Unless you were an accountant in your previous career, you probably didn’t need to look at your company’s profit and loss statement (P&L). As a business owner, you are now responsible for not only making sure your business is profitable but also tracking your revenue and expenses. By doing this, you’ll know how profitable real estate agent Ascot Vale is and what types of adjustments you should make to run your business better.
You’ll want to find yourself a competent certified public accountant (CPA) sooner rather than later. A good CPA will make sure you start taking advantage of every deduction you can, then work backward to find tax-deductible activities you can use to generate new business for yourself while also enjoying your life. Dinners, trips, clothes, your phone, even your vehicle can be written off when done properly. Remember, you will also be responsible for setting aside a portion of your income to pay your federal and state taxes. Now that you’re an independent contractor, it’s easy to think the whole paycheck is yours. It’s not! Uncle Sam will still want a piece of the pie.
In most life situations, a sense of urgency is frowned upon. It often leads to mistakes, impatience, and rushed decisions that don’t always work out. But in real estate sales, a sense of urgency can be a useful tool, and you’ll be relying on it to help your clients deal with stressful situations.
As a police officer, I often experienced a sense of urgency. Several times throughout a shift I would be dropped into challenging situations. Time was rarely on my side. I frequently found myself forced to decide with limited information, unsure of how that decision would impact the long string of unseen dominoes likely to be set in motion by it. I had to make peace with the fact that there were too many variables for any human mind to reasonably consider and make the best decision I could at the moment.
When new officers were faced with too many variables to absorb at one time, they would typically do what almost everyone does in such moments—freeze. Whenever I would see a fellow officer freeze, I would help snap them out of it by creating a sense of urgency. “Hurry, cut them off at Fourth Street!” or “Tell dispatch what that witness just said, and I’ll grab the car!”
Now That I’m Self-Employed, I No Longer Have a Boss
Many real estate agents who come to the profession from a W-2 job think they’ve escaped having a boss and can do anything they want. This could not be further from the truth. New agents don’t trade in one boss for no boss—they trade in one boss for many bosses. In fact, the whole goal of becoming a top real estate agent is to get as many bosses as you can. Your clients become your boss when you sign up to work for them. Those clients will play a huge role in dictating the experience you have in the industry, and your ability to work successfully with them will play a large role in the quality of your life.
My team strives to have thirty bosses at any given time: We want thirty houses in escrow on average. I understand that I work for others and the more bosses I have, the more money I make. The best agents have made peace with the fact that they have many bosses.
