For one thing, you might as well ignore Navarac. He is a broken record. He jumps in every time someone mentions coaching and rants about what a waste it is but never drops any information to help these newbie agents asking for advice. According to him either you are born with it or not.

The truth is that there is a lot that can be learned about this business, and it is way better to learn it in a class situation rather than by trial and error. People pay hundreds of thousands to get college educations to become school teachers and other similar jobs that do not offer the chance to make 25% of what an agent can make. Yet somehow people think it's a waste to take courses to hone your skills.

I have paid for Mike Ferry weekends and taken Floyd Wickman's sweathog program more than once. I have also bought books by Tommy Hopkins, Danielle Kennedy and lots more, borrowed the Bufinni, Howard Britton, Roger Bucher, and David Knox tapes from my office library and on and on and on. I never adopted the entire program from any of them and I gathered a bit here and there to create who I am. I personally would not sign up for MF coaching, but I would buy series of mp3's with listing presentations and objection handling techniques and even some of the motivational stuff.

I get tired of people lecturing about what is a waste of money and what isn't. Everyone knows what their finances are and if they can afford something. I took Flloyd Wickman's course 3 times and it cost $750.00 20 years ago. The reason why I did is because I would get listings, sell them and close them before the course was over directly as a result of doing what was prescribed in the course.

It was one day a week for twelve weeks and it was a cold calling course. He also gave a lot of information on how to do a professional listing presentation, objection handling etc, but you had to cold call and if you didn't list a property as a result of cold calling by week 5 or 6 they kicked you out of the class and didn't refund your money.

This isn't a one size fits all business. Some people are perfect candidates for coaching, and some went to the right school and belong to the right country club and can make a living playing golf. Some cold call, some mail, some door knock and some build effective websites. Find out what works for you and do it. Don't ever stop learning, this is an evolving business.

It's a straw beach hat with the brim folded back Hunter. Sorry, nothing regal about it.

Good post, deepsea.

I just checked online, and it seems that the sale is over... they had several products on sale, but you could only know which ones by adding them to your cart... The one for $250 (something like Mike Ferry's Total Sales System, don't remember the exact name) was $125... I assume that was a general description of his system, but I didn't call them, and the site had no descriptions for some reason

I have no problems in the brain department... However, I have no knowledge or experience with sales, and lack the budget/resources for a full fledged marketing campaign that would allow me to get my name out.

I have gotten several books/audio/videos from the library and other places, and am in the process of reading/listening (will get to watching once I have more time)... I am also looking through whatever free resources that I can find...

At this point I can see only 3 main approaches (that seem to have at least a few successful agents) or a combination of them, and various proponents of each of them:

1. cold calling/door knocking/prospecting in some form
- this appears to be fairly cheap, and a numbers game
2. working your sphere of influence
- this seems to require one to be a good people person and have a large
group of people one knows
3. extensive marketing
- this requires a budget, and a significant one at that, as all this
does is get your name out there and familiar to people, who may or
may not call

so, Navarac, would you mind sharing what led you to be successful, especially as a new agent? what area of NJ are you from? when did you start in real estate?

You guys are lucky if your course is only a few hundred dollars... ours here is around $1500 just to get to register and be able to sell anything, and after that there's the articling segment (you can work) where you have to pay around another $1-1.5K for classes to get the full registration... The initial fees seem to be also around $2K for the first year (it goes down a bit after that, as the first year there are extra initiation fees)... So I guess from my perspective another $250 wouldn't make that big of a difference, IF it will give me knowledge that I won't be able to get elsewhere...





I'd like to think that I'm also motivated, but like I wrote above, I have no sales experience, so I have a hard time imagining how to even start approaching people...



Thank you for the story... how did you find this broker? Did he approach you? Did your performance change from one office to the other (if it did, then maybe the coaching by your new broker was a good idea)?

I'm not sure if Canadians can borrow books from Realtor.org, guess I'll look into that...

Did you try anything before you went with Mike Ferry's system, or straight out bought his tapes and that's how you started? Why do you hate what he makes you do? It seems bizarre to keep doing something you don't like or not liking what you do if that works and gets you where you want to be...

thanks, I'm still hoping that he will share some of his knowledge, as lucky was the one here who made me realize that real estate actually might involve sales (before I met someone who mentioned that real estate has nothing to do with sales, but mostly with marketing, which I realize now was only one view)...




This sounds a bit more like what I'm trying to do now... I'm too far from putting my own system together for myself, however, I'm trying to familiarize myself with what's out there... and am finding this board invaluable... One of the issues is that it's very hard to find out what exactly the systems are about (distilled, sort of a one word or one sentence description, like Mike Ferry - prospecting, Jennifer Allan - SOI, Borino - expireds, etc.)...

