International Women’s Day is a day that we hold very closely to our hearts at Stone. With a network of incredibly successful women, we love to use this time of year to highlight and share their amazing achievements in the real estate industry. Although we have hundreds of inspirational women as part of our Stone family, we picked a few to tell their story as part of #InternationalWomensDay.
Annika Bongiorno – Principal of Stone Real Estate McMahons Point
Annika! Thank you for your time today. To begin, how did you fall into real estate?
I used to live next door to McGrath’s Head Office in Edgecliff and I was previously working in the IT Industry (which I absolutely hated!). One day I went into their office and applied for a job – any job they had. I didn’t care what it was, I just wanted to get into the real estate industry. I was 27 at the time and had never found the career I thought I was any good at or actually liked. I have a degree in communications so I thought my marketing skills may finally be useful and get me into a job I actually like doing. 3 Weeks later HR contacted me and offered me a job at McGrath in their in-house marketing team. 3 Months later, one of the sales agents asked if I wanted to join his team as his assistant, which I jumped at. I worked alongside him for 4 years as his associate agent and then went out on my own as a stand alone agent. I worked extremely long hours and got paid a pittance to start, but I didn’t care I just wanted to get into sales. I guess you could say I was at the right place at the right time, and the rest is history!
Wow, what a journey! What do you like about working in real estate?
I absolutely love what I do and don’t consider it to be a job. It’s a lifestyle to me which means it is all encompassing and there is no real off switch, however it allows me to have the career I love, work alongside my husband and partner in crime Aaron, and still be a mum. I also love how effective planning and time management allows me to be able to do school drops offs on my way to work, and also some school pickups which I love – I have 3 boys (aged 4, 6 & 12 ), the flexibility in the hours we can work are massive bonus as we can make calls and appointments around the hours we want to work and that work for our family commitments.
One of my favourite aspects of this job are the broad range of people we get to meet and the relationships we build with our clients. A lot of our sellers become friends and I think that is largely due to the fact we actually really have an interest in our clients as people and not just a transaction. I also like that you can work as hard or as little as you want and there is no limit on the amount of money you can make.
What impact do you think being female has had on the success of your career?
When I first started in real estate, there weren’t nearly as many female agents as there are now. Now it makes me proud to see that real estate is a level playing field. I once had a prominent male figure in the industry tell me I would never make it on my own as a stand alone agent as I was a woman and a mother… nothing has ever given me more motivation or determination to prove him wrong. And I have. There was never a time I didn’t think I could do this or that I was at a disadvantage because I was a woman. I always believed in my self, which was hard at times due to the nature of the industry, but I was determined to prove that I was just as good – if not better than any of my male competitors!
I love the fact that you can have it all. Just because you are a woman, and just because you may want to be a mother, doesn’t mean that you have to give up a career that you love and your profile that you have worked so hard to build. With hard work and good time management, you can be both. I never let anything get in my way to stop me achieving what I set out to achieve.
Truly inspiring! What would your advice be for a woman looking to embark a career in real estate?
Here are some of my tips:
- You need to live and breathe what you do. Be prepared for lots of hard work with little reward initially as building your career and your profile can take some time
- Build as many relationships as possible and keep in touch with people. Don’t make every call to them be about real estate. Most of my calls were just checking in to see how they were and how their family was. People see through insincerity and there is a big difference between a cheesy desperate sales call, and an empathetic friendly call
- Don’t see yourself as a female agent – see yourself as a real estate agent
- Rely on your network (family, friends and colleagues) to refer you business especially when you are new to the industry
- Know your core area back to front
Amazing advice! And finally, if you had one piece of advice to give your younger self what would it be?
Work out what your strengths and weaknesses are early on, and then only do the things you like and that you are good at. My strengths are my ability to create and nurture relationships. I never liked cold calling, and still don’t. I don’t ever cold call. I used to sit at my phone staring at it for hours trying to build up the courage to make a cold call – one day I realised that I wasn’t going to waste time calling someone who probably didn’t want to hear from me anyway. I only ever called someone when I had something to tell them that may be beneficial to them. It freed up so much time and anxiety that I could actually focus on doing more of the things I liked which helped me to get more listings.
What an incredible journey, thank you, Annika.
Are you thinking about a career in real estate and want to speak with someone that can give you more information? Call us today on 0422 077 819 for a quick chat about how you can begin your successful journey with Stone.
To read more about #InternationalWomensDay and how you can help accelerate women’s equality this year with their #EachforEqual campaign, click here.