Handling The Emotional Side of Being A Real Estate Agent

Handling The Emotional Side of Being A Real Estate Agent On today’s episode of Confessions of a Top, Producing Real Estate Agent, we’re talking about how to handle the emotional side of being a real estate agent. Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top, Producing Real Estate Agent. I’m your host, Jennifer Myers. Listen in as I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to becoming one of the top 1% of agents in the US to even opening my own brokerage full of agents helped me serve all the clients that were coming my way. I taught those agents the same strategies I used, and day two became top reducing agents. Now through this podcast in agent Grad school.com, I’m sharing those same modern marketing and business strategies with you, most of which I learned from looking outside the real estate industry. No fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads, just the exact steps to get you the real estate business you’ve always wanted and the life outside your business you’ve always wanted too. Let’s make it happen. And dive into today’s episode. Real Estate is emotional, not only for us as real estate agents, I mean, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t realize before I became a real estate agent, just how emotional it would be for me. Feelings of rejection, feeling of an adequacy, feeling of excitement when I get a client or you know, a transaction closes. There’s a ton of ups and downs being the real estate agent, but also buying and selling homes is emotional. Most of the time people buy and sell homes because they want to feel some type of emotion or they want to, It’s just a very emotional process. And so we also have to handle the emotions of our clients. And because we’re in doing things like negotiating and dealing with other sides, you know, the other side of the transaction, there’s just a lot of emotions flying around all the time. And again, I just never expected it to be as emotional as it is. And so that’s why I tell our students inside Agent Grad School, learning how to handle all the emotions that we’re gonna feel as real estate agents, in my opinion, is the number one thing, the number one skill that we have to learn how to handle. And the reason is because, you know, I could hand you a strategy that’s work that works, and how do I know if it’s gonna work for you? Truly it’s based on how you handle what happens to you, the emotions that come up. Are you able to handle rejection and get up and do it again? Are you able to handle feeling stuck and not knowing what to do and keep me moving forward? Are you willing to handle the emotions of not being the chosen agent and continue on as though almost nothing’s happened is find another client to work with. It’s very emotional. And at least for me, when I finally, I think it took me about a decade to finally get a handle on the emotional side of being a real estate agent. I kept being focused on the strategy or the thing to do. But until I got a hold of the emotional side of being an agent, everything felt heavy, everything felt hard. So once I learned how to manage my emotions, everything felt easier. Same situation, practically the same situation, felt so much easier and felt like I could handle it once I was able to get a hold of my mind, my thoughts and my emotions. And so I, I believe that this part, the mind feeling, the thoughts, the emotions, I believe that that part of being a real estate agent is so important that I hired not just one, but three mindset coaches to help our clients do this work inside Agent Grad School. It is truly the most important work once you have a strategy that’s proven to work. And so today, on today’s episode, I’m talking to one of our mindset coaches, Christal Allen, about how do we handle the emotional side of being a real estate agent. In fact, I asked all three of our coaches, our mindset coaches inside Agent Grad School, I said, what do you think is the most important thing real estate agents need to know to succeed in their businesses? And Christal said, Handling the emotions. And I was like, Dang, you’re right. So listening to our conversation on how to do just that today, I hope it’s helpful to you. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Christal. Oh my gosh, Jennifer, you are so welcome. I’m excited for our talk today. So you’re one of our mindset coaches. You work with people every day, not only in Agent Grad school, but in your own practice, specifically real estate agents. You know, what we always say here is we want you to have a business that you love and a life that you love. And that is possible. I think so many people don’t think it’s possible. So what do you think is like an overlooked place or one of the reasons why people don’t enjoy their business as a real estate agent or don’t enjoy their life when they have a successful business? Like what do you think is in their way? Yeah, no, I really appreciate this question because using the word overlooked, I think is perfect because my answer to that are emotions. And I want you to think about as an agent, maybe a difficult client that you experienced a buyer or a seller, maybe they, you know, are, have no boundaries. They’re calling you, texting you seven days a week, whatever the case. I’m sure if you take a moment, you can call up this person in your brain and