If you've got the right stuff, you can do very well financially, do much good for many people, and overcome the institutional baggage by personally establishing yourself as an exception to the stereotype. Many of these non-sales types invest time, effort, and expense to obtain real estate license because they simply underestimate the intensity, aggressiveness, and competitiveness of the sales culture that is the real estate industry. They know people generally are motivated to become buyers or sellers by their life circumstances, and not by sales pitches, and that makes them think that properties sell themselves. They see the job as a matter of chauffeuring people, explaining procedures, and writing up orders. In the second article in this three-part series, I will explain to sellers how traditional firms structure commissions, their own organizations and procedures, and the market itself to actually work against this promise to actively SELL their property.
True salesmanship is needed to get the home sold at the best price in the shortest time.
Nevertheless, there is one great irony in all these people leaving real estate because they weren't comfortable in sales jobs. In fact, fully HALF the consumers do not need sales agents. They need buyers' agents. Buyers' agents are not the same as sellers' agents. For one thing, they don't sell.