It’s a Book, It’s Not a Book

“Okay,” she said, “what’s this about?”

“I’m just saying we always do the same things.”

“You don’t like what we do?”

“I love what we do.”

“I know what it is,” she said.

“There is no it. It’s nothing.”

“It’s the book.”

“What book?”

“The book.”

“You mean nonbook,” I said. “All we have is a file full of notes.”

“That’s exciting.”

“It’s not a book,” I said.

We had been struggling with this for more than three years, and this road trip had brought my frustration to a peak. We now realized how unique our real estate experiences had been. Our broker, other top agents, first from our state and then from all over the country, had told us our journey was amazing. We’d made more than $200,000 in commissions in our first six months in real estate. This was unheard of. More than 95 percent of agents still in the business felt lucky to make half that each year—and then only after a few lean years. Most agents never make it through the lean years.

We’d hit the ground running and experienced a stellar climb from there. We simply credited it to our hunger for cash. That first half year in the business we seemed to know nothing. We viewed all the big names in our market as legends, with years in the business and signs in front of mansions. They had reputations. We had residents living in a one-square-mile area containing 900 modest homes. We sent cute items to them on a regular basis. Little did we know that we were doing so much more business than these highly touted ...

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