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Eat What you Kill

When I first with started at Commercial Partners almost four years ago, I knew I would be “drinking from the fire hose”, but one of the biggest things I would need to learn is how to cope with my new pay structure.

All my life up to that point I had worked in hourly wage positions. I had done some sales at my position of counter clerk at Max’s Bagels when I was 14, but I knew no matter what I would still be taking home some money at the end of the day. I may have not been given a large tip by the lady that came in every Saturday morning, when I neglected to change gloves or use a new paper to grab every bagel that she ordered like she asked, and yes, they all went into the same bag at the end (people are weird), but I at least knew I had that $8.00 per hour coming my way.

One of my favorite things to do on Friday morning after I woke up, was to log in to my Wells Fargo app and see that my direct deposit had cleared. A little money in the bank meant gas in the tank and I always loved seeing it.

Wages no More

However, that was no more. I retired my gathering lifestyle of set hours and wages and walked into the wild Serengeti of eat what you kill.

It is kill or be killed. If you are imagining me with some camo face paint with a Rambo head band crouching in some bushes staring at an available warehouse ready to pounce, you nailed it. The notion of you don’t get paid unless something closes is a great motivator, but it can also lead to a lot of frustration.

Our job is to be a market expert and provide solutions to people’s real estate problems, but sometimes people create more problems. As you get more experienced you proactively resolve these, but there were some hard lessons of losing out on a check I thought was “guaranteed” only to have it all slip away due to something completely out of my control. There are ways to tilt the odds in your favor, just as a hunter may place a feeder beneath a stand, we are always working to fill the funnel and keep the deals coming.

The goal is to always have deals closing, but sometimes that funnel can dry up or get jammed right at the spout. That can result in a dry spell of deals being closed, which means no money. If you don’t properly account for these times and ration out the finances, you can quickly get in trouble. That is one of the biggest hurdles and roadblocks for a lot of new to the business brokers. It definitely takes some getting used to, but if you keep your nose to the grindstone, that funnel eventually flows out.

The Sweet Song of Success

That is when the chants of, “Julies here, Julie’s here!” echoes throughout the QA Team/CPR office as the check fairy delivers the bucks (poor pun, but it was inevitable). My Friday ritual has changed as there are not weekly deposits being made, but already in my time here, I have cashed more than a few checks in dollar amounts I could not fathom as a 14 year old bagel slinger, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Through steady streams, dry spells, and hot streaks, this is me, an eat what you kill veteran. This is Young Buck