Using Your Teacher Skills to Become a 100M Real Estate Agent With Brooke Coughlin

Has anyone ever told you that you would be a great fit for a specific job? They could just see your potential. Today’s guest shares how someone seeing her potential took her from the classroom earning $40,000 a year to a real estate agent closing $100 million in sales. 

In this episode, Ali and JoDee sit down with Brooke Coughlin, a former 7th grade teacher turned real estate agent and author. Together, they’ll discuss the events that led her to real estate and how she is success within real estate today.

You’ll hear more about:

• The #1 drawback of teaching that most teachers aren’t talking about
• Different avenues you can pursue in real estate 
• Brooke’s top tip for success (hint: it’s not what you think!)
• The interconnection between teaching and real estate 
• And more!

Want to dive into Brooke’s book, She Closes Deals? Grab your copy here!

Connect with Brooke:
Website
Instagram
Facebook

Connect with Ali and JoDee:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachershift
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teachershift
Teacher Shift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/teacher-shift
Ali’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisimon/
JoDee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodeescissors/

Website
https://www.teachershiftpodcast.com/

Episode Transcriptions
https://www.teachershiftpodcast.com/blog

Transcript

Ali  0:06  
Teachers are natural innovators, entertainers and problem solvers. They dream of growing old into the profession, teaching their kids kids, but sometimes career goals shift, and that makes opportunities outside of the classroom seem intangible, questioning, who am I, if I'm not a teacher? I'm your host, Ali Simon.

JoDee  0:29  
And I'm your co host, JoDee Scissors.

Ali  0:32  
And this is Teacher Shift.

JoDee  0:43  
You know that feeling when someone sees potential in you feels good, right? It allows you to imagine your full potential. Today's guest joins us to share her incredible journey from the classroom to real estate.

Ali  0:57  
Today, our guest is Brooke Coughlin. She's a licensed real estate agent in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, with over 100 million in sales. Her book, She Closes Deals, shares the exact strategies she used to become a successful agent. Before her success in real estate, Brooke was a middle school teacher. She understands the power of consistent action and believes that anyone can achieve their goals. Welcome to the show today, Brooke.

Brooke  1:24  
Thank you, ladies. I'm excited to be here and excited to spend our Friday morning together.

JoDee  1:30  
This is a highly anticipated podcast interview for us. I'm so glad that Taylor Smith connected us. We get a lot of referrals from some of our former guests and former teachers, active teachers. And so we always like to support each other in all of our endeavors. And Taylor did, did us a favor here by connecting us with you because it looks like you're doing a lot of good things.

Brooke  1:52  
Thank you. I like to think that I am too, and it's crazy that all of this started with education. All of this started my journey. Started being a teacher. So I owe a lot of my success in the real estate world and my career whole nine yards too, starting off as a seventh grade English teacher, which is just wild. 

Ali  2:11  
Well, that's, that's what we want to hear about. So tell us a little bit, before we dive quite into your real estate journey, which I'm very curious about. Tell us what prompted you, you know, to make that transition into real estate. How did you get started in that?

Brooke  2:26  
Yeah, so I grew up with a family of educators. My dad was a principal, my mom was a teacher, and I was like, I'm just gonna follow in their footsteps and do the same thing. I loved children. I love education. I was like, I'm going to do this until I'm 65 maybe I'll go into the administration role whole nine yards, and then retire with a pension and life is good. And that was my plan. That was what I had set in place when I was in college. And actually when I was in college, going to school to be a teacher, I started a cleaning company. This is super random, but it connects to real estate. So I started a cleaning company, and I would spend my free time, other than being in school, being a college athlete, cleaning houses. And I was a one man team at that time, cleaning houses. And my college friends teammates, they'd make fun of me and say, Brooke, why are you spending your days cleaning other people's toilets and kitchens and whole nine yards? And right then and there, I fell in love with the entrepreneurial world and making my own schedule, making a little bit of money here and there on the side, whole nine yards. And when I was about to graduate and go start my teaching career making $50,000 a year, I was like, What am I going to do with this little cleaning company that I started? So before I graduated, I just decided to make it an actual business and hire my first employee, take myself out of it and just manage that. So I was a teacher, had my little cleaning company, and one day after school, because I was with seventh graders until about 2:30. I was giving a cleaning quote to somebody. I had no idea who they were. And I was taking them around the house, showing them what my team would do, what we offer, whole nine yards. And they looked at me and said, Brooke, do you have any interest in real estate? And I'm like, I love HGTV. I love looking at realtor.com and Zillow, getting a coffee and driving around neighborhoods. But I never actually thought about being an agent. And little did I know that they owned a brokerage. And they said, Brooke, with your personality, we think you'd be fantastic. How about you just take the course, pass the test, join us and see if you like it. Sell a few houses here and there. And since that meeting real estate has changed my life completely. 