I want you to think about why that person is doing that. Of course, there could be multiple reasons, but one of an example of a reason that that could be going on is maybe they’re trying to feel safe, right? Or maybe they’re trying to feel secure in the process of them buying a home or selling a home. Maybe they’re a first-time buyer or something like that. And so they’re feeling that they’re experiencing is maybe uncertainty, right? Or insecurity. And so their thought is something like, you know, I don’t know a lot about this, or I’m not in the loop, or I want more information. Maybe they could be playing with like any kind of thought like that, feeling insecure, feeling maybe uncertain. And in their actions, we see them doing things like, you know, calling you a lot, texting you a lot. So if we’re the agent, we’re experiencing their actions. So that’s what we have just coming at us. But sometimes it could be really powerful to think about why the client is presenting in the way that they are. And usually it’s because they are trying to accomplish feeling a certain feeling, right? And I think if you can understand that in your real estate business, you won’t be taking things personally, you also will not be as mentally worn down, right? Because you don’t need to like take that on mentally. It’s helpful to understand that that is what’s going on. So that way you can do what you do best and you serve them with the way that you can in regard to what their needs are, right? So maybe they do need more information about a certain aspect of a transaction or what have you but allowing yourself as the agent to allow and process and work with emotions, both positive and negative as well as that of your clients. Oh my gosh. If you can accomplish that, you will continue growing your business in a way that like Jennifer creates an agent Grad school where you can enjoy your life and enjoy your business because you’re doing it from a clean space. And so that is my answer. Get in love with learning about emotions. Yeah. One of the things in our new student call, the first call I have with our new students, the thing I say is, we’re here to teach you the skills of how to have a successful real estate business. Yeah. And the number one skill you need is learning how to handle the emotion of what happens. Yes. Yes. Like all sorts of things are gonna happen and how you choose to handle that emotion. So I love that we’re on the same page about that. But I wanna break down what you said. One thing I think we as real estate agents often forget is buying or selling a home is one of the biggest things that our clients do in their life. Yes. Not only that, not just financially is it a big thing, but emotionally for them, a home is tied to so much for people. Yeah. It’s tied to who they are as a person. Yeah. Who they show themselves to be, to other things about what it means to be a parent. You know, we’re gonna go to a certain school district. All that’s so much tied into this decision to buy and sell a home, that sometimes I think we as real estate agents, we think about the transaction, right. Versus like what they’re going through. So I love that you, you know, really just putting yourself into their shoes. Yes. But What’s, what’s also interesting that what you said was we, when we have the actions of their emotions coming at us, we then have emotions ourselves, right? And then all of a sudden, we got these two, like these people are like, I need to feel safe. And you’re like, as an agent, you’re like, you’re annoying me, or why don’t you trust me? And like you’re like battling. But really what you’re battling is some, like the emotions are underneath what the actions are. And I think sometimes we just look at the actions and we’re like, this person won’t leave me alone or Whatever. It’s exactly. Yes. Yeah. That is so how so good. So how do we do that? Yeah. It can sound so simple that we could almost take it for granted, but it really is separating yourself in that moment when you have their actions coming at you. Right? What they’re saying, maybe even what they’re not saying, what they’re doing, what they’re not doing. Right. Maybe you’ve sent that addendum three times and they still haven’t signed it. Right. Like any, anything like that, it’s like just getting curious around what’s going on for them. Right. And fair enough, we may not know exactly unless they tell us what they’re thinking, but not making their actions mean anything about us. Right. As the agent, it’s like you were saying, so many different reasons why we enter a real estate transaction. Most of the time it is something, you know, relatively happy, but like think about divorce or think about when an elderly parent passes away and you’re selling the home and you know, they, all kinds of emotions are maybe a tie to the transaction on top of going through escrow and going through that process. So just having a little bit of compassion, number one for yourself, right. As well as for your client about what’s going on and why they’re presenting the way that they are. Not making it mean anything about you, but just getting curious about what it is that they’re trying to feel. And it doesn’t mean they don’t trust you; it doesn’t mean you’re a bad, bad agent, it doesn’t mean anything. Right. It’s like communicating and leaving room for emotions. Yeah. Now we both were trained in the same way as