Something that should cross everyone’s mind at one time or another is how can I be better? What can I be doing to make myself better, my career better, and thus my life better? Career aspirations and successes are such an important part of a persons sense of accomplishment. If you are constantly succeeding, you are more confident, happier, less stressed and overall, more fulfilled. One of the most important ways is to get some control, ownership and fulfillment out of your job.
Let me explain: If you work at a giant conglomerate retail workplace, such as Ikea, GAP, or Target, you go, you punch in (hopefully on time), you do the work that has been designated for you, you punch out, you go home. In short, you turn off your brain, turn on the conveyer belt, do the base-line minimum of what needs to be done and leave. And you are happy if you do not let the stress of your job or what happened during the day at work affect you once you have clocked out. But this sort of “maintenance” mentality does not build into a “winners” mentality. Winners have ambition, motivation, innovation. They rally and inspire people, they go above and beyond the call of duty, they come in early and they leave late and their brain never turns off from thinking of ways to accumulate success. Sometimes you see this mentality in that of upper management at corporations, but not generally in the average worker.
But then imagine, if you will, that every single employee at Target or the GAP or Starbucks had a personal investment in the company. Say they owned shares or were suddenly given more responsibility. Suddenly, they are thinking outside the box. Suddenly, they are responsible for doing better than their predecessor or competition. Suddenly, they have a reason to be inspired and invested in what’s happening in their company. Suddenly, they want to succeed and are excited about the prospect of the company thriving.
This is the mindset that every real estate agent should have. You are your own company, in a sense. You represent yourself– your accomplishments, your successes, your innovation, what sets you apart is all on you. If a potential client asks you why you do what you do, or more importantly, what you can do for them, you have to be able to not only sell yourself to them on a moments notice, but also answer their questions with concise, complete and confident answers and provide relevant and correct statistics. Every person you speak to is a potential client, and every client has the potential to turn into a repeat client. That is a huge amount of pressure, but it also a huge opportunity.
Think of your reputation as a stairway. When you began in this business, no matter how good or motivated or confident or successful you were, you started there, at your bottom rung. Now, consider your history in this industry and be honest with yourself. Where are you now? Are you more motivated? Do you have current and relevant statistics that you can recall at a moments notice? Do you have more clients and more connections than you did last year? Have you been more successful this quarter than any other quarter to date? Are you meeting your quotas? Are you reaching between 85-100% of your business goals every day/week/month? If you are not improving, then you need to reevaluate what it is that you need to be doing better or different, because everyday for you needs to be building on the day before and building toward a more successful tomorrow. Today is already too late for today’s success- the success you accumulate today helps you reach the success of tomorrow.
Do not lessen your expectations or relax your motivations so you do not disappoint yourself. Instead, find the reasons why you were first drawn to this industry, work on the things that you don’t do well or lack confidence in, educate yourself and utilize the tools that we uniquely offer and go and be successful! That is all we want for you! But if the prime of your career exists in the past, then you need to reinvent yourself and not rest on your laurels or throw out excuse after excuse about why you could be better or how you were better years ago. This is a waste of time and energy that could be utilized to build, enhance and expand on your successes.
Do not be afraid to be honest with yourself. If you have dropped the ball or feel like you are unmotivated or lazy, taking honest accountability can help you to find new and exciting ways to motivate yourself. A lot of important and respectable business people have bad days, bad months, or even bad years. But it is not about where you have fallen short in the past. That’s what separates those who continually strive for and achieve success and those who peaked at a relatively successful point and then digressed, now living in the shadow of their prior successful self. What matters for you is right now and what you can be doing today to set yourself up for a successful tomorrow. It is never too late, unless you never step up to the plate. Dig deep within yourself and motivate the “winner” mentality that we all have within us. Do not stifle your potential, instead awaken it and let it thrive. Put success as your ultimate goal on your business plan and do not rest until you achieve it. That’s the most I can can ask from any of you. Believe to achieve!
After working with, and for, many different real estate firms, it became apparent to Harout that there was a major disconnect between what consumers needed/wanted and the service that was being provided to them. It was upon this realization that Harout founded and opened JohnHart Real Estate; and as the CEO/Principal Broker he has continued to break from the norm and redefine real estate with an insatiable appetite to give his clients the service and attention they deserve.