Wow, so it was that person that you met through your cleaning business, which, again, another, you know, entrepreneurial endeavor that you went on, or first one, rather, that saw that in you. That saw that potential. And what I love about the story is that you did it. Like you you took that opportunity. And I think the way that they, the way that they framed it, was like, just try it out, you know, like, if you don't, if you don't end up liking it, you don't have to do it. And I think a lot of times what we hear from teachers, and I think it's more like they're nervously full time, is that, you know, oh well, this is like, very stable and very secure, but you had dabbled in something other than your full time teaching job, which maybe left you open to these other ideas and and you took that chance. So, so that's amazing.

Speaker 1  5:35  
We see this a  lot in many teachers, and even teachers that are still in the classroom, is they have this little side business. They have this little entrepreneur hat. Whether that's like, Teachers Pay Teachers, they're selling jewelry, they're like, have their own, like, skincare line, like, whatever it is. That actually happened. One of my former assistant principals had her own skincare line. She was like an entrepreneur. So we noticed these kind of entrepreneurial qualities in a lot of teachers. And really believe that even a teacher that doesn't have their own business, they have that mindset to be able to innovate and pivot and create just on the fly. And I believe that that's one of the best qualities of like just the teacher brain.

Brooke  6:22  
I fully agree with you, and I like to say now I don't teach seventh graders anymore, but I teach adults how to buy and sell houses. I teach other agents how to 10x their business. So that teacher in me never really goes away. It's just a different subject, different overarching idea that I'm teaching. But I remember sitting in my classroom and I'm like, Okay, I have seventh graders in front of me. I have my clients texting me, calling me. I'm like, This isn't fair. One, to the seventh graders because I'm not giving them my full attention. And two, this isn't fair to my clients who are purchasing or selling their biggest assets that I'm not fully there from, you know, 7:30 to 2:30. So I did make the decision to leave teaching, and it was the scariest decision in my life, because, like you mentioned, teaching is consistent. And this was a few years ago. So one of my favorite little clips is a few years ago, when I was teaching, I was making $1,400 every two weeks. And to me, that was that was stable, that paid my mortgage, that paid my car insurance, that paid my gas, my groceries. And I'm like, am I going to be able to leave this and be okay? And then fast forward, four years from now, I close deals that are bigger than my teaching salary for an entire year. But if I didn't take that leap, make that switch, I would still be in the same position that I was. 

JoDee  7:45  
Right. So what did your educator family think of that shift? okay.

Brooke  7:50  
Oh my goodness. They were very nervous, because that's all that they've known, and it set them up, and they're very well off. But they weren't necessarily entrepreneurs. They are going to retire at 65 with a great pension and with teaching and whole nine yards. So to take that risk, they were like, Brooke, are you sure? And then I had other mentors on the entrepreneurial side that were like, jump in, do it. I had the cleaning company money supplementing me, just in case I wasn't going to make money right away from real estate, because it's, you know, you eat what you kill in real estate. So it could take a little bit longer to build your business and get paid. But my teaching parents were, like, very apprehensive about me leaving the field. One thing about teaching, I mean, the world needs great teachers, and I have all the respect for teachers, because they do such a big, important job in today's society and future and everything like that. But one thing about the educational world that didn't necessarily fit right with me was that I could be the best teacher in the entire world, putting hours and hours of my time in after work, and I know that at the end of the day, I'm only going to be making x this year, x next year, and that scale I was just like, in my brain, that doesn't make sense. Or I could be the worst teacher I put my feet up and still make that same amount of money anyway.

Ali  9:12  
Yeah, I think it's, it's really and that's one of the biggest challenges that we hear from teachers, is the salary, and that for some people, it's very comforting to know that they are going to have bumps and raises throughout their career, and that might work for their family. But I think it really depends on your personal situation. If you are uncoupled, you know, you're the sole provider of your family, then that's a much different story than if you are coupled with someone who's a high earner. And you know, we just all are in very unique circumstances as individuals. And so I think you looked at your personal situation like you knew you had your side hustle, your cleaning business that could help support you during that transition, which we do see a lot of teachers who who transition out more entrepreneurial, make sure that they have built up enough clientele in whatever the field is to be able to meet their bare minimum of, like, you know, food, shelter, clothing, that type of a thing. And then, yeah, so you were able to do that. But I think that's a really, you know, a really good perspective that. You know, I wonder teachers overall can do well financially, especially with their families. But I do wonder if we'll see a shift in that in like the decades to come. Traditionally, that was a possibility, but I don't know if that's if that's going to change as like the economy changes, as other jobs have much higher starting and continuing salaries. So it will be an interesting trend to follow.