coaches in that anybody’s actions or inactions come first from a thought, which then creates the emotion, which then creates the action. Or I think I loved how you added in or also the inaction, right? You know, so many of us as real estate agents, we meet somebody and then we wanna like throw ’em in the car and get them to buy a house after three, three houses. And it’s like, wait a second. Like why is that our expectation? And why would we get frustrated if they’re not moving at our own pace? You know? Yeah. Well if you actually go up the chain, if they haven’t made an action, there’s a feeling and a thought that’s causing them to pause and really getting curious and trying to figure out what’s actually is going on with them, like you said Yeah. Can sometimes unravel so much that they didn’t even know about. Exactly. And think about the intimacy that that builds in that relationship between the agent and the client, right? Like the vulnerability of being able to communicate and you as the agent being willing in a very professional, caring way to ask those questions from a clean space of not trying to come from a place of defensiveness or anything like that, but pure compassion and curiosity for that client. Especially the ones who were in acting in some ways, or like you said, pausing. That’s a wonderful way to just build such a great relationship. And not only with them in their transaction, but you know, imagine the referral opportunities that come from them having such a wonderful experience with you. Because I just think if you’re approaching it in the way that we’re talking about it, right? And really the way that you use teach an agent Grad school, that’s just a step above. That’s not your average agent who is doing that type of thing. And so, yeah. So what are one or two ways that we can open up that conversation? I think so often I hear some actually, I hear our students say something like, That’s not my place. Or you know, they kind of wait on the sidelines for their clients to figure it out on their own and then come to them. So any suggestions on how to open up that conversation when you’re just not really sure what’s going on? Yeah, and you know, I think even what, being very connected to what you’ve noticed with this particular client. So for example are do they answer quicker with text versus email or the other way around? And so even or the phone, right? Or just getting a quick call in. So maybe in that situation where you are wanting to figure out what’s going on with the client or a maybe they haven’t signed and they’re a prospective client, whatever that mode of contact that you believe that they prefer, whether it’s based on like what you’ve seen them most active in or what they have actually verbally told you, communicate to them through that channel and keep it super simple. Just say, hey, you know, it’s been a couple weeks since we talked last about you putting your house on the market. Is there any other additional information you need from me to, for us to move forward? Or any questions that are coming up for you and keep it super simple. Right? And I think just even an opening line like that will give them the space to be just like, hey, you know, we’re getting the kids back in school and it’s been crazy, or whatever the answer may be, right? But coming from a clean space and just opening the door for them to share with you, I think is a great way to just really build a great relationship with your clients. Yeah, I agree. I think it can be super simple. Like for example, in the case of the addendum, maybe that they didn’t sign or they’re hesitating. I see so often sometimes agents just sending the addendum like through authentic sign or DocuSign with nothing, right? And I always say like, just add a quick email or a text. Hey, I just sent you the addendum. Give, once you have a chance to look at it, give a copy of any questions. Yes, please have it signed by 8:00 PM tonight by our deadline. Yes. Like just that tiny little extra versus like all of a sudden, they get a DocuSign link. Those little things throughout the transaction can really build trust and I think open the, the lines of communication so that they feel like they can talk to you. Yeah. And I love that because it kind of gives them expectations, right? Like you’re letting them know what to expect. I sent this document, review it, and then you’re also putting, you know, a deadline on there. Please get it signed by eight o’clock tonight. And I love that so much because yeah, I’ve seen a lot of that as well, right? When I was a transaction coordinator, you know, where the agent may not have just went a step above and shared a little bit more information about what that addendum means. I think we have to be reminded of when you’re in the industry, like you live and breathe it in so many ways. And so the terms and stuff, they always make sense to us, that type of thing. But don’t ever take it for granted and be willing to communicate. Right? Don’t take it for granted that your client knows what that line on the addendum means. And so yeah, I love that example. Let’s also talk about, you know, we have a relationship with our client and it’s gonna get emotional not only for us as we interact for our clients but interacting inside our own clients. Like there’s emotions happening and also whenever you have like, you know, husband and wife or you know, father