Success in real estate rarely happens in isolation, with mentorship playing a critical role in accelerating an agent’s development and helping them build the right foundations early. Here’s how to find the right mentor.
In the early years of their career, many agents focus heavily on sales and mastering the craft, often overlooking the importance of building strong processes and disciplined habits that underpin long-term success.
Barry Plant Franchise development manager Ben Burling said agents can fast-track their career by surrounding themselves with the right mentor.
He said that a respected mentor can inspire new agents and help them get past roadblocks, while supporting them in establishing a reliable structure for their daily roles.
By choosing a mentor who shared the same values, Burling said new agents could fasten their career by shortening the learning curve, quickly building confidence, and putting in place good habits from day one.
According to Burling, mentorship was less about following the highest-performing agents and more about establishing structure, accountability, and clear direction early in your career.
He said that the best mentors weren’t always the top salespeople, but those with strong processes and clear systems that help new agents build solid foundations.
When searching for the right mentor, Burling said agents should prioritise shared values and strong personal rapport, given the close working relationship and influence mentors have on their career development.
To determine whether the partnership would work, he recommended observing how potential mentors operated in real-world situations and interacted with others during inspections.
“If you go into an office just because it’s your local office and work with somebody who has values that don’t align with yours, then it’s probably not the right fit,” Burling told REB.
“So you can interview a person to be your mentor as much as they can interview you for a job.”
When building a business in the early stages, Burling said having a mentor who has navigated similar experiences can provide both the motivation to stay committed and the guidance to overcome setbacks.
“When you get to a roadblock, where you’re not sure what to do, if you’ve got someone setting you on the right track, that makes a big difference.”
“If you are a new agent and you haven’t experienced certain things and you’re at a crossroads, if you’ve got an agent who knows the right way to do things, it makes you a lot more confident in whatever process you’re going to complete from there.”
According to Burling, one of the biggest mistakes agents should avoid when choosing a mentor is basing their decision on the amount of sales that they’ve done, thinking they’ll get the most opportunity.
He said many agents underestimated how much a mentor can influence their career, from the technology they adopt and the training they receive to the level of sales exposure they gain.
Instead, Burling said the best mentors and leaders were often those who had the best processes and clear accountability in place.
“It isn’t the fancy and exciting stuff, but it’s these people that often provide the best platform for a new agent to get started.”
Additionally, instead of trying to learn everything at once, new agents should stick to a clear structure and learn in stages to make sure they absorb information properly and pick up the right habits.
“Have a really clear structure as to what you learn on the first day and what you learn on the second day, and so on, just breaking it down into small chunks.”
“We have the ability to run over old ground many times when it comes to learning new processes, and so having that to make sure that you’re learning properly and then you’re getting in the right habits is the most important thing.”
How to approach and use mentorship effectively
When approaching someone for mentorship, Burling said persistence was key to attracting someone’s attention, recognising that it may take multiple attempts for them to accept.
He said agents could visit the offices of those whom they want to have as their mentor, attend their property inspections, or contact them via phone.
“That’s always a really good sign for a new person in this industry because dealing with rejection and persisting with people is one of those key traits that we need to take into it.”
Showing initiative to learn, such as offering to shadow them at an open home on the weekend, will also help newer agents to stand out.
“If they’re going to invest their time into you, they want to see that you are happy to invest your time into learning, so that’s a really good one too.”
To get the most out of their mentorship while ensuring they don’t become too dependent, Burling advised building the habit of prospecting first thing in the morning.
“Get in there and make your prospecting calls early in the day is the number one habit that any agent should form when they first start in this industry,” he said.
“Number two and three is, take the time to actually learn. So educate yourself. I think number three would then be to look out on the job.”
“Spend time with your mentor on the job experience. Take the time out to shadow someone whom you’ve got a lot of respect for.”
He said that with the right networks, mentorship can become portable as opposed to depending on geography, allowing agents to form relationships across a group that goes beyond just the business they’re working in.
“We see extraordinary relationships formed across the entire group with a cohort of agents that run through our launch programme, and another cohort of agents that run together through our auction academy.”
“We had 20 agents run through our auction academy over the last four months, and they’ve gotten to know each other really, really well, and now they know they’ve got a whole other support network,” he concluded.
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?Make Real Estate Business a preferred news source on Google.
