Warning!! Mini rant ahead!!!

I’m not sure about others out there in their respective positions, but it irks me to no end when people think they can start a business but not think like a business and in fact act like it’s a side order of fries to their all-so-busy lives.

I will probably get bashed for this, but you know what? I don’t really care. I may be a wife and a mom, but damn I was a business woman first. By age 15 I was helping my dad make tombstones… (yes, granite memorials, not the tasty cheapo pizzas in the freezer section of the grocery store)…selling, managing the office, delivering and setting monuments. Flannel shirts and steel-tip boots. Yep, with my hair in a ponytail under a baseball cap. Those were the days!

Those were the days that I learned about business, and that owning your OWN business is hard work. HARD WORK, people!! It’s not some shit you do on the side just because you have a couple extra bills to pay. If you want a couple bucks more each week, go get a freakin’ telemarketing job or something.

But time and again I see these moms who want to work from home but have no idea what is exactly entailed with that. They think they can run out and get a real estate license and be a top-producing agent in no time flat. With no business plan. With no idea of marketing costs. With no plans for child care.

Look, I’ve been there. I had a baby and a real estate license (except I was a REALTOR before the baby). Did I want to stay home with him? Sure! Did I want to make money? Sure! I found a way to make things work, at least part-time, but that involved last minute unloading the kid on Grandma (thank God she lived down the street) and constant shuffling of my schedule. Scheduled naps were not scheduled and were often taken in the car going from one appt to the next. Clients were found through Mommy Playgroups. I made it work.

But I knew what I was getting into because I was already in the field.

Anyway, back to the rant. I LOVE real estate. And I think it’s important for the real estate field to be full of practicioners who care about their clients and have the knowledge and expertise to guide those clients through one of the most gigantic financial decisions of their lives. So if I hear one more person who says “I wanna go into real estate so I can stay home with my baby,” I’m going to scream.

And then I’m going to ask them: Who’s going to watch the baby when you have a last minute appointment with a very important client? Who’s going to keep that baby quiet when you MUST patch a deal carefully back together as it’s falling apart? And who’s going to hold down the fort when you have to be off with clients on evenings and weekends because that’s when your clients are available?

It’s not a side job. Even for the part-timers. Honestly, you gotta love it and you gotta be committed to those hours you DO spend on your business or you’re not going to be any good. Plain and simple.