Owner and Qualifying Broker at Rhino Realty Property Management and Rhino Realty B&B, entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author and speaker.
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Mentors, if respected and utilized properly, can help you succeed in the real estate business and prevent you from making mistakes that they have encountered along their own path. Having a proven mentor can pay you back in ways that money can’t buy. In several instances, the advice of a great mentor can provide is priceless. If the relationship is respected and cultivated, your potential opportunities could be increased exponentially. Below are some helpful tips for working with a mentor or trying to find one.
1. Choose a mentor who is in your area of the real estate industry and who has a proven track record. You need to partner with someone who knows what you are going through and what you are going to face.
2. Make your mentor your top priority. In some instances this may mean canceling or postponing a meeting, but I advise that you do it. A good mentor can provide more value to you than many of the meetings on your calendar, which can be rescheduled. When they make time to advise and educate you, always make yourself available.
3. Be respectful of your mentor’s time and knowledge. Reach out first rather than expecting (or asking) your mentor to call you, and avoid objecting to your mentor’s guidance. Remember their time and knowledge is being offered to you and accept it graciously.
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4. Listen to every detail of the advice your mentor shares with you. Record your conversations if they agree to it, take notes and learn from listening. A good mentor’s advice and opinions are nuggets of pure gold.
5. When your mentor asks something of you, try to go above and beyond. In the real estate world, you may be asked to provide the best comparable or gather more information on a deal. Always find a way to exceed your mentor’s expectations. Accept the challenges your mentor sets for you as opportunities to grow. Embrace the challenge and know it’s for your betterment.
6. Take it upon yourself to stay in touch with your mentor. Good mentors are typically extremely busy, so consider it your job to keep up communication, whether through text message or email. These methods make it simple to maintain continuous contact and keep yourself in your mentor’s thoughts, which is priceless.
7. Don’t ask your mentor to involve themselves in something that you are not willing to stand by or that may be a risk. Your word is your bond, and it’s well worth noting that it can be destroyed in an instant. Before you bring any kind of business dealing to your mentor, make sure it’s well-vetted. Even after that, make sure everything is fully transparent and they have the opportunity to see the whole picture. If you wouldn’t do the deal yourself, then don’t take it to your mentor.
8. Have skin in the game. A good mentor respects your ability to get involved. It shows you are truly in and ready to go down with the ship! You gain much more respect once you enter this realm.
If you want to grow your real estate business faster than your competition, then having a mentor is an essential part of your development. Having a proven mentor to advise you can open up opportunities for more deals. It’s not a lie when people say that the people you surround yourself with are big contributors to your growth. Knowing this, why wouldn’t you want to bring a highly successful mentor into your life? There is no cap on the number of mentors you can have, but if you are lucky enough to find one who is dynamic, one tends to be enough.
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