Mentorship program puts book learning into practice for new L & F realtors

A newcomer joining a company can be baffled at first. There’s nothing like real world experience. Having an experienced hand guide a newcomer can help the newbie gain confidence by learning from someone who’s done the job.

Long & Foster Real Estate is making sure its new realtors get off to the best start possible through a mentorship program that pairs the newcomers to more experienced realtors.

All those going into the business have to go through a 60-hour Principles of Real Estate program and passed the national and state licensing requirements. The mentorship program puts the book learning into practice.

Julie Frank is a lead mentor with Long & Foster’s Gainesville office. The 60 hours of instruction “is a lot of information” but a graduate can be left with the feeling of “what do I do now” when it’s time to put into practice what was learned in order to be licensed.

The mentorship program runs out of the Gainesville office for the realtors who work there and the one in Manassas is designed “to give the new agents coming in the confidence to build a business and do the transactions by having an experienced agent guide them so they are doing things correctly,” Frank said.

The mentorship program has been offered for not quite two years and has seen all of its new agents use it even though it isn’t mandatory. There are currently 47 enrolled in it. Nineteen have graduated. Frank said the current “rookies of the year” realtors from both the Gainesville and Manassas offices are graduates of the program.

Frank notes that the local office is the No. 1 in recruiting realtors. It gained 59 new agents in 2013.

The mentorship program aims to help all newcomers succeed. Nine realtors in the Gainesville office serve as mentors. There are four in Manassas. They go through a training themselves and are certified as mentors.

Realtors who become mentors volunteer to do so. They don’t pick who they will mentor. The new realtor asks someone he or she feels comfortable with or who has a special skill set - such as an affinity for using social media in real estate work - and asks if that more experienced realtor will be a mentor. Sometimes the relationship lasts longer than the mentorship. They become trusted colleagues.

There’s no deadline for ending a mentorship, though they usually last through only the first two transactions before the newcomer is confident enough to solo.

The mentor is present at the closing of the initial transactions. The client is “getting two realtors for the price of one,” Frank said.  The mentor ensures the transaction is completed correctly. “It makes things so much smoother to do it right from the beginning. It brings a validity. We want our agents to know the do’s and don’ts and what to say.”

For the new agents, in addition to the mentorship program the Gainesville office offers a series of training classes with titles such as “Financing 101,” “Marketing on a Budget & Social Media,” “All About Home Inspections,” and “I Have a Listing - A to Z.”

There’s always something to learn. Frank said she has been a realtor for 12 years and “I’m always learning new stuff.”

Tyler Lake is a new realtor who chose Frank to be his mentor. She helped him buy a house locally sight unseen when he was in London in the military. Now a civilian, he’s been in the Long & Foster training program for two months.

“I’m transitioning out of the military and I thought there was a lot of opportunity to put what I’ve learned to use in real estate,” he said. He knows something about relocating, having done so 16 times in his lifetime.

When he decided on a career in real estate he looked at several agencies. “Long & Foster had the most robust training and support that I found,” he said. And for compensation “you can’t beat it.”

“They had the support structure and my focus is to help people,” Lake said. A military scholarship covered the cost of the classes and licensing he needed to become a realtor.

He’s getting his business off the ground by writing and sending out an introduction letter to friends and family to let them know that he is now a realtor. “If they trust you as a friend, they’ll trust you to help them buy a house,” he reasons. And if they aren’t in the market to sell or buy property, perhaps they know others who are.

Susan Kelley is a graduate of the realtor training program. She completed it last year.

“Having an experienced agent with me was extremely helpful. It helped me feel more confident when I knew I could call on a person when needed. And in this business that can be late at night or early in the morning,” she said.

A mentor is someone “who has your back, so to speak,” she said.

She said that she found the Long & Foster classes really useful. “I feel like I could sit through them again.” She found the tech classes helpful. She also learned from the experiences of other agents, including new ones like her who sometimes learn through trial and error.

Diana Feldman was her mentor and they’ve remained close. “She is probably the first person I’d call. Now we just have a friendship. I can call her and she’ll call me back within seconds.”

Tim Kotlowski is a realtor out of the Manassas office and is currently a mentor to two new realtors. He’s been with Long & Foster since 2007.

He said that mentors help “bridge the gap” between what the new realtors learned in class and real world knowledge gained through “actual hands-on activity. Understanding a client comes only through experience. A realtor has to determine a client’s needs and educate the client along the way.”

That includes being able to articulate what the language in a contract means. Mentors go over all of the paperwork in a closing with the mentees so they are well versed in it as well.

New realtors have to be prepared to “deal with a client’s emotions. They have to sharpen their listening skills,” Kotlowski said. “Every real estate transaction has problems. We try to predict those problems in the beginning.” There’s always something - whether it be a cracked foundation or issues with a contractor.

Mentors and those they counsel may meet in person or otherwise connect three times a week at the beginning. The frequency becomes less over time.

But Kotlowski is there at the closing with the mentee. “We work as a team - two agents for the price of one. I will try to put the mentee front and center and be there as a safety net. I do a lot of coaching.”

“If I’m doing my job effectively I’m pushing that mentee to the limits to do the job but I don’t want them to fail,” he said. “We’re representing the client. The product will sell itself. We’re helping as facilitators.”

Heather Reisig is one of Kotlowski’s mentees. She got her license in November. She was an X-ray technician before switching to real estate on the advice of a friend who thought she’d be successful at it.

Reisig said her mentor has helped her get established and to set business goals as well as “guiding me through the process of the paperwork” that’s involved in a real estate transaction.

“That’s one thing you don’t want to mess up,” she said. He also helped on home inspection issues and suggested photos she should use in her listings.

Reisig has closed one transaction and on the cusp of closing another.

“I give Tim a lot of credit. Even though I’m a graduate I know I can call on Tim.”

She said she envisions being in real estate a long time and might become a mentor herself to pass along what’s she’s learned.

She had a good mentor to guide her.

“I had fears - you never know how you’re going to do - but he helped put those fears to rest.”