Today’s working world finds many of us trapped in a cycle of chasing our tail trying to find a healthy work-life balance whilst living in the new 24-hour digital age.
Realmark’s Sam Bevan knows this all too well. After finding herself in a work-life rut last year and not knowing where to turn, a little push was needed to help transform her destiny.
Sam’s friend, Nikki Horner encouraged her to enter a National Award by Elite Agent called Transform 2018. Elite Agent is a Media publishing company dedicated to educating and improving the real estate industry.
Transform is a competition for agents looking to improve their skills and learn from the best in the business, it has been described as the "tough mudder” of real estate training challenges. Over 30 days participants attend live classes, complete a challenge per day and film webinars — the winner is the person who has shown the biggest transformation.
“I didn’t want to enter, I didn’t even have $99 to pay the entry fee and I didn’t want to add anything else to my list of things to do, but Nikki knew I had to do it and she entered me,” Sam said.
“I spent last year feeling like a loser, I was in an incongruent environment at another agency, I had no self-esteem and if you had told me before the competition that I would come out on top of the 120 agents who entered, there is no way I could have imagined it”
“Transform 2018 helped restore faith in myself, it was an incredible life-changing journey. Over the 30 days, it taught all of us to dig deep inside ourselves, acknowledge our strengths and show kindness. Once you change your mindset, your whole world tips on its head - It’s all about self-belief”
Sam started in the real estate industry 25 years ago, beginning at reception then moving into property management and eventually sales. She left her previous agency after Transform and chose Realmark Coastal as her new home.
“We had a big focus on mindset during Transform, and it helped me realise that the environment I was in was not healthy. I made a change to chase the positive, and with my new company Realmark I have found a new normal.”
Realmark Group Managing Director, John Percudani said, “The Realmark culture is something we hold strongly in Realmark. We are strong advocates for women in business and especially parents. Realmark Agents are some of the top performing agents Nationally performing more efficiently and with greater service delivery than any other group agents. We are extremely proud of Sams achievements and her choosing Realmark to continue to grow and achieve her career aspirations.”
Sam’s give back to the community is to be an advocate for women in the industry and has since started the group Women in Real Estate (The WIRE). Along with fellow sales agent Michelle Kerr, they are wanting to spread the message that women can it all but just need to do thing differently.
Sam has said “Michelle and I hit it off straight away, we both juggle a family, kids drop off and work. We were both in a similar situation dealing where we weren’t able to be in the office at 7:30 am in the morning and work to 8 pm at night.”
They discovered you can be just as successful with all of those responsibilities, but you need to be smart about it and work differently. Sam and Michelle found that this was a message that was not told to women in real estate.
Sam said they wanted to look at ways where they were able to speak to women on how to be successful in the six hours between school drop off and pick up.
A private Facebook group was created where a different topic every week was discussed, last week’s topic was on recruiting. Sam said, “An expert in the field was used to answer questions on what she looks for when recruiting and how to get ahead amongst 200 applicants - it was a great discussion.”
The WIRE is open to all women in property.