If you're like most real estate agents, your ultimate success goal is to become the worst agent in your city (or if you're really ambitious, maybe even the whole state!) - but it takes a lot of diligent negligence to become everyone's collective last choice. In order to make sure your phone never rings, you have to take extreme measures to ruin your reputation. But with the race to the bottom dominating the real estate space, what can you possibly do to beat out the stiff competition?
Follow these 7 tried-and-true tips to become the worst agent ever in no time flat:
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Be generally unpleasant at all times:
Pleasant people are highly overrated. To be the worst agent, you need to focus on being as grumpy, irritable, pushy and annoying as you can be - every chance you get. -
Always ignore your phone calls:
Let's face it, talking on the phone is boring and it takes too much time. Stand out from your competition (the 'good' agents) by making a diligent effort to never, ever return phone calls. Bonus points if your voicemail is full so no one can leave a message. -
Don't do any marketing:
If people find out about your business, you'll slowly start to become more and more popular, which is exactly what you don't want to do. To avoid getting new leads, don't market your business - at all. Stay away from social media, forget about building a website and definitely stay far, far away from real estate blogging. That's the most dangerous lead generator of all. -
Be as inconsistent as possible:
Inconsistency is a fantastic business killer. It has proven time and time again to ward off success and positive results. For best results, think about what you did yesterday and do the complete opposite today. If you accidentally do something consistent, stop as soon as you realize it and make an effort to not do that anymore to re-set your downward spiral. -
Throw away your calendar or planner:
One of the best ways to quickly get rid of those pesky clients is to miss as many appointments as you can. It works almost every time. If you struggle with missing appointments all together, try being ridiculously late. -
Brag about yourself constantly:
Quickly deter potential leads and clients by constantly bragging about your accomplishments -- and not just your real estate accomplishments, your life accomplishments. Why? Because someone other than your mom should be proud of the participation award you earned for track and field in the 5th grade gym class - that's why. And if the person your talking at tries to get a word in edge-wise while you're bragging, interrupt with another boastful nugget as quickly as possible. -
Be completely unprepared as often as possible:
If you do show up for an appointment, make sure you are not even remotely ready to be helpful. Don't bring any market data or MLS comps to share and be sure not to spend any time or effort researching listings or property values ahead of time. The more times you show up with nothing prepared, the faster your reputation will plummet!
Bonus Tip: Go on vacation and don't come back
Most importantly, make sure that you overpromise and underdeliver as often as possible. If you have the opportunity to collect negative reviews - even better. Just make sure - no matter what you do - you never respond or try to help when a client is upset.
May the worst agent prevail!
