IEA inspired me to plough on (and succeed)
Dreams fell apart
The moment I received the email congratulating me on clearing my final paper, I started imagining myself going on the stage receiving awards as a top achieving property agent in the next few months. Why not? After all, my upline told me I have the looks to attract eyeballs. He further assured me that in a couple of months of training by him and his agency, I would be on my way to convince every client to engage me as his/her asset progression advisor.
Yet the next 9 months turned out to be very different from what my upline had shared and certainly from what I had imagined. I wasn’t able to hold onto any clients. Even though clients would walk up to me and chat, they somehow weren’t convinced I should be their trusted property advisor. After several such experiences over the course of 6 months, I started doubting myself if I was cut out to be a property agent. I started attending and re-attending courses, essentially all the in-house courses offered free-of-charge by my agency. I took as much notes as I could, but those notes didn’t help much. What was I missing?
Actually, deep within, I did know what I was missing. I just wasn’t facing up to it. Plainly put, I was unfamiliar with property transactions, and my body language clearly gave away my lack of confidence in front of clients. Even over the phone, clients could tell from my tone. I failed to act on this for another 3 months. So once again, I started attending the free in-house courses which were mostly superficial, not going in-depth into the real know-how I clearly needed in order for clients to entrust me with their property deals.
I was starting to lose heart and was now contemplating going back to corporate employment, having not earned a penny after almost a year.
The start of a wonderful partnership
By chance I met Jamie in one of our in-house training classes. We hit it off, and started sharing our common woes during the lunch break. Then, Jamie had joined the property line for 3 months, and she faced the same issues I encountered. She wanted to focus on the resale HDB segment which was the bread and butter of most property agents. She knew she didn’t understand enough about resale HDB transactions, and she couldn’t convince clients to engage her. Unlike me, she recognized the issue and was already actively seeking a solution to the common problem we faced. She broke down the lack of familiarity with the resale HDB market into several smaller addressable problems and we looked into the relevant courses and guidance we could get from around us. We searched through various property agent training institutes and we finally found the right courses which addressed our needs. The training provider was IEA.
IEA inspires
We both signed up for one of the courses we felt would be most pressing for us. The trainer certainly did not disappoint and she shared with us way more knowledge and tips than what any of our in-house courses offered. We diligently took heed of the trainer’s advice to set aside time for peer practices. Thereafter I felt way more confident in facing clients. Both of us decided to take another step further to form a partnership to share our efforts in meeting clients together to engage us jointly. Our partnership worked out, and we had been working jointly ever since. Since the first IEA course we attended rewarded us with so much knowledge and tips, we started to attend more courses IEA offered from its CPD catalogue. To this day, as far as possible, I would check against IEA’s course catalogue for courses to address any gaps Jamie and I identified in our property business. Today, I no longer had any thought of returning to corporate employment, as Jamie and I were regularly (in fact frequently) closing resale HDB transactions.
