The real estate business can be tough. You’ve all heard it before. You may have even said it yourself:

“Sometimes I think I’d be better off selling up and being an agent again!”

This feeling of “it’s all too hard” normally materialises quite quickly when you have to deal with a setback or a particularly frustrating day. In my experience, it’s a natural response for any business owner.

In some cases, you may just be letting off steam, but the time when this problem is really worrying is when a business owner is caught up in their business not because they want to be, but because they’ve been unable to successfully build a business with sustainable profits.

So, to help you diagnose a common misconception, here are some pointers to assist you to identify whether you are currently running a business or instead, you have a sales agency that’s led by a principal.

A Job	A Business
You have to sell to provide the cash flow to your business	You have a sales team that operates independently of you
You’re not available to your staff because you’re too busy selling	Your primary role is providing resources to help your business run more efficiently
You don’t trust anyone else to do the job as well as you	You accept a slightly lesser standard of performance, recognising it takes time to create a quality agent
You only look at the “whiteboard” and bank balance to measure success	You set Sales & Financial budgets and review your Profits & Loss each month
Employing bookkeepers is seen as an annoying cost you wish you didn’t have to pay	You have accounting processes in place to ensure that all matters are dealt with smoothly
You worry when an agent in your business doesn’t use you to list a property	You love it when your agents list property on their own
You can’t take a holiday without feeling your income will drop	You make sure everyone knows what to do while you are away, and what you expect
You do things yourself, rather than take the time to manage your team through a task	You manage the team through tasks, and provide feedback on the outcomes

As with any list, you could easily add points to both sides. It’s also important to recognise that everyone’s business is at a different stage in the business cycle.

However, by comparing these lists and looking at the differences between them, you can see that to ultimately run a business, your role requires you to have greater dependence on different members of your team.

The transition from top sales agent to business owner is a common challenge in the real estate industry, given that so many business owners have a strong sales background. It does take time, but for those of you that feel you’re getting closer to freeing yourself from the day-to-day, keep going!

You may have a different role, and different responsibilities, but the result is that you will make more money.