The Mentor I Am Becoming

A new estate agent learns most from whoever is willing to explain why things are done the way they are, and that person is usually the principal they happen to work under.

Someone entering the industry starts as a candidate practitioner, working under supervision and keeping a logbook of the work done before qualifying fully. The system assumes an experienced person will be there to explain things, but the quality of that explaining varies a great deal. One principal hands the candidate a pile of mandates to file. Another sits the candidate down and walks through why the offer to purchase has a bond clause with a date in it, why a seller's spouse may need to sign, and what happens when a condition is not met.

The difference is rarely knowledge, since most principals know these things. The difference is a willingness to say them out loud and to answer the same question patiently for the third time.

Every senior agent is becoming somebody's mentor, whether they mean to or not. The candidates watching them will copy what they see, and some of those candidates will be running their own offices one day, teaching the next lot exactly what they were shown.