daughter, like a family dynamic, there’s emotions going all over there and how to handle that too. But I think sometimes we forget that working with our fellow real estate agents on the other side of the deal can sometimes get emotional. So, what are your, what are your suggestions or thoughts on how we work on either are the relationships or the emotions that come from those relationships? Maybe when we have a difficult colleague on the other side of a transaction, the suggestions really ruin a day. I can tell. I Yes. I’ve seen quite a few email fights in my day. Yeah. And you know what, interestingly enough, what kind of, what we have been talking about in regard to taking that extra care. I mean, not to the complete extent that you would a client, right? Because you know, obviously the agent on the other side isn’t a client, however, there is a high likelihood that you will do business with this person again, right? And so I think that that is important to remember. And so especially I feel like high Producing agents, you’ll eventually end up doing business with the same agents. And so whatever they’re presenting with, again, write their actions, whatever they said in that email, that type of thing. I think taking a quick moment, let’s say they gave you some feedback, I’m using air quotes for that, right. I think it could be really powerful to take a quick second after reading it. For example, ask yourself, is there any truth in this, right? And then if so, address it, right? Whether it’s something you missed or maybe whatever, handle it professionally on that end. And then anything else, don’t take that on personally, right? Like allow that person to just be wrong about you. If that’s the case, don’t make it mean anything about you because your role is to care for your client and make sure that the transaction gets closed. And so I think same thing, allow the emotions that come up in you. Right? Maybe it’s defensive or maybe it’s annoyed or frustrated, whatever. Allow that and work with it, right? And I think most importantly, don’t make someone else’s actions or words or texts or an email from another agent that we make, like classify as difficult. Don’t allow that to like to mean anything about you. That how someone is presenting says so much more about them than it does you. Yeah. I always say that. Like the agent on the other side, I see some agents treating the agent on the other side, like in like the enemy. And if you’re in a transaction, the goal, we’ve already established that we all have the same goal, right? Which is let’s get this transaction closed and yes, I’m representing my buyer, Absolutely, I’m gonna do so, you know, to the best of my abilities. And they represent the other side. But there is some common ground here that we just have to find, which is right, we’d all, we both like to sell the house, buy the house, right? We’ve made that connection, just remembering and always going back to well wait a second, we’re both here for the same reasons, right? So how can we work this out? Right? Right. You know, so often we forget, yes, there are lots of agents, right? But you very quickly in the agent community get a reputation for how you transact. It’s important to build that from day one. Yeah. And I would say one common that I think needs to be said when we talk to both our clients and our colleagues, especially when things get emotional, do not try to do it by email. Mm. I love that. I agree. Whenever, whenever like just pick up the phone and say, hey, yeah, I saw your email. Thank you for the feedback. Listen, I wanna get this closed as much as you do. What’s a good solution here? Yeah. Something like that versus, you know, what you actually wanna do. Sometimes I write the email, but I just delete it and then I, and then I call you are calm, right? Yeah. Just, I love that. Just to get it out a little bit. Right? We have a minute here. Yeah. And so I think really, like you said, remembering that we have to come from a clean slate when we talk to our clients. Yes. Right? It’s not about us, it’s about them. Yeah, That’s Right. When we work with our counterparts, our colleagues, and it’s really not about us or them, it’s actually about our clients Yep. And what their goals are. Yeah. And so really trying to pull that emotion away and keep your mind where we’re headed and what the goal is here. Yeah. Yeah. Now one thing I think that gets overlooked, especially for our business as real estate agents is oftentimes there’s no fine line, there’s no boundary between our personal life and our business life. There are no open clothes. Right? Right. And so I think sometimes these emotions can bleed into our personal life if something kind of is going on business life. And I know you actually specialize, like in relationships, familiar relationships with real estate agents. So kind of tell us what your thoughts are and how we believe what’s business in the business and somehow, I don’t know, change our emotion or change our state when it’s time for our life part of our life. Yeah. I, and I think having boundaries can be a wonderful right way. Having the security within yourself and your capabilities and your skill as an agent. Having enough of that, right. To be willing to put in boundaries, right. Because sometimes I feel when we don’t, not all the time, but sometimes it can come from like hustle or like scarcity. When we, when