Between value propositions and testimonials, it’s common to hear the claim that real estate coaching changes lives. It’s such a massive claim that it’s hard to imagine how it happens. It’s true, then the people making these claims have a complicated story to tell — something like alchemy to convey — about how real estate coaching makes dreams come true. In talking with Workman Success Systems coach Tammie Slay, we get such a story, where coaching built significance in her life that she can now pass on to others, whether it’s her clients or her team. Her experiences show that the real estate industry deals in dreams as much as it deals in homes, and coaching plays a huge part in emphasizing that both personally and professionally.
Before Tammie became a real estate coach herself, she was a Workman Success Systems coaching client. She became acquainted with real estate coaching at a conference where Verl Workman was a keynote speaker. When asked what her life was like before coaching, Tammie said,
At the time, I had just recently bought a brokerage — I didn’t have a team, I had brokerage agents, and I was drowning. I had dreams that were really just that. They were dreams that I never really even thought could be a possibility.
Tammie recalled how Verl’s keynote spoke to her that day at the conference. With a big smile across her face, she recounted Verl explaining the value of the Top 50 Tracker, and remembered thinking, “I want that. Whatever this is, I want it, and I want it now, because like a life-preserver, I needed it.”
As she spoke, I couldn’t help but think she didn’t look anything like a person drowning anymore.
I just thought there were probably a thousand people in that entire conference. And it was so significant to me that he would ask me, that I thought I have to pay attention to this. Why in the world would he pinpoint me out of a thousand people when I am truly a nobody?
That same day, Tammie began her two-year commitment to coaching with Verl. Those two years have come and gone, and the Tammie sitting across from me had mastered her real estate business and was thriving. I began to understand that her occupation in real estate had much deeper implications than a few transactions and a paycheck. She wasn’t just discussing her path in real estate but her path toward personal fulfillment. Mastering her real estate business helped her to achieve her dreams.
Now that she had regained control of her business, her mission, she said, is to, “help others build significance,” and she believes that coaching helps her do that.
There were times in my life when I felt very insignificant. Unimportant. Unnoticed. Nobody. It is so important to me that everyone we interact with feels significant, that they never leave my presence and feel that they were not noticed by me.
Hearing this, I couldn’t help but recall how she felt when she first met Verl: like a nobody. She continued:
Whether that’s a smile, a look in the eye, or something in the workflow that they received, or the listing presentation, or the way that they’re shown a home, or the way that they’re handled at the closing table, or the followup system — it’s so important that someone has to feel significant. Real estate is not my passion. My passion is helping others feel significant. Real estate is the business I use to help others feel important.
Tammie’s success in real estate is a result of her expert leadership for her team: another way in which she creates significance with people.
When we think of where we began in real estate, we got a real thrill out of helping buyers and sellers accomplish dreams. To be a part of someone else’s big dreams, that was it then, and that’s always still a part of it, but now, as a team leader, there are other people we can assist — our agents.
