Top Dogs Commercial RE Programs

How to Fast-Track Your Success in Commercial Real Estate Bro k e r a g e
Page 4
The Secret to the Success of the Training:
The secret to the success of the Top Dogs Training Programs is not really a secret. We’ve simply
applied techniques for accelerated learning and behavioral modeling to the field of commercial real estate brokerage.
These approaches and techniques have allowed us to accelerate the process of gaining expertise in the
industry. You see, the problem has never been that people couldn’t learn how to succeed in the industry, only
that it took too long. Most people were taking years to do what can done in just a few short months. In fact,
it was taking so long that the vast majority of people were giving up after a couple of years and leaving the
industry before earning the money they set out to earn.
The reasons that it was taking so long to learn is that most were following one of three paths into the
industry. The path that many new agents were forced to take is one that I already mentioned: Trial and error,
or “the school of hard knocks”. You certainly can learn the business this way (many have done it), but it takes
a lot longer than necessary – sometimes years. Of course, people should know that this is the case since anything
else learned by trial and error takes longer. For example, a foreign language or a musical instrument can
be self-taught, but unless you are uniquely talented in one of these areas, it will take a long time to learn without
an instructor, so long, that most who attempt it give up before they have mastered it.
Another slow path to success in commercial real estate has been to spend years trying to get credentials,
such as a CCIM designation, before trying to speak with potential clients about doing business. Now, I'm
a huge supporter of any education, such as the CCIM courses and other similar designations, but completing
them before ever working a commercial real estate deal is like attending years of classroom discussions about
how to play basketball before ever stepping onto a basketball court! These credential-oriented classes are
mostly focussed on the academics of the industry and teach little or nothing about how to make money in the
business. But again, the biggest problem is that it often takes years to complete the course of study. By then,
most agents have quit because of the lack of meaningful income.
Another approach that many have tried is the approach of becoming an assistant or apprentice to a successful
broker or mentor. In the right situation, this could be productive, but for many it is no where near
being a path to success. What is learned is rarely comprehensive and usually involves learning the mundane
tasks and paperwork that every successful broker delegates anyways. If there is any meaningful learning, it
usually takes years to reach a point of self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, most are not willing to spend a couple
of years starving as someone’s assistant in order to learn the business, especially when there’s no guarantee
that they’ll truly learn the business from their mentor. There are, after all, inherent conflicts of interest when
an experienced agent is supposed to teach an assistant or apprentice how to be independent and successful.
Generally, the few who are willing to be an apprentice or assistant for a couple of years wind up quitting in
frustration as they realize that they’ll never quite be on their own. They usually have to go to another firm to
truly have their own practice.
The real solution is to learn the business from the ground up, as quickly as possible. Then you must
get out in the field, with a proven road map to success, and quickly build a practice, one that consistently generates
leads, converts those leads into clients, and delivers extraordinary service. The key to doing all of this
is to apply principles of accelerated learning to the process so that the time it takes to start earning money is
short.
© Copyright 2009 Top Dogs, Peter Droubay and Bob McComb. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without written consent is prohibited.