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REB Top 100 agent David Highland says it helps to be “smashed around” when you’re starting out in real estate. The experience teaches you how to handle rejection early on, which will help you develop into a high-performance agent.
Mr Highland says most successful people have been through a period where they encountered setback and felt as if they couldn’t get anything right.
“You’ve got to get smashed around,” he told REB on the Secrets of the Top 100 Agents podcast.
But as you become more experienced, rejection becomes less important.
“It becomes a rear view mirror conversation,” Mr Highland said.
"We’ve got more than 40 people in our sales team and at a leadership level, we talk a lot around this to the extent that we have a policy with rejection.”
The policy is that as soon as you get off a bad phone call, you put it behind you.
“To that some people may say, ‘Well that’s easy for him, he’s got so much experience’, but the reality is, I’ve seen it firsthand and been through it myself. If you don’t, you can become out of balance because you’ve missed an opportunity,” Mr Highland said.
“This is one of those industries where you’re going to have to get good at just overcoming those kinds of obstacles.”
He said agents need to learn to control their emotions.
“You’ve got to become tough and bulletproof, and not take it so personally.”
Agents who are rejected also need to behave in the right way, he said.
“You can’t judge the client, you can’t say the wrong thing, you can’t discredit yourself or the brand that you’re working in because you’ve missed that opportunity in one way of another.
“But you’ve also got to learn from it regardless of your level. There are opportunities that I still don’t get. I think with experience you’re getting more than what you miss out on, but on the odd occasion I still do miss something.”
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