Every year, Real Trends and The Wall Street Journal release an in-depth report documenting the Top 1000 Real Estate Professionals and Teams (by sales volume and number of transactions). With the dismal real estate market most everyone has been experiencing in the US for the past half a dozen years now, one would hardly expect to have a Top 500 let alone 1000! However, even through these trying times, Real Estate Agents and Teams are still bringing incredible results and making the most of what the economy has dealt them…
When I initially read this year’s report, I was completely and utterly blown away by the numbers these top Agents and Teams were pulling. So, being the geek that I am, I turned around and did some research on how many transactions the “average” Realtor closes in an “average” year. I conducted a little research on a Facebook Group I frequent and was astounded by the responses I received:
All in all, I received 55 comments to my question – all similar to what you see above. So, to put some perspective on this, the gentleman I was about to interview who was ranked as the top US Agent for the highest number of closed transactions in 2010, somehow managed to close more than 150 TIMES that of an average Realtor? How?!
Watch the following exclusive interview I had with Mike Phillips, Broker/Owner of Century21 All-Pro out of Kansas City, MO to find out what his secrets are to his phenomenal success:
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Can’t see the video, click here.
The moral of the story? Make the most of the market that has been presented to you. Mike saw the need to assist with the sale of hundreds of HUD homes, and he filled that void. And he did so extremely well. Not only does Mike live and breathe his niche market of HUD homes, he informed me that he also teaches classes on how to do it as a Certified Continued Education Instructor for the Real Estate industry. Mike also uses both traditional offline and online marketing to market himself and his listings, and attributed a large amount of his staggering sales numbers to the on-going use of social media. Mike said in another interview that he views “social media as a necessity for work. It is another type of office equipment”.
My takeaway from this interview and the research that I did to prepare for it was that maybe it’s time for you to take a look at your niche and see if it needs to be tweaked to meet the current (and future) needs of your clients. Once you have discovered what that is, live it, breath it, own it. And you will succeed.