There are sooooo many people out there touting themselves as a real estate “professional,” including yours truly. First, there’s the alphabet soup of letters after the name, such a ePro (which essentially means, “I know how to use a computer”) to CRE (which is an invitation-only frat club – no insult intended), to the appraisal designations, and so on.

So, how do people who are not immersed in the real estate industry begin to sort out the real “professional” from the “professional” in name?

Although there’s no fool-proof way to know, here are a few clues that provide pretty accurate indications.

1. One of the first things I always notice about the “wanna be” professional is, their email address is always hosted by a general public email provider, such as hotmail, gmail, aol, cox, verizon, or some other general public host.

Whereas, people who are committed to their business as professionals always have an email address at either their personal or company website, or both.

For example, my email address at my blog is Ken@KennethJJones.com, while my email address at my residential brokerage website is Ken@KenJonesSellsHomes.com, and my email address at my appraisal firm website is Ken@GlobalValuations.com, and so on for my other websites, as well.

2. The email location brings up another major difference between the “wanna be” and the serious professional, which is, that the serious professional has at least 1 personal website, and the better one’s usually have multiple websites.

The reason for at least 1 personal website, is that a website is used for personal business and service promotion. If one lists real estate for sale or lease, the same website is commonly used to advertise the listed properties.

Having multiple websites affords broader marketing opportunities by dedicating each website to a different sector of the market, while “connecting” all of the websites by referencing each in the other website. This creates a “crossover” effect, and greater opportunity for the traffic generated by 1 site to migrate into another site. This is a definite benefit to the client to have greater exposure to market their property.

3. Then, there’s the business card. Does it have a website or email address? If so, who’s website or email address is it?

4. What about the lawn sign? Does it have a website address? If so, who’s is it?

Let’s face it, folks. There’s more to being a real estate professional than wearing nice clothes, driving a nice car, and having a Smart Phone; those are just “things.”

A real professional has knowledge, and most of all EXPERIENCE.

So, when you, Mr. or Mrs. Public, want to know if the person in front of you is a real pro, or just a “wanna be,” ask them for their resume, THEN, check it out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 11:31 am and is filed under Real Estate Agents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.