People laugh, but if these people are good at sales their skills are very transferable. More than likely they will find some other industry and while it might take six monhts to a year to build up a client base the more determined ones will be selling something different. You sort of have to accept that this is going to happen if you are in sales.
I personally try to use a 4 year average so any great year is forwar averaged so that I can not only control spending but simultaneously ahve a solid reserve to fall back on. I don't think that this is unusual.
Raybyrnes,
I'm actually not laughing at the real RE agents/brokers, who like you said, have real sales skills/knowledge and have been in the business for a long time…
It's all the wannabes that didn't really have those skills that moved into those businesses for the dreams of quick easy buck that are the ones that I think will be the ones that will be hard hit….But these are the same "migrant" workers that jump from industry to industry, trying to find the next "get rich quick" thing, who frankly had no business being there in the first place and wouldn't have been if the lure of "quick easy money" wasn't a motivation. This was no different from those who had no real software/IT experience working in an IT company chasing after six figure,do nothing dream jobs that would lead to retirements from cashing in on stock options back in the 2000's. These are the folks that would cut and run at anything, given that the wind starts blowing in their face, frankly because they haven't established themselves at anything significant to weather any storm. As harsh as it is, this is a drastic flushing out process, which should happen and must happen, as it has happened in the IT industry. I would even fathom that a lot of the fraud and dishonesty that has happened was brought on by these newbie "migrant" worker types, because i would fathom those that have been in the industry that long know that ethics and reputation precede any quick buck if you want to stay in the industry for years and years to come.
Those that are real to the industry can probably weather this (huge) downturn, though as difficult as it may be, simply because they have experience in the past…And I will even say.. they'll probably come out ahead moving forward, as there will be less agents/brokers competing for the same clientele. Those who have been in the RE industry have been through tough times in the past, and while the current environment I could imagine is much worse than before, it wouldn't be the first time real RE professionals have faced a difficult environment, and won't just simply cut and run at the first sign of trouble. (Or at least hopefully this is a motivational speak for those professions that are true to the industry, but slightly discouraged now in this environment).
I just hope all those RE agents don't start polishing their resumes and send it back into the tech industries, because I'll just barf if I see any resume that has as work experience "fly-by-night RE agent/broker" as a full time gig for the past two years.
