How I started in Real Estate?

Hi friend!

When I think how I've started in real estate 17 years ago, it started by an accident not as a long planned event.

At the time I was preparing income taxes for people and the tax season has just ended and I was wondering if I should offer bookkeeping services, or what else I should do as a service business that I've started couple of months ago.

I had a background in 3 other business back in my home town in Bulgaria... I've been self-employed for the most part of my life, so that's why working 9-5 job when we moved to the States was not my desire... I always knew that I could create more and give more to the community.

Anyhow, when you move to a new country actually a new continent, and you don't know the language, the culture... and you have a family to take care of, you do anything to meet ends together...but once I felt that I feel more comfortable with the language, the customs, etc... my entrepreneurial me started talking, so I started the tax preparation's business first...

So, back to the end of 2003 Tax Season, I was talking to a friend on the phone who was in the insurance industry and wondering if I perhaps become an insurance agent?! He brought up real estate and have suggested that real estate might be a very fulfilling career for me... and as soon as I hung up the phone, the next thing I knew is I found the nearest Real Estate School in town, at that time Barney Fletcher School and signed up.

In less than a 3 months I had my Real Estate License, I signed with a Broker (Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate), and I was in Business.

And now what? 

I went to every single training my broker had, and I implementing everything they've told me to do but still didn't have any people to work with plus I had some disadvantages:

• My English was rough
• I was a brand new agent
• I had a very strong foreigner's accent and we were living in the South

so, I was thinking how I can make my disadvantages actually work for me???

I thought that my best chances were if I find people who spoke my native language, tell them what I do and offer my help to them and their friends...I needed to get very creative to find them because there were no Facebook or a community in Atlanta back then... but it worked at the end.

This how I started...I served them, over-delivered and they referred me to their friends & family, then I built my self- confidence, and dared myself not to be fearful and ashamed, to approach & offering my services to everyone who needed my help.

In just 2 years I was doing 25 transaction per year w/ no team, and became a Top Producing Agent in my office that had over 2000 agents... and was getting all the awards available to REALTORS.

It's been a little over 17 years since I've started in this industry, and it has not been all roses & daisies, a lot of ups and downs, and quitting once all together to come back and bring the business back to where I left it. 

Nowadays, I have the time to think about my real estate career and reflect to what I would do if I knew what I know today, and if I was to start it all over again?!

I was very successful agent but I was hustling, overworking and thinking about my business all the time, which brought me to a huge burn out in 2010.

At the time, I felt that I knew it all, maybe a little entitlement got on the way too...being an immigrant and building a multi-6-figure business in just 2-3 short years, I felt very proud of myself... but also while I was selling, I felt tired, unhappy, stressed and overwhelmed... and I knew that there was a better way to do it, and I knew the how to but I was very resistant and not coachable..

I even remember between 2006-2008, I've hired and fired probably 2 or 3 coaches and lost tons of money because there was not a Money Back. Then I completely burned out in 2010 and hit a wall and decided to give up Real Estate and started a new 9 to 5 job as paralegal in a Real Estate Attorney office doing all Florida & Georgia Foreclosures ( I've learned a lot here too).

So, it's been a roller coaster for me... So much experience and knowledge but somehow could not bring it home. Something was missing and I didn't want to only have a business and be miserable. What was the point of having business if you had to HUSTLE all the time?

Then I came back to the industry 3 years later to REBUILT my business back from scratch to where I left it, and it took me half of the efforts to do this.

LESSON LEARNED: You don't need to DO ALL THE THINGS or Hustle 24/7 to build a Profitable RE Business. As a Matter of Fact, You Only need to Focus on 10% of the Activities that Matter.

One of the big reasons that I burned out and quit at the time was my resistance to coaching and to what my coaches at the time were telling me, I thought that I knew it all (aka NOT COACHABLE). I was thinking that if I work HARD ( and DO IT ALL aka Hustle all the time), this is my ticket to success.

Unfortunately, hard work will get you to some place but in order to scale, there is more to it.

I'll stop here for now.

I'm telling you all of this to tell you that if I could make it happen and built a successful Real Estate Business, an immigrant who came here 22 years ago with no English or higher education w/ 2 young kids but who had the American Dream at heart, you CAN DO IT TOO if You Want IT!

Because Anything is F%$^&n' POSSIBLE when your mind sees it!

So, the first question is HOW you can MAKE your disadvantages Work Out for You? Because there are other people out there who have the same insecurities as you do.

Remember after all, we are all humans! And I can tell you that trying to please everyone and be liked by everyone is not going to happen, it's simply not possible, some people will like you, some will hate you and some won't even care about you!

So, if you're trying to be EVERTYHING to EVERYONE, STOP IT RIGHT NOW! You're just wasting your time.

You, be YOU and You, do YOU, and Your People will find you and will want to work with you, no matter what. They'll feel they know you because they can relate to you & your story, they'll like you and feel that they can trust you too.

So, go out there and show up for this person because if you don't, they won't be able to find you, and they won't be helped.

The second question is, HOW you can Align Your Life & Business in a way that you make money but don't hustle 24/7, therefore you don't burn out like I did?

Because we are all humans, and as humans, we also have our own thousands thoughts and feelings every day, and especially when we're in business for ourselves, there is so much of our own BS and mind drama that we need to overcome.

As a business owner, there are also a lot of uncertainty & risk involved, so we have to overcome our own worries, insecurities, doubts, worthiness, enough-ness.. plus all of the compare & despair factor, comparing ourselves to other agents who are doing better out there than we are, our own self-judgement, not to mention some blind spots that we can't even see are there.

Entrepreneurship is not an easy task but it could be simple, and in my opinion coaching is the only way that might help you make this transformation for you and your business.

Because for me, when I decided that it's time to try a different approach and start having an open mind, be open to coaching and be coachable, TAKE A RESPONSIBLITY for all of my thoughts, feelings and actions, and gave this coaching thing a try, then things started happening for me.

I've discovered all about how our human brains worked, how our thoughts triggered our feelings, how our feelings triggered our actions, how our actions created our results. Therefore, actually our thoughts and believes were creating our results.

That's why the saying: "Your Thoughts create Your Reality!" makes sense to me now.

So my 2 cents here: Just simply taking Actions is Not Enough to create the Results in Your Real Estate or Any Other Business. It starts with the way we think, and the good thing is that we can brainwash our thoughts because our thoughts are a habit, and just like a habit, we can brake it. It takes practice.

Today, I'm on a mission to help Real Estate Agents succeed in business without the need to DO ALL THE THINGS and HUSTLE 24/7. I want to help them build businesses around their lifestyles and by their own designs, because ONE-SIZE-DOES-NOT-FIT-ALL, and EVERYTHING works when it's Aligned with Your Personality and Values.

If you can relate to my story, and if you struggle in some way as a real estate agent, I would like to invite you to schedule a FREE Strategy Session over ZOOM with me and see if I could help you, or if I can at least give you another perspective of the way you see the problem you might think that you have in your business.

Click the link below to get started:

https://AgentHUB.CO

PS. This letter was written in one breath, and might contain typos but it's from my heart to your heart, and this is what's important. Happy Monday!