Starting out in the world of real estate is an exciting venture for anyone looking to be their own boss and make their mark as an entrepreneur. But even if newer agents feel they are ready to take the world by storm, having an experienced mentor in their corner will often boost their earnings and increase their trajectory of success faster–due to the knowledge they are absorbing while building a name for themselves.

What is a Mentor?

When it comes to finding a mentor, it’s good to know exactly what you’re looking for and who you should reach out to. A real estate mentor is someone who can offer advice and coaching on a regular basis throughout the beginning of your career.

A mentor in real estate usually has a long career and a successful client base to back it up. In their simplest form, mentors in real estate are essentially teachers willing to share the lessons they’ve learned along the way–including all the mistakes–and put them into context for other agents. Experience is the best teacher and can go a long way when laying a foundation of confidence and expectation in agents.

What Do You Hope to Accomplish?

Before choosing a mentor out of a lineup, it’s recommended that you do some reflecting first. You can’t know exactly who to ask for help if you can’t pinpoint what it is you want to accomplish in the first place. In this case, it’s at this moment that you need to identify what you aspire to, such as working as a listing agent,  helping first-time homebuyers, or focusing on a specific niche in your market.

Whatever the case, you need to determine what you are going to lean into as a real estate professional and then find a mentor that aligns with that.

The Benefits of Working with a Mentor

There are many reasons why new agents with mentors create a path to success faster and with better long-term results, than those agents that try to blaze a path all alone. Here’s a breakdown of some of the benefits of working with a seasoned mentor:

• Networking

Networking is a driving force behind our industry. A trusted mentor can help connect their mentee with other real estate experts as well as dependable affiliates that can help them in their business and maybe even refer clients their way. A great real estate mentor will also coach agents on how to network effectively and vouch for their work with new clients. Retired agents who have stepped into the role of mentor can also introduce mentees to past clients who become potential leads, thus boosting a newer agent’s sphere of influence.

• Unparalleled Expertise

Green agents can glean meaningful wisdom from a tenured agent’s years of experience. One-on-one mentoring sessions over coffee or lunch with seasoned mentors provide mentees the opportunity to gain insight and ask questions, while also building out long-term and short-term professional goals. After all, you want the advice of those with a proven track record of success and constructive failure to understand the big picture and help you create a proper business plan.

• Learning from the Mentor’s Experience…Instead of Through Mistakes:

Mentors can spare new agents from making mistakes before they happen, without the agent wasting days, weeks and months of time learning the same lessons the hard way. This includes everything from marketing, operational and transaction mistakes to client and agent communication mishaps. Some of the most successful real estate agents attribute their high-volume career success solely to all that they learned during their days in a mentorship program, learning from a top agent.

Mentorship is one of the most fundamental elements in real estate; a mentor provides a valuable perspective on the industry and the craft. Those being mentored can find distinctive guidance to build out a long-term plan for their career, helping them envision a lifetime of achievements and opportunities for growth.