What’s better? Old or new?

When I was a young whippersnapper aged 19 in my first year in sales, I listed a property in a suburb of my hometown. I’d seen other properties advertised as being in the same suburb but in the “old” part of it.

Using my superior intellect, I decided that if they were being advertised as being in “old <insert suburb>” I’d go one better and advertised mine as being in “new <insert suburb>”.

New is better than old right?

Well, not in this case. The old part of the suburb was seen as far more desirable than the new part.

Not surprisingly I spent my open home at the property in complete peace and quiet (in other words completely alone).

Ironically, an “older” (aka more experienced) agent in my marketplace would probably have never made that mistake. “Old” once again trumps “new”!

But new doesn’t always have to lose out. New doesn’t have to deal with the assumption that “they should have known better”. If new owns up to the mistake and goes about fixing it appropriately, new can often create a better relationship than was there in the first place. New also has more time to fix the mistake.

At that stage, as new as I was, I had fewer listings than my colleagues, I had no family commitments, I had all the time in the world to open the property five times a week if necessary and all the time to put in to fix the relationship after my little slip up.

As a newbie in any industry let it sink in that you’re going to make mistakes. What you do to resolve those mistakes using all the advantages of your “newness” is what really counts and what will decide whether you get past the new stage, or whether instead you move on and become new in another industry.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.