we’re right. When we’re just like, text me at two in the morning, you know, and or someone does and you’re actually answering that type of thing. And so when it comes to our families, I think decide what your non-negotiables are. Let’s say it’s, you know, you pick the kids up every day from school for whatever, like those 30 minutes, that hour from pickup to home and what have you, whatever that looks like for you, your non-negotiables, you put that in your calendar. And not that you need to communicate every detail of your schedule to your clients, but I think it can be helpful to, in the beginning of the relationship, communicate what those boundaries may be. Because again, that helps with their expectations. So it’s like, you know, let’s say Sundays are kind of off limits, maybe communicate to your Sundays, you’re more than welcome, right? To send me a text or leave me a voicemail on Sunday and I’ll get back to you on Monday. Right? Because lenders are closed, right? Like, nope, traditionally nobody’s open on Sunday, right. To work their transaction anyway. And so whatever that boundary may look like for you decided ahead of time, decide how you wanna communicate that to your clients. And then when it comes to our families, like our spousal relationship, going back to kind of how we talked about earlier, let’s say your spouse is like, you know, you’re never home. Now if someone, if they were to say something like that, we could take that in a thousand different directions, right? And sometimes it can go in a negative direction, but again, let’s just get a little compassionate and curious about what it is that they’re trying to feel. And it probably is coming from something like they just wanna spend time or they want to, you know, have more connection with us, but it’s being presented in a way that if we allow, we can get defensive, we can make it mean that they don’t support our business. We can make it mean so many different things. But I think being, again, being clear on your boundaries and your business, if family is something that you have and something that you value, then allowing yourself to create that time for you to be in that space uninterrupted. Right. And not like worried that your business is gonna fall apart if you’re not attached to your phone. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I can remember, speaking of emotions, I think it takes people who have never been a real estate agent a really hard time to understand what our, yeah. What our life as a real estate agent is gonna look like. I was a real estate agent at this point for like 12 years, 15 years. Yeah. And my family was still, you know, my mom or my sister, my family was still making these big family events from like, you know, Saturday at two o’clock and I’d be like, you know guys, I can be there at four, I can be there at five when I’m done the day. And they eventually kind of got a little upset with me and they’re like, don’t care about us. Your business is your priority. And I said, look, if you wanna hang out on a Wednesday around noon, I’m free. Yes, we can go do whatever you want, but on Saturday at two I’m showing houses. Right? And so once they really understood that, because they were government workers, so in their mind they just thought eight to five, you know, when through Friday and then it’s on, it’s off. Yes. And I had to really sit with them first I got upset and I got defensive, like, how could you not understand, da da da, how could you plan events when, you know? Right. And then I had to kind of just say, Well wait a second, what are they thinking about this here? Yes. You know? And then finally I said, look, we keep missing the mark. You know, so, you know, and so we had to come to our own mutual agreement about what I was and wasn’t willing to do. And of course everything’s a choice, but the choice I wanted to make was like, I’m gonna work on Saturdays till about four or five. Right? Yeah. And there’s nothing that I’m, it’s not because I’m picking my business over you. It’s because I, I, that is the choice I’m making for myself and my business. Yeah. And so that started to dissipate disagreements is really just making sure they understood. And the other thing was communicating how, you know, I always say that our business has a yearly and a weekly cycle to it. And being able to communicate to family and friends about, similar to like an accountant. Right. You wouldn’t expect a CPA to kind of be free all the time Right. Around text deadlines. Exactly. Right. Yes. But for some reason, as real estate’s we’re like, I think other people think that we are free all the time. Like we don’t have anything going on. Yeah. For some reason. And so I always had to explain that cycle to many of my friends and my family members and say, look like pretty much from like end of February through, you know, June I’m on, but I got nothing going on usually in July, August or November, December. So like we can have a ton of quality time there. Right. You know? Exactly. Yeah. I think sometimes it’s just communicating, but also understanding what your expectations are of the job we chose of ourselves and yeah. No, that’s so good. And I love how you just went back to like, okay, what are They thinking? And you know it, and it sounds like they even share with you. They’re like, well, it’s like you don’t care about our family. And it could be further