LAST WORD

Margaret O'Brien of CBRE New England. Photo:  Michael McCord

What does it take to become a well-compensated, successful, superstar real estate savant?

I ask the question about having the right stuff because I don't have it. When it comes to selling, I am, to put it politely, hopeless.

Years ago, in a fit of career absent mindedness, I took a personality test to find out if I was fit to be a car salesman.

I wasn't.

I scored so poorly that the manager in charge joked in a serious way that my becoming a salesman could have a detrimental impact on the national economy.

He politely and quickly ushered me away as though I might contaminate his sales force.

I confess to being slightly in awe of people who can sell, especially those who work almost solely on commission and perform a professional high wire act, balancing rejection and closing the sale with equal aplomb.

"You have to have a business plan because you are an independent contractor," Carolyn McGee told me. McGee, a former teacher, is the broker-owner of Buyer's Brokers of the Seacoast and has handled hundreds and hundreds of residential deals during her career.

McGee said there were many components to success - while failure needs but one bad part - and that one of the more important lessons she learned was, well, the value of learning.

"This is one career I learned from following someone around."

McGee also shared with me the key to have a burning commitment to doing a superb job for a client all the time.

Not part of the time or even most of the time. But all of the time. Otherwise the broker-agent can develop an uneven reputation which is the career equivalent of slow death.

At a minimum, David Choate told me, a good work ethic is necessary and a good reputation is as fundamentally important as oxygen.

Choate is a principal with Grubb & Ellis/Coldstream Real Estate Advisers in Portsmouth. A licensed Realtor who deals in the commercial sector, he has brokered deals such as the auction Frank Jones Brewery complex.

Choate also had 13 years of work experience, including a two-year stint as president of the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce in the early 1980s, before finding his professional vocation in 1983.

While the old Woody Allen quip about 90 percent of success is just showing up might work in other professions such as, well, journalism, it doesn't apply to the real estate business - where the motor must be continually on to climb the ladder.

The lure of unlimited income potential is real, Choate told me, "but you can't just show up and make your sales figures."

Choate believes that handling the freedom and flexibility that comes with being a independent contractor, or a free agent on every potential deal, makes or breaks an agent.

Those less adept at time management, who don't know the importance of putting in extra networking time or of making the best of deals that didn't happen, will soon find themselves punching a time clock at another job. As Choate put it, the competition is very intense and "the pie is very thin."

Margaret O'Brien had a business background as an accountant with Price Waterhouse before becoming a broker eight years ago. O'Brien is with CB Richard Ellis of New England in Portsmouth and estimates she does between 25 to 30 commercial deals a year.

She laughs while telling me that what she does is "glorified matchmaking" but said more seriously no amount of "real education" could prepare one for the ebb and flow of the business and the amount of market knowledge needed just to keep up with the competition.

"You have to have tenacity and an entrepreneurial spirit," O'Brien explained. "Most brokers are OK producers," she continued, but to be really good "you need a lot of courage and self-confidence."

For those multitudes, considering a career change, O'Brien advised to "just jump in and enjoy it."

That's easy for her to say. The rest of us selling-impaired are auditioning for roles in "Death of a Bad Salesman."