What Exactly, I Disliked About The Job (Or “Build It And They Will Come…” Maybe)
In general, the fact that I am not much of a “people person” was a major contributor to my decision to give up on real estate as a career choice. I was foolish to think I could transform myself into someone who would be happy out working with all types of people, buying and selling real estate.
I did, however, enter into it with my own plan and thought I could do things “my way” and eliminate, or perhaps simply minimize some portions of the job that did not particularly appeal to me.
My company-provided real estate training was very pro-Internet, and that was all well and good since I did have a background working with computers and the Internet. I did not have much experience actually designing and building web sites but I was confident I could pick that up pretty quickly and come up with a reasonably decent real estate site.
I had heard so many positive things about real estate and the Internet from my training and other information I was researching on the Internet that I had become convinced that all I needed to do was put together a decent web site and the business would come to me like magic. You know, “build it and they will come.”
Perhaps that would have been the case if I had stuck with it, but at the time I did not realize that it would take a considerable amount of time for my web site to become established and attract any meaningful number of visitors. I had never tried promoting anything on the Internet, so I was completely unfamiliar with side of things.
There were a few visitors to my site each day and I even had an inquiry now and then, although nothing that turned into a bona fide lead. I buried myself in working on my site and kept hoping that I could stick to my plan and avoid the more traditional methods of attracting business like hanging around the office to pick up on walk-ins or some business one of the more experienced agents did not have the time or inclination to deal with.
My intense dislike for office environments kept me away most of the time and I spent time in the office only when I had to. For meetings and my scheduled “up time,” and that was about it. That probably had my manager wondering why she bothered to assign a desk and a phone for me.
As I have mentioned earlier, one of the aspects of a real estate career that attracted me to it was the independence, and a big part of that independence was the option to spend most of my time working at home. After all, with cell phones, pagers, faxes and e-mail, why would one need to spend lots of time in the office? That was my mindset at the time.
I guess I’ll never know if any real success was possible as an “Internet Real Estate Agent,” but I suspect with time, it may have worked out. It isn’t anything that keeps me awake at night since it eventually became clear to me that working as a real estate agent in any capacity was not something I would be happy doing.
Coming Next: Up Time – It Always Got Me Down