from the truth, you know, it’s just like they have a traditional schedule and you think, and even if we were to share with them, like you have a traditional schedule like nine to five Monday through Friday probably. So if you were looking for a home, when would you be doing that on Saturdays? Right. So that’s my line of work. So that’s what I’m doing. Exactly. Well, so I asked you at the top of this conversation, I said, you know, what would be the number one thing that if a real estate agent came to you and said, look, I’ve been given a strategy but I just can’t seem to get there. And you said Handling the emotions of being a business owner. Yeah. Any other thoughts or takeaways that our listeners should have when it comes to, I think, I don’t think real estate agents realize that that is such a huge piece. Yeah, no, the only other thing that I can think of and that I do even personally in my business is you talk to yourself more than you listen to yourself. Right. Because our brains are wired to keep us safe and stay in routine, stay in certain, and so much as, you know, as a business owner is uncertain, right? And so that, that’s already like, you know, freaking the brain out and challenging the brain every step of the way. So when you have moments where you feel self doubt or you feel, you know, whatever the emotion is, nervousness, fear of rejection or whatever, as you’re building your business, that means everything’s working fine in the brain, right? Cuz it’s doing its job. And so I think if we listen sometimes to some of the thoughts that we tell like that we have about our business that come up naturally for us, it can get us stuck because those thoughts may make us feel a certain way, right? Where we end up like procrastinating or pressuring ourselves for things to look a certain way by this date. And if it didn’t happen, this means this about me and my real estate business and on and on, right? And so talking to yourself, being intentional about how you speak over yourself and what you are going to decide that you believe right about you and your commitment to seeing this business through. And if you don’t hit your goal this year, right? You just move the date a little bit. You keep working on the goal, you know, like, and it doesn’t mean anything about you. You just keep talking to yourself, right? And keep being intentional about what you wanna believe. And sometimes I think in addition to emotions, that probably is the other like little superpower, talk to yourself more than you listen to yourself. I love that. Yeah. Because I think so often, we believe the first thing, right? Like especially when it comes to like, you know, I hear a lot like when we’re looking around and seeing what other agents are doing, it’s like, I’m not good enough or I’m not doing that enough. Yeah. And it’s like, well that’s a choice. You can listen to that. Or what I like to say instead is like, that doesn’t feel good. When I think that thought, it doesn’t make me feel good, it makes me feel inadequate. Yeah. And so instead I’m gonna say, well what is it that I could do that’s different than that? Or what is it that I could show that’s about me and not about like that person or you know, whatever it is, so that you can actually feel better and then take action from there. Yeah. I love it. You know, for example, if scrolling Instagram makes you feel bad about yourself. Yeah. No, it’s right. It’s right. Yeah. Well Christal, it’s such a pleasure. I know how much our students love going to your classes. Oh and I love them. They are a great group. Seriously. I, I do. I get, and I’m starting to get to know like you know, everyone and so, and know their recognized names and so that’s a lot of fun. Yeah. So I really appreciate you bringing your expertise about intangible things that we as business owners and we as real estate agents need to focus on to get where we go, where we’re Gonna go. My pleasure. I love this conversation. Thank you for having me on. Okay, thank you. And if anybody listening to this who’s not a student who can’t see you every month inside Agent Grad School wanna find you, where would they go? Sure. The website is probably one of the easiest places to find me. And that’s christalallen.com. It’s christalallen.com. And if you prefer social media, I’m most active on Instagram and my handle is Life Coach Christal. Awesome. And I’ll link to all that in the show notes at agent Grad school.com. So see you in our student meetings. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom here on the podcast too. Thanks Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. We purposely keep this podcast sponsor and commercial free so we can focus solely on providing real estate agents with the content that will help them grow their real estate business and have a life they love outside the business too. But we need your help to get this podcast in the hands of other real estate agents. So please, if you liked this episode, leave a review on iTunes or wherever you’re listening, and also tell your agent friends to listen in too. Thank you so much for supporting this show, for being a listener and supporting other agents along your way to success. That’s what this is all about. See you next time on another episode of Confessions of a Top, Producing Real Estate Agent. And until then, come hang with me over at AgentGradSchool.com. I’ll see you there.