven to succeed to climb from step to step through each challenge you come up against. You need the drive to push through when things are tough, but you need to get ahead.
This is not a sit-and-wait game. As a realtor, you must stay active in the pursuit of more business. You cannot sit back and hope it falls into your lap. You are not working a typical 9 to 5 job where you have daily tasks to do for an hourly rate.
You need to find the internal motivation that drives you to pursue new clients every single day. If you do the work of developing your mindset, it will help keep you on track.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
You cannot be a one-man show and expect to thrive as a real estate agent. You must play well with others. Real estate is a career built on connections. Having a team is essential.
In order to make it successful through the buying and selling process, you must have the cooperation of others. This may require just a touch of humility on your part to accept the perspectives of other people. You must acknowledge that other people know how to do their particular job better than you can. You need those other people.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Even though you need a team around you and may have a broker, you don’t work for them. You work with them. You’re not alone. You have people supporting you. But, you are the business.
You may be thinking, But nobody works for me. I don’t have any employees. You don’t need any employees to have your own business. Accept this as a fact and embrace the idea that you must run your real estate career like it’s a business for which you are entirely responsible.
Time Management
You will have more than one thing going on at a time. You will have more than one showing you need to get to, more than one inspection to put on the books, and more than one contract to review.
And you cannot just keep all of that straight in your mind without some sort of system in place. Your hours, days, and weeks must be scheduled to make certain you are giving your clients the best, most effective, and most reliable service.
Check into different scheduling apps that will help you stay on top of every project, task, and appointment. Trello and Asana are two of the more known apps you can try.
Just Do It
Yep. There will be many times when tasks that seem menial or trivial must be done … and there is nobody else around to do them. There will be times when you have a deadline approaching and nobody else is available to enter your listing into the MLS.
You must be willing to do the job that needs doing. Period. The point is for the work to get done for the good of your client. That means you are responsible for doing whatever it takes to make that happen—including doing the work yourself.
Negotiation
Negotiation is a skill that you cannot afford to ignore, and it is not a skill you should take lightly. There are many key factors that go into being a skillful negotiator.
You first need to know the facts from both sides because knowledge is power. You need to take your integrity very seriously and keep it fully intact by acting above reproach. Be even-tempered so you can think clearly and get the best response possible from the other side.
Be aware that you are not in a negotiation alone. Your communication skills will be put to the test. You need to make sure you and your client are on the same page by fully educating them as to whether a deal is good or bad, and when it is time to walk away. Help them to know when to push back and when to compromise.
Part of the negotiation is always knowing the facts about the client’s financial situation. It is your job to keep your client grounded in the midst of the negotiation process.
Marketing
Marketing is an essential part of your real estate career. You are creating your brand all the time, whether you realize it or not. So, be purposeful in your choices.
You need to know what you’re about, how you will pitch what you do, and who you want your ideal client to be. And you need to get your message out to your target audience.
It’s a good idea to take classes to learn how you can be a better marketer to get the most out of your efforts. You will need to keep up with current marketing trends and take advantage of all the tools you have at your disposal. The internet and social media can be your best friends and closest allies!
Play to Your Strengths
Your personality can be your biggest asset. If you are a resourceful person, use it. If you are creative, use it. If you are great at diffusing tense situations, use that strength.
What is it about you that will make you stand out in a crowd? How do people describe you? The impression you leave on people matters and it carries over into all parts of your career. So be sure that the strengths you lean into are those that somehow serve both you and your client.
When you are done with the home buying/selling process, you want your client to walk away knowing that they would choose to work with you again and again.
The personality you present to the world is your personal brand. Make it a good one.
Be Tech Savvy
If you are not tech-savvy, learn. Technology is only going to continue to advance and change. You need to adapt and change with it.
Yes, you can still carry a notebook and write things down. But your notebook cannot be your sole source of information for staying on top of your career.
Technology is there to help you out. You want to have a website, a Facebook page, and an Instagram account for your business. And you want to use the online organizational tools available to you.
Problem-Solving Skills
Real estate agents are not quitters. You cannot be a quitter. When challenges come your way, you need to tackle them head-on.
Your client has a problem and you are their problem solver. They want to sell their house and they cannot do it alone. They need your skills. They want to buy a house and don’t want to do it alone. Again, they need your skills.
So What?
So, now you know what skills you need to set yourself up for success as a real estate agent. Each of these skills is needed for different aspects of your career.
You can gradually master each of these skills over time. That is exactly what you need to do! Investments in learning more skills and mastering skills are an investment in yourself, your career, and your future clients.
The more skills you have, the more well-rounded force you will be in the field of real estate!
