I’m a REALTOR, and I hired a REALTOR...

Meet Melani.

A few years after I met her, while she was considering getting her real estate license, we were having a conversation about what it takes to be a good agent.

She looked at me and smiled and said, well you would hire me, right?

My response? Absolutely not.

I then proceeded to explain that anyone can smile, and open a door, even fill out a contract. But that it takes experience and knowing what you DONT know, to result in a successful career that avoids lawsuits and angry consumers.

You see, for whatever reason (ok I know the reason it’s the bad apple theory) real estate agents have a bad rap. Consumers, in general, think we make too much money, and don’t work hard enough. But anyone IN the business that’s successful and long lasting knows that’s not the case.

But I’m not here to convince you to hire an agent. You do you, boo.

I’m going to tell you a story about how those two words ‘absolutely not’ changed my life.

Melani didn’t get upset when I said that to her, though maybe a little before the clarifications on WHY I said that:) She asked more questions. She did more research, then she joined our team and quickly caught up on the ‘what you don’t know’ bandwagon. It wasn’t too long at all before she was creating new systems and elevating our entire team in ways we couldn’t have expected. I’d been in the business long enough my ideas were becoming stagnant. She breathed life into to our team and learned along the way.

Until the mentee became the mentor. Or was hired by the mentor anyways. It’s all semantics at this point.