Over the years it's been our observation that the most successful real estate agents assume a strong sense of ownership over their career. These agents know it's not the market that determines their path. It's what they bring to the market. So, how much ownership are you assuming for your real estate career?

One way to think of this is in terms of the foundation upon which your career is built. Are you continually building and reinforcing your foundation in real estate? Here are 5 ways you can build your own solid foundation and take control of your career.   

5 ways to own your real estate career 

1) Cultivate a positive mental attitude. Many successful agents work constantly on their positive mental attitude which sustains them

Looking back on 2018, we're grateful for another year of growth at Mad City Dream Homes. Thank you to all of you who have referred us to your friends and family in the last year. Our families thank you! We genuinely appreciate the trust you place in us, and we promise we'll keep working to earn your trust in the years ahead.

Looking ahead to 2019, we're excited to share our team is growing in a number of positive ways. Here are a few of the exciting changes we're working on right now at Mad City Dream Homes. 

Positive changes at Mad City Dream Homes

1) We're growing with great people

We're very fortunate to have Mark Hewitt, Maureen Moran, and Kietra Olson join our team in 2018. Each person, in their own way, is making us a better and more

In this real estate careers article we cover the 5 daily habits which are the keys to success on our team. Applying these 5 habits doesn't require you to have any previous real estate experience, and staying true to them offers huge financial benefits which grow like compounding interest over time. It's been our experience that the agents who embrace these habits can expect to make $125,000 - $175,000 annually by the time they've completed their second full year on our team. Just as important, the entire team benefits when every agent consistently applies these habits. Each of us becomes more creative, more productive, and more efficient when our fellow agents share the right mindset and the right focus. 

5 keys to success on our real estate team

If your goal is to become a successful real estate agent, there's no doubt you need to grow and nurture your database. Just as important, you need a solid business plan. What is a real estate business plan? Within our team, it's each agent's individual approach for growing their pipeline of future clients. In this real estate careers post, we share our suggestions for creating a good business plan, using one agent's real life plan as an example. 

An example of a good real estate business plan

These last few months we've been chatting with an experienced agent from another market. She'll be relocating to Madison soon, where she'll be resuming her career in real estate. Starting over in a brand new market would be a mountain-sized challenge for

In a previous real estate careers post, we covered why our team prefers to "attract" new clients versus trying to "buy" or "hunt" for leads online. For our team, attraction marketing is about building trust and having a contribution mindset. It's a very rewarding way to approach our daily work, and it's the main reason our business keeps growing.  

At Mad City Dream Homes, we attract new clients in two main ways;

1. By growing and nurturing our database of friends, family members, business associates, and former clients. This is our tried and true way of creating repeat and referral business. 
2. By publishing helpful content for the general public, which is an excellent source of new  business . 

Regardless of the source, when a potential

In this real estate careers post we cover closing gifts. For many people, the process of buying or selling a home can be an emotional experience. Closing day, in particular, can be a day when emotions run very high. After all this is the day that represents the closing of one chapter in life and the beginning of another. 

When we choose a closing gift, our goal is to give something that taps into our client's emotions. We try to select a gift that's meaningful to that person or symbolic of this important life event. Presenting a thoughtful gift is one of the most gratifying things we do in real estate. It can literally bring some clients to tears and cement relationships for life.

Here are a few of our favorite gift ideas for clients. 

In this real estate careers topic we cover why we're heavily invested in content marketing. What is content marketing? It's our commitment to continuously share useful real estate information with clients and the general public. 

What types of content do we share? 

We share a lot, including:

• Community, neighborhood, and condo community profiles. 
• Things to do in Madison. 
• Buying and selling tips. 
• Home and condo market reports. 

How does content marketing benefit our business?

Content marketing benefits our business in 5 main ways:

#1: It helps us attract new clients. We've learned real estate consumers appreciate this approach. It's different from what most other agents offer, and it builds trust and credibility with

In this real estate careers topic we cover 2 basic ways real estate teams go about their online marketing.

The first strategy is called forced interaction marketing. With this approach, a website user is asked to give up their contact information in order to view online content. On a lot of real estate websites this means users are asked to register in order to view a property listing. This practice is commonly referred to as forced registration.  

Our team's strategy is attraction marketing. With attraction marketing, we create a lot of great online content and give all of it away with no strings attached. As a result, the people who contact us online do so through voluntary registration. 

How teams convert forced leads

Some real estate

In our latest real estate careers article we cover the basics of growing and nurturing your database, or "sphere of influence". Growing and nurturing your database is the single most important thing you can do to guarantee a rewarding and long-lasting career in real estate. Many agents are intimidated by this task, but the good news is our team offers a ton of support in this area. You can also make the "nurturing" part of your database a lot of fun - by staying in touch with your database in ways that are authentic to your personality. 

What is a real estate database?

Your real estate database is your network of friends, family, clients, and other people in the community that you stay in touch with. Ultimately these are the people who come to know

We recently added a section to our blog focused on real estate careers. In this article, we cover 8 ways our team is growing for the long term. We feel very fortunate to know our business is growing at a healthy pace, even though inventory is low and sales in the larger market are decreasing. 

This says a lot about our agents - Chris, Shelley, and Tammy - who are all receiving awesome client feedback. Their consistent focus on customer service has attracted a lot of loyal fans who are happily referring their friends and family to our team. 

Our growing client base has created an opportunity for a new agent to join us in 2017. The next agent to join us will have the same client focus as Chris, Shelley and Tammy. Our next agent will also embrace our