I just finished doing a day and a half of board orientation for my local association of REALTORS®, West Branch Valley. Our association is small (about 240 members) so we do this every six months. Despite our efforts to orient new members as soon as we can, there were some in the class who had been in the trenches at least a year, or even more.

New people come into our business with much hope, great expectations, and, sometimes, an unrealistic picture of what the business entails. Here in my state of Pennsylvania, if one hundred new agents are licensed on January 1, by December 31, fifty are gone. By December 31 of the following year, another twenty-five are gone—leaving us with 25% of our original group. Yet, year in and year out, hopeful new agents show up at orientation. Some of them do make it. They show up at other classes, and the smart ones figure out pretty quickly that Fundamentals and Practices gets you through the test, but learning how to list and sell real estate is something else entirely—and it calls for ongoing education, as well as a lot of on the job training. Even the ‘seasoned’ agents like me (30+ years and counting) learn something new everyday.

            I asked my students this time to tell me what they had learned in orientation that they didn’t know; and what they would also like to learn. Their answers were interesting. My portion of the orientation is Code of Ethics, plus general REALTOR® information, as well as a quick review of our most popular standard forms (Agreement of Sale, Buyer Agency Agreement, etc). For the past several years, I’ve quickly gone through a slide show of pictures taken in my years as an agent and an appraiser—because the one thing I find, everywhere, all the time, is that when I ask new agents: “Has anyone ever taken you out into the field and shown you how to look at a house?” the ‘yes’ answers are 1% to 5% of the attendees. Stupefying, isn’t it? My slide show is very basic—things to look for, building materials, what an asbestos roof looks like, and wears like, compared to a composition asphalt roof.   Most of the attendees said that they learned a lot about the Code, including arbitration. One person honestly said: “I didn’t know anything about Ethics before?” (Are the brokers reading this hearing that?)    More important, if you are a broker, are the things we don’t cover, and they want to know. Here’s a list of the highlights:

§         Multiple offers and what you do when they come in

§         Financing (several students cited this)

§         Agency

§         Electronic advertising, including craigslist

§         Anything electronic or Internet based

§         More information on web site stats—how effective is a website, what percent of people search online

Several said they were glad I showed them realtor.org and parealtor.org, which are membership websites; one was glad I told them about District Conferences and our Triple Play Convention.

            Here’s my point, and it is directed mostly to the brokers—the people that hire these fresh new agents, full of hope, desire to earn money and do well, ambition to have a better job than the last one—please—start doing your part. You see, the educators like me can’t do it all. Oh, I shamelessly promoted GRI, ABR and SRS courses at orientation—I always do because I think those designations are the most valuable to a new agent. I told them when the next CE cycle comes around to use their ‘butt time’ wisely by taking a course that will help them sell more real estate. I directed them to our District conference (this year my conference’s keynote speaker is Terry Watson, and if he can’t energize you, you’re dead!) and to the Triple Play Convention. I told them they can attend state or national REALTOR® meetings just because they are REALTORS®. But, I can’t do it all. Quit hiring these people if you don’t intend to train them. If you don’t have a mentoring program, why not? Can you really afford to lose 75% of the people you hire and train (and train seems to run the gamut in our business)? In other words—our market is tougher, and our business calls for more professionalism than ever before. If you are a broker, the buck stops with you. So please—do your job—and by the way—if you send them to an educator, we’ll do our job, too.