Here are some basics that I would demand:

- Must be willing to work 40 hours per week. If hiring for a full-time position, full-time hours are critical. It’s easy to get pulled away from your job for the demands of friends and family. If you don’t treat it like a job, your friends and family won’t either. Suddenly you’re the one to do all the extra stuff because you don’t have a “real job”. Even if there is nothing “important” to do, you have to go in every day. Listen to the excuses you make for taking the day off and ask if a “normal” boss would find it acceptable.

- Must be willing to do lead generation activities. This can be the uncomfortable part of our job. Driving around in the car looking at houses is the fun part, it’s the part everyone talks about when they talk about becoming a realtor. The part they skip over is actually getting a client in the first place. Two hours of lead generation activity should be part of each day. A networking meeting, calls to your clients showing you care and appreciate their referrals, participating in social media or blogging, etc. You’ll do some things that end up being a waste of time, but if you commit to 2 hours a day you’ll make sales and learn what works for you. The bottom line is you have to do something each and every day.

- Must be willing to constantly be learning. How many conferences or seminars have you been to in the last year? How many books have you read? To stay on top of your game you need to be going to these things often. The state required education is not enough.

- Able to evaluate if the work they are doing is productive. Designing one flyer for 8 hours might feel like you worked the whole day, but you didn’t get yourself any closer to a paycheck. Constantly trying to be more efficient if critical to increasing your earning potential.

Go be an employee your boss is proud of!!

Sales and marketing is the company’s ability to get the word out about their product or services so that they have clients to serve. You can have the greatest widget in the world, but without proper marketing no one knows about it and it isn’t helpful to anyone.

Once you’re successful in getting some business you must then deliver on your promises. If you get a whole bunch of clients but then do a terrible job for them the word will get out and it won’t be long until you have no clients again.

After you get some clients, then serve them well, you then start producing some revenues. This is great! However, this will not be sustainable unless you’re taking in more thuan you’re spending. If your expenses exceed your income then it doesn’t matter what else you’re doing right; you’re going out of business.

Real estate is a business like any other. You need to be intentional about your marketing, you need to continually seek out methods to serve your clients better, and you must function under a budget – a separate one for business and personal. When these are in order, then you can build a business that lasts!