Watters International Realty Helped this Agent Maintain a Healthy Work-Life Balance

For most, a typical 40-hour work week is spent in the office from 9-5 with the occasional business trip and a few hours of overtime sprinkled in here and there. For real estate agents, a week’s work looks far different.

On the outside, it may seem like the perfect scenario -- no clocking in or punching out at the end of the day and no schedule to abide by. But that freedom to create your own schedule comes with a price. Saturdays and Sundays aren’t spent relaxing, instead, they are spent traveling from showing to showing eager to make a sale for their clients. Evenings are prime showing hours for potential buyers who just got off work. Add in the last-minute listing presentations and showing cancellations to the list and the job can take its toll.

Watters International Realty agent and mom, Lori Horner , says finding the work-life balance as an agent isn’t easy, but is a must if you want to succeed.

Horner worked at a bank before getting her feet wet in the real estate industry. She felt like her skill set naturally matched what was needed of an agent but quickly realized there would be some growing pains.

“If you're a parent, it is so easy to feel like you're always falling short in one area or the other,” Horner said. “Some days I’m buried with new business, which is a good thing, but that meant I missed my kid’s soccer game.”

Whether falling short for clients or falling short as a mother, Lori felt she couldn’t keep her head above water when she first made the transition from banking to real estate. Her kids fueled her desire for success to provide for them, but they also held her back because she feared she wasn’t present enough.

“I remember being at a conference learning about time management and thinking I needed to be up from 3:00 a.m until 11:00 p.m just to accomplish what I wanted to get done,” Horner said.

Luckily her cousin, Chris Watters, the founder of Watters International , had a few pointers for how to grow her business. “Finding a mentor is huge when getting into the business,” Horner said. “You can shave years off of your growth curve by talking to someone who has been there and done that in a similar field.

Watters International was able to help Horner identify opportunities and challenges. Then they built out a plan in order to help her achieve her personal and professional goals -- both of which pointed to more family time and less time on the business.

Horner ended up partnering up with Watters to expand his market and to help grow hers. The partnership divided up the workload and allowed her to learn from his expertise and gain wisdom on where she was succeeding and where she was falling short.

“Support and guidance from Watters International has given me back my life, literally,” Horner said.

Horner is the first to admit she still has a ways to go but says knowing your limits is the first step to finding balance in business.