Overcoming the Fear of Rejection in Real Estate
Tips for New Real Estate Agents
Rejection and real estate go hand in hand. They are almost too good of friends. When you are new in real estate, the rejection can really sting, and it can be a challenge to overcome the fear of rejection. After a new “no’s” and when you see your friend list with another agent, you can become discouraged and worried about the next day of prospecting.
Are you ready to kick the fear of failure in the face once and for all? I hope so because today, you will learn some quick tips to overcoming the fear of failure as a new real estate agent.
Overcoming the Fear of Failure Hack
If you want to do away with the fear of failure in real estate, it really all boils down to this one hack; detach yourself from the outcome. By detaching from the outcome you put yourself in a position to just praise the effort you put in. If you have been following Rev Real Estate School, you know that we are all about praising the effort and not the result.
Praise the effort, not the result
For most, even just the thought of taking the pressure off the result feels like a weight lifted off their shoulders.
Don’t worry at all if a lead hands up, if the seller chooses another agent, or if the buyer decided not to buy.
Yes, you can learn from this, but forget the result. Did you put in all the effort you could? If yes, then you succeeded!
Everyone Has It
When you are feeling the fear of failure, you may feel like you are the only real estate agent out there that feels like this.
You’re not!
We all fear failure. This is part of human nature. Even some of the agents who look like they aren’t scared have a fear of failure.
It’s not about not having the feelings. It’s about having the feelings and acting courageously anyways.
It’s not about not feeling scared. It’s about feeling scared and acting anyways.
There Is No Such Thing
Did you know that there is no such thing as failure in real estate? You either win or you learn. This is acting with a Growth Mindset.
If you do not get the desired result then no worries. You learn from it and move on.
Art and Math
Real estate sales is both art and math. The math is you need a certain number of “no’s” to get to a yes and the art side is decreasing the number of “no’s required.
If you get a “no” that just means you are one “no” closer to a “yes.” And if you have a Growth Mindset, then every “no” is a learning opportunity.
The more rejection you deal with, the easier it becomes. If you would like to explore this further, read Rejection Proof. This is a book about one man’s journey to 100 rejections and how this helped him become comfortable with rejection.
Act with Stubborn Determination
When you are prospecting and doing rejection heavy work, you need to act with stubborn determination. If you change your mindset to be focused on being determined, you may see some of your sensitivity dissolve.
You are reframing your mindset away from being hurt and toward being stubbornly determined!
Action Dissolves Fear
Fear will increase with the amount of elapsed time between when you start thinking about doing the act and when you do it.
If you know you need to make a call, it will get more difficult the longer you wait. As humans, we want to wait and prepare.
We also want to wait for the right moment. Unfortunately, there is no “right moment,” and the longer you wait, the more difficult it will become.
If you need to do something, do it now! Action dissolves fear.
Build Your Confidence
Nothing destroys fear like confidence in what you are preforming. You probably didn’t feel fear when you started the car this morning. That is because you are confident in your abilities to drive.
Role play everyday and know that you can do it.
Afterall, if you are the best agent for the job, then you owe it to the lead/client to have a shot at using you. See the different mindset here. You are so confident in your abilities that they are lucky you are their REALTOR.
Time Heals Everything
You know the age old saying that time heals all wounds. Well, it’s true.
So what if you get rejected. Even if it hurts, you will start to feel better before you know it. At the time it doesn’t seem this way but with time, everything will be back to normal.
Losing the client is not the end of the world. There is enough business out there for everyone.
Conclusion
Fear of rejection is a huge part of being a real estate agent. When you are a new real estate agent, it can be hard to put yourself out there and act despite the fear you are feeling.
Know that others feel fear too, detach yourself from the outcome, know that every “no” gets you closer to a yes, and action will dissolve your fear.
Always praise the effort, not the result!
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:12] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. My name is Michael Montgomery. Do you struggle with the fear of rejection? If you do that's totally fine, because I think every human being does. And if you do or if you have struggled with the fear of rejection in real estate this episode is for you.
[00:00:32] We are going to learn a few strategies on how you can overcome the fear of rejection within the real estate space.
