I was 17 years old and trying to pay for my university tuition when I started working at an answering service. I answered calls for many real estate offices and paged agents—the old fashioned way! I thought real estate receptionists had the coolest jobs, so much better than an answering service, so I decided to apply for a job with a Royal LePage office. My interview was at Yonge and Centre Street, in Richmond Hill. But these were the days before Google maps so I ended up taking a bus to Yonge and Centre Street… in Thornhill! I realized that I had totally screwed up when I couldn’t find the real estate office. Talk about my heart dropping into my stomach!
I ran to a pay phone—because, again, these were the days before cellphones were common. I called the broker and apologized profusely for my error. He very kindly rescheduled my interview for another day. So I triple checked the maps and a few days later, took the bus to the right office.
When I think about this now, I have to laugh. I was so young and just a little bit naive. I walked into the interview chewing a wad of gum and I remember that because he asked me to spit it out! That was just the beginning of a series of interview blunders that day but the gum was definitely the worst of it.
Administration in a real estate office requires many skills, including booking appointments and verifying addresses. These things require a good deal of professionalism and I had proven, between the address screw up and the gum chewing, that I was lacking. Needless to say, I didn’t get that job. Beyond the gum issue, it was clear that I didn’t yet have what it took to be a part of the crazy, busy real estate world.
Fast forward six years, I decided to start my own business in graphic design and photography for real estate (for that story, click here). Two years after building that business, I thought that it would be a smart move to get my real estate license. Somehow, I figured that selling real estate on the side to make some extra cash, in addition to the graphic business I was building AND the toddler I was raising AND being pregnant, would be a breeze! After all, I worked with realtors regularly who were grossing $500k plus a year, and some over a $1 million. Why couldn’t I? Even now, I give my head a shake when I read this!
In my first year, I reached out to a busy agent and asked him to send me some of his leads and I would give him a 25% referral fee if I closed it—all of this was industry standard. So in year one, I grossed about $50k. Year two, I had given birth and grossed about another $50k. But I came to quickly realize that real estate was not for me. And it definitely wasn’t a part time, on the side type of business. The work was a lot harder than anything I had imagined, mostly because of the demand on a realtor’s time during evening and weekend hours. It also required a lot of patience, a lot of service, all of which was not always compensated if a deal didn’t close.
Fast forward again a decade later and I’m the owner of a recruitment business, specializing in real estate, where I get to coach candidates on how to present themselves in person, online as well as in their resume.
The moral of the story? Just because I wasn’t qualified to be a receptionist at one time in my life doesn’t mean I wasn’t qualified to be that and more later on. Candidates often feel beaten down if they don’t get a job, or if they are fired from a job. But here’s my best advice: Don’t let one moment or one year of your life define who you are and what you can accomplish in the future. I’ve seen candidates thrive in one team while completely failing in another. It’s all a question of timing.
Success is an intermittent path of setbacks, lessons learned, flourishing and repeating. AGENTC is committed to helping candidates navigate their success path in the real estate world.