What's the name of MF's product that you recommend?




Thank you so much for your response, it's very well written, and very informative, thank you

The licensing course cost me about $450 I think, then another $200 +/- for the exam (I could be wrong though, I didn't write them down, LOL). I then had to pay $130 for my license and pay $350 for dues, then it was $60/quarter for the MLS and it's still $98 2x a year for my lockbox key subscription. It adds up a LOT!

My first brokerage really doesn't count, it's a not pretty story and it taught me what I did NOT want in another brokerage, LOL. The broker was never there, training was non-existent. I only had one sale while I was there and actually, the closing happened after I had already left the first broker.

I found my current broker because they were associated with my first brokerage - very briefly - and after they left, I watched them build up a successful office starting with only 3 people (the broker, his partner, and another agent) and become one of the top agencies in the area in virtually no time. They all had previous experience of course, but still...during a market downturn, they were rising to the top while other offices were faltering and even slowing. I knew I wanted to hitch my star to their wagon. I wanted success...I had to associate with successful people.

I didn't just "Take" from them either. I shared and continue to share my internet savvy with them.

right, but it's a whole different level of spending here we have 4 courses to get registered (that's before the articling, and the registration is temporary), two are around $450 and two are $330 (the tests are included), then there are federal, provincial and local organizations that you must join (and those have the initiation fees the first year which are huge), then there are the MLS fees, the E&O insurance (not in a brokerage, this is a provincial thing, and it's mandatory to work)... like I said just the first year I'm probably looking at close to $4500 just to be able to start trying to sell



how long were you with them? did you interview different brokerages before joining one? when did you realize that this wasn't a good setup for you?




It's pretty cool that you were able to do that... what value did you offer him to hire you? does internet savvy count for a lot in real estate?

It's only 3 courses for pre-registration. Course 3 simply has 2 portions now but it is still only one exam, one fee (they only changed the way it is presented to make the articling course shorter...you rookies are lucky!!). That being said, it is fairly costly to get started and keep things going. Just to get started you are likely looking at $3000-4000 and then we have monthly board fees of about $140 where I am and then yearly OREA and CREA dues as well. Then the E&O, continuing ed. (or the articling in your first 2 years for about $1500), and more. Then you can start marketing and spending money on making money.

I was already working at the first brokerage as an admin / webmaster / secretary. I was promised training after I told them I wanted to get my license. When they hired me as the secretary etc i told them up front that I was probably going to want to be an agent and they were fine with that. I saw the admin job as a great opportunity to see if I liked R.E. enough to invest in the classes and stuff.

I worked there as a secretary/admin/webmaster for almost 18 months before getting my license. I worked there as an agent for about 6 months before I left. There is a lot to that story that is irrelevant to the subject at hand.

I interviewed with one other broker, same franchise as this one, just another office. It was a long distance from my house and I didn't see myself fitting in with them - had a whole other attitude and atmosphere than what I knew of the people I wanted to go with. I also could have worked for a friend who is a broker, and a very good friend at that....but I was afraid to work for a friend. Plus, his office was nowhere near as successful as the one I went with even though his company had been around 20+ years.



Goodness, yes - esp. in our market. Most of the buyers are looking online. More than 80%. Sellers are looking online as well, esp. in my market where the sellers live out of state (vacation home market).

They wanted me to work there before I even knew I was going to work there - they told me afterward that I was on their "hit list" of agents to add to their company, because of my ability with websites. And I laugh at that, cause while I may have been "on top of my game" at that time in 2007, I am definitely behind on a lot of stuff (programming, that is...).

The internet has been my sole source of income, for the most part, w/ the exception of a couple of referrals and a few floor time leads. My 3rd full year in the business had me earning almost $5 million in sales -which in our market is big, considering our average sales price is significantly under $200,000. $5 million big in my market, but I know it is peanuts in your market - or at least Lucky's and Hunter's since I know from past conversations with them, the average sale price is over $400,000. There are markets nearby me that are even lower, with average prices under $100,000. I, thankfully, do not work there. LOL

Officially they call it 2 courses, they do have 2 separate books, and tuitions ($330 each, so if it's one course, it's $660)... otherwise, we basically agree on the expenses :P

I am in lucky and hunter's market... our average price was around $365, and I think that includes all the condos (at least I assume, I haven't paid too close attention to it yet)

this is definitely not a vacation market, and that's why I'm wondering if web skills would be as useful...

Web skills certainly would not hurt.

that much I figured... as those I've got... just not sure if they could be turned into a competitive advantage, whereas cold calling and prospecting is not something most are willing to do, so that may be useful...