[00:00:40] The first thing you need to do is it all really boils down to one thing and you need to understand what that one thing is. If you want to overcome the fear of rejection in real estate and in life for that matter we simply have to detach from the outcome. And you've heard me say it and I'll say it again that it's about praising the effort that you make. It's not about the result. You can forget the outcome altogether detach from it and you will already start to feel that fear of rejection disappear. So the biggest hack that you can use is actually to go the opposite of running from rejection and actually encourage it.
[00:01:23] Actually go for the rejection. This will enable you to start taking the risks and in taking the risks you will start to become better at whatever activity that you are doing next. It's important to understand that you are not the only one that has the fear of rejection. Oftentimes when we're in a situation where we're thinking negatively about ourselves or about what's happening with our business we think we're the only ones with fear of rejection this happens to absolutely everybody. It's just part of being human. So understanding that you and everybody else at your office and in this industry deals with the fear of rejection take some of the power away from it next. And this comes back to detaching from the outcome is understand that there is no such thing as failure in real estate.
[00:02:11] This comes back to episode forty one where we spoke about mindset and the growth mindset. And the book by Carol Dweck in real estate there's no such thing as failure. You either learn or you win you're not the same agent after you have learned you've learned you've grown so you can't actually lose with a growth mindset you're not losing all you're doing is either winning. So you're getting the result you want or you're learning now it's a lot easier said than done. But just think about that when you are going out there and you're concerned about being rejected and it's stopping you from doing something.
[00:02:46] Come back to the thought that even if you do not get the result you're looking for you have a growth mindset. Therefore you are learning you are not failing.
[00:02:56] Next is the concept of real estate being math and art. Math is the number of "no's" that you need in order to get to a yes. So you may have heard us speak about this before that a certain number of "no's" will lead to a yes. So that's the math side get a number of no's and eventually there'll be a yes in there. The art side is decreasing the number of notes that you have to get in order to lead to a yes. So if you are rejected and you learn you pick yourself up and you keep plugging through the math side you keep plugging through the notes and by plugging through the nose you start to improve the art side. Basically what you are doing here is you are turning up the volume of the times that you are rejected. Now in the show notes you will see we have linked up a book that I absolutely love. And there's also a TED talk that you can watch about this and it's from the author of rejection therapy. And in this book and in the TED talk he tells the story of how he went about to try and get rejected 100 times and in doing so there was this therapeutic side of it where he learned to get over rejection just due to exposure therapy. So he's just being exposed to so much rejection that eventually it doesn't feel that bad.
[00:04:11] Now I'd come back to the concept here of the elastic band if you've heard this before. It's that in doing these sort of acts you don't want to snap the elastic band you just want to stretch it. So you want to do things that are outside of your comfort zone which is stretching that elastic band but you don't want to do certain things that are just going to cause the band to snap and make you not want to be in real estate anymore. So pick up the book rejection proof and go into the show notes and have a look at that TED Talk video. It's amazing.
[00:04:42] Next you have to flip your mindset into just having this stubborn determination of getting rejected. So this is changing your mindset away from fearful and just being stubbornly determined to get what you want. Okay. And then also understand that in doing something and then being rejected you may not feel great. OK we understand that if you've lost the listing lost a buyer. We don't feel great. But we do start to get over it with time so time will heal these sort of things. So having your stubborn determination to get rejected and then pair that with the fact that even if you do feel down after you've been rejected you will get over it in a matter of time takes again some of the power away from that rejection. The last two points action will dissolve the feeling of rejection and the pain from rejection. So what do I mean by this. If you are feeling down just the act of getting up getting moving and getting back to work will actually reduce that amount of pain that comes from the rejection.
[00:05:48] Finally work on your confidence in your service. So if you think your service is the absolute best and it's actually harming the consumer to not choose you and to not use your services you have this level of confidence that will reduce the fear of rejection because even if the consumer says no in fact they're doing themselves a disservice because you have the best service in your market. Quick recap. Remember it all boils down to detaching yourself from the outcome and one of the biggest hacks you can use is to actually encourage the rejection which will motivate you to take the risks. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and we will catch you in the next lesson.
[00:06:32] This episode of Rev real estate school has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson
Follow Up Reading
Overcoming Perfectionism in Real Estate
24 Books for New Real Estate Agents (In Order)
4 Tips to Forming Habits in Real Estate
Questions: Do you have any tips for dealing with rejection in real estate? Let me know in the comments below.
-Michael Montgomery