Congratulations!

You have finished your 120 hours of real estate education and you've submitted your paperwork to the Utah Division of Real Estate - you did it!

But now what? 

Well, first of all, understand that your new career is going to be exciting but it can also become frightening if you haven't created a business plan and haven't become realistic about what a career in real estate is all about, says 35 year Remax Real Estate professional and instructor Victoria Caldwell.

"A lot of people go into real estate thinking they will spend all this time looking at all these great houses," Caldwell said. "And while you do get to see some great properties, the reality is that you need to put your problem solving hat on. Because this industry is about 90 percent problem solving for your clients and 10 percent looking at great homes and properties."

While one of the most positive attractions to a career in real estate is the flexibility to schedule your life for yourself, that very loosey-goosey nature of the job can trip up a new real estate professional.

Create a business plan and then be honest with yourself about performing each of those daily steps and you will have success, says Caldwell.

"For instance if you create a business plan that requires you to reach out and contact, in any way, five people per week, then be honest with yourself about that and send those notes or make those calls or visits and then write those people's names into your planner," Caldwell said. "The key is to create a business plan that you stick to even when it begins to feel that it is not paying off."

So how do you come up with a business plan to kick off your new career and what might a business plan for a real estate agent look like?

"With the help of your broker, you can begin to create your real estate business plan," Caldwell said. 

A real estate business plan may look something like this:

1. Take the dollar amount that you want to make in real estate for a year and translate that into the number of clients (buyers and sellers) you will need to work with to earn that goal. To do this you will use the average net commission of the area. Your trainer can help you find that number. 

2. Take that number of clients and translate that into the number of clients you will need to attempt to work with over the year. Usually, for new real estate professionals, that number is three times the first number, Caldwell says.

3. Then take the number of clients you will need to attempt to work with and translate that number into the number of people you will need to be contacting weekly (again, three times the second figure).

"Say the average net commission is 7,500 - then I will make 75,000 selling 10 properties," Caldwell says. "So to get there I will have to actually go and offer my services to three times that many prospective buyers and sellers, which means I will have to offer my services to 30 people over the year. And to get to that many people actually intending to buy or sell, I will have to talk to 90 prospective sellers during the entire year."

Then it's a simple as dividing that number used in the example, 90, by the 50 weeks that you have in a year to accomplish your goal. This means the real estate professional who has created a business plan must talk to at least two people per week who might be thinking about selling or purchasing a home.

"These are people you have contact with who might be going through life changes," Caldwell says. "Perhaps they have had a baby, had a child move to college and want to downsize, have retired, things like that."

"While a business plan can feel overwhelming, successfully and diligently working it allows for some missed days," Caldwell says. "So if you successfully work your plan four days out of seven, three weeks out of four or nine months out of 12 and you are faithful to your plan, I guarantee you will be successful beyond what your goals are. You will blow them out of the water."

If you are ready to get your Utah real estate license you may register today or contact us with any questions!

Victoria Caldwell is a veteran real estate instructor in the state of Oklahoma. She is a 35 year real estate professional who is still full-time in the industry.