In general, the more you act yourself, the better off you are as a real estate agent. A lot of agents get trapped trying to look a certain way. They try to give off a sense of success that isn’t there or is built on something they don’t want. Constantly trying to hide who you are will wear you down.
Being authentic applies to wearing the clothes that you don’t like, being in the groups that you don’t like, acting like you are more of an extrovert than you are, or any of those things. Putting up a front is just extra work. And what can happen after time is you can lose yourself and dig a hole where your main job is keeping up a false identity.
Many people say you shouldn’t talk about politics and religion. And I don’t, I have noticed that the people who do, attract more people that are similar to them. And that’s an extreme example but if you find your tribe, life is just going to be easier.
There’s an agent in Canada whose name is Sarah Kalke. She sat down and asked herself, “Who is my ideal client?” She figured out who that was, what they did, and where they went. And then she worked on attracting those people. She sells 100 homes a year by herself and most of it is through Facebook.
I live in the Pacific Northwest where we’re less formal than the East coast. There’s one idea of dressing to expectations and there’s the other side of just accept me as you want. If you look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffett they’re not really trying to impress anyone, they are comfortable in their own skin. And I think for people trying to be successful, trying to look successful can actually backfire.
Invariably, I’ve watched tons of agents go from super-polished and always “on” to relaxed and they almost always wished they had started that way. I think they would have been for comfortable and gotten more referrals.
Exercise: So consider who you want to be and what you want to put out there. Do you want to put on a front for years or do you want to just be you?
Do the work, get the results.
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