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Advertisers are not nice: they have to rudely interrupt movies and TV shows to tell you how nice they are. If its YouTube, you cant even get to your video without sitting through a 20-second commercial. The lesson to learn is this: selling is a skill that comes best to those who make their peace with assertiveness that borders on rudeness. If you always thought you could make it in the lucrative world of real estate, how do you know if you are cut out for it? Could you be a successful real estate agent?
The DiSC personal assessment tool
DiSC (the letters stand for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness) is a personality assessment tool specifically developed to help those who wish to check career compatibility. Many real estate agencies training interns use it to assess how suited they are for a career choice in sales.
Being a nice guy doesnt cut it
Rising to top-performer level in the competitive world of real estate requires a personality so strong, you get to influence people simply through the strength that you exude. Successful real estate agents often manage to push sales through not by making untruthful statements or hiding the truth, but simply by making deals sound attractive through their own enthusiasm for it.
Niceness and reasonableness arent usually qualities that help a real estate agent. This doesnt mean that real estate agents need to be insensitive or manipulative. Rather, they need to be masters at selling techniques such as the openhanded approach -- presenting buyers with sales materials that prove that buying is a good idea, while not presenting them with materials that could work against the sale. The openhanded approach involves no misleading. It only involves enabling clients to lead themselves in a direction desired by the agent.
Integrity
It might seem that only nice people could ever claim personal integrity. This isnt true, though. According to leading real estate agency Chappell and Matthews, most successful agents work off an excellent sense of integrity, whether or not they are personally nice to people. Good agents take their commitments seriously. They keep their word, and they never speak ill of anyone. Integrity is far more important in real estate than in any other business -- deals pivot on personal trust and faith.
An ability to thrive on chaos and to direct its course
Handling people who want to buy property isnt unlike handling a class of children. Property buyers can be demanding, quarrelsome and uncooperative. While it can be exhilarating to find ways to carefully direct chaos, it takes tremendous focus and multitasking skills. In general, people who could make good primary school teachers tend to be good with real estate, as well. In DiSC assessments, the S stands for stability; the lower the DiSC stability score, the better the test-taker is at real estate.
Extroversion
The best real estate agents score very well on the Interactiveness measure tested by the DiSC assessment. When a person is naturally extroverted, it helps them gain the skills needed to influence others, something that readily works in their favor in sales.
Money-driven
Not everyone is highly motivated at the thought of making money. People often find their rewards in other ways. Successful real estate agents, though, usually assess 90% or higher for economic motivation in DiSC assessments. Its an important quality, primarily because money is the main reward of a career in sales.
Ease with tech
Real estate agents need to know more than to simply get around a few basic digital tools. They need to know how to truly work social media and online marketing.
It might appear as if ease with technology should be listed under skills rather than personality traits. In many ways, though, ease with technology does turn out to be a personality trait. It takes a certain kind of eagerness to constantly explore new things and to be able to master them.
Its important to understand that personality assessments help predict a high degree of success in real estate. It doesnt make sense to rule out a career in real estate simply because one doesnt score high on such assessments, though. A moderate level of success can be highly desirable, as well.
Jonathan Rogers could be described as a veteran of the real estate business and he is always pleased to share his insights and ideas online. Jonathan features regularly on several property websites.
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