3 decisions that drastically changed my career: Will Ainsworth

“Change is slow, until it’s not.”

I first heard that phrase many years ago, and it’s stuck with me since. New beginnings are created every day, and we’re rarely aware of it.

There was a time where no one had travelled in an Uber, stayed in an AirBnb or Googled anything. Then slowly, these industry-disrupting platforms were created and adopted, until (what seems like) suddenly, they're the ubiquitous term for that activity.

As agents, we’re no different. We are constantly having to reinvent ourselves and our processes to keep up with the way our markets move.

With the new year fast approaching, we start thinking about fresh starts, new resolutions and our next challenge.

Personally, I can pinpoint three pivotal new beginnings in my own career.

The first was in 2007, and like everyone in Geelong at the time, I was doing private sales. I wanted to create a point of difference in my market so I could stand out and be better than my competition - so I decided to start doing auctions.

I sold the first home I auctioned, and then a crowd member came up and asked if I could do the same for them the next week. From there, I did more and more auctions until I became known in my market as the ‘guy that did auctions’.

My second major new beginning was in 2018, when auctions had become the norm. I was no longer standing out and so, when I came across a platform called Openn Negotiation, I knew that this was going to be my next “thing”.

It felt like deja vu from 11 years earlier - having success with something that no one else was using. That one decision halved my days on market, doubled my bidders and helped me clear over 100 properties a year.

In 2020, I embarked on my third venture – becoming the Head of Training at Openn, the same company I’d had success with previously. In this role, I help agents grow their own businesses (and give away a few of my personal secrets for success).

Everything hasn’t always come up roses for me and like everyone else, I’ve made mistakes and wrong choices along the way. But when I’m struggling to make a decision, I remind myself of these three things:

1. Putting off making a decision is a decision in itself.

That is a pretty sobering realisation. I would personally rather make the wrong decision than make no decision at all.

2. If it doesn’t work out, it just means you need to try something else.

When you began your career in real estate, did you go in thinking, “if I don’t get a first good sale, I’m going to quit and try something else.” Unlikely! You would have tried new things when what you were doing wasn’t working. That’s the attitude you need to carry throughout your entire career.

3. If it does work out, being a first mover will always give you the most advantage.

Being the first mover gives you the ability to set the tone for how the new “thing” should be done in your market. If you’re doing it first, people will see your way as the right way.

That’s a massive benefit. It means that other agents who adopt it down the track need to perfectly replicate what you’re already doing, or they need to work twice as hard to prove why doing it their way is better.

So, back to that quote: “change is slow until it’s not.”

Ask yourself - do you want to be the agent who used to be good? Or do you want to be the agent that is brave enough to make a scary decision and create your own new beginning?

I have every faith that you can be the latter.