3 Questions to Ask Before You Go Solo or Join a Team

By Jacqueline Smith

Jacqueline Smith started in real estate in 2015 and sold 52 homes her first year in the business as a solo agent. After considering growing her own team, and exploring different team models, she decided to partner with Place in 2017. The partnership allowed her to fast track her growth, and provide better systems and models to her agent partners. Her and her team in Vancouver Washington now close over $165M in annual sales volume, while keeping the quality of the agent and client experience at the forefront.

Let’s say your goal is to go to the moon. As a solo agent, you’re building the rocket ship yourself.

Lead generation. Contracts. Systems. Marketing. Technology. Accountability. Transaction management. That’s a lot of hats, and a lot of things that can go wrong. None of it is impossible. People build the rocket ship and make it to the moon every day, and they’ve been doing it for years. But just because you can build it yourself, you have to ask whether that’s the best use of your time, and whether you’re actually passionate about the building part.

Here are the three questions I’d work through if I were starting over.

1. Do you want to build a business or practice real estate? Those are two very different jobs. Some agents are genuinely passionate about building systems, creating processes, hiring people, and figuring it all out from scratch. Those people are never going to be satisfied hopping onto a rocket ship somebody else built. Other people get stressed just thinking about that list. They want to help clients, sell houses, and be out there with people. Neither answer is wrong. But you should know which one you are before you pick a path, because the wrong one will grind on you for years.

2. How much trial and error can you personally afford to weather? Those of us who have been in this a long time have failed. We’ve made mistakes, and some of them cost real time and real money. That’s part of building a practice from nothing, and if you got into this to build a business and you understand that’s the deal, then great, go build it.

Other people join strong teams specifically to tap into years of experience and learn from somebody else’s failures instead of funding their own. The systems are already built, so they get straight to the part they care about: helping people buy and sell homes and build wealth. That’s a financial question and a timeline question, and it’s one to answer honestly with your family. The right team partnership can shorten your trajectory a lot, with much less stress than doing it alone.

3. What’s your most valuable resource right now? Most people say money. I think the answer is time. You can always make more money. You cannot get time back. A good team compresses time. It helps you avoid mistakes, create opportunities faster, build your database faster, and develop your skills more quickly than you likely would on your own.

When you’re weighing solo against a team, don’t make the decision on which one gives you the best split. Make it the one that gets you to your goal faster, because time is money.

So do you want to spend the next few years building the rocket ship, or do you want to get on one that’s already built?

If you’re open to the idea, we’d love to talk. It’s a great way to build a real estate business, especially now, when the pressure on tech and processes is real, and you have to show up big to make any kind of splash.

Call or text us at 360-800-1334, email me at jacqueline@evergreenrealestatepartners.com, or visitblog.evergreenrealestatepartners.com.