Speaker 1  10:37  
I wanted to add that recently, I had someone reach out to me asking, you know what data we've collected to understand why teachers are leaving. And if you look kind of like at our survey data, number one and number two, our career growth and just like stability, and then the next is compensation. And we feel that it's a little taboo to talk about the money. And sometimes people are reluctant to just outright say, the pay is not going to help me live a sustainable life. It can pay for my minimum, my bare minimum, such as, what you are mentioning as like, rent, gas, health care. But beyond that, it's like, what else am I saving for? Or what else can I how else can I improve my living situation? Can I afford to purchase a home, etc? And so when I was looking at it, I was like, it's almost like the reasons are like a 1A and a 1b because they really do go together. Because if we're talking about, like quality of life. If we're talking about perhaps, like our happiness in our job, the salary does play a role in that, especially if you know that it's not going to increase at the pace that perhaps your family is growing or the economy is shifting. So I'm glad that you brought that up, because sometimes it is a little bit difficult to admit that, even though there's a lot of talk in media about teacher salary. Sometimes teachers are still reluctant to to make that admission when they're ready to make a shift.

Brooke  12:19  
Right? I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you just said, and you you're saying things that people might not actually come out and say, but it's true. And if you look at so many teachers, like the majority of them, do have a side hustle. They do work outside of teaching hours. They work on their vacations. They work on their summer when teaching itself is a full time job. And oh my god, it takes a lot out of you. So to have to supplement it, or to feel the need to have to supplement it, I think is, could be what is turning potential teachers away from the field.

Ali  12:55  
Yeah, but I want to pivot back to your transition, because I have some like, exciting news that you don't know about, but I recently became a first time homeowner. So my husband and I bought our first house. He's in the military, so we didn't want to buy until we knew we would be like settling down. But we are in a high cost of living area. We're in the Washington, DC area. And you know, one of the things that really made our our purchase possible was my salary too. You know, I'm not in teaching anymore. If I had still been making what I was making as a teacher, we would have had a different you know, we would have been looking elsewhere. We've been further out. It would have still been fine. But, you know, those things really do factor in, the financial part. But also, thinking about my experience, I've only bought one home. You remind me a lot of my, my realtor actually, like, you have great personality, really outgoing. I can tell, like, you have that heart of a teacher, and you would be able to break things down. Our realtor was very similar, and she's, like, a top, top seller. I think, like, not exaggerating, one of the top sales in the entire state of Virginia. She's fantastic. What I love about the field you went into is like the potential is exponential. Like there's no ceiling. There's no real cap on what you can do if you become a successful realtor. And you know, I read in your bio, like, you still have your cleaning business too. So like, perhaps that's even growing as you're a realtor, because then you're making connections with other people. You have other businesses, I thought like you have, like Airbnbs, or maybe, you know, other things that you have. And so I think I'd love to hear about that growth potential in the field, and maybe how you've had your career grow from when you first became a realtor, you know, had your first sale, and then kind of where you are now? 

Brooke  14:44  
Yeah of course. So when I first became a realtor, I was still teaching. I was doing both of them at once, and it was actually 2020 was the year that I got first license, which was the Covid year. So we were doing like the masks in school. Were doing the video calls, whole nine yards, doing that along with real estate. And that first year, I have my statistics actually written down right here, which is crazy, and I keep them here just to, like, look back upon my my own growth, and for other agents who follow me, and for other agents on my team. Anybody, just to remind them that success does not happen overnight. I did not become this multi million dollar real estate agent in a year, in two years. It took time to build. So when I was teaching, whole nine yards, my first year of real estate, I sold eight houses, and that was about $2.2 million. And at the time, I thought that was amazing. This is extra income. This is great. The average realtor across the country would sell between eight and 10 houses a year. That's normal. Still teaching, the whole nine yards. The next year, I was still teaching as well, and I doubled it. I sold 16 houses and a little bit over $5.5 million of real estate. I'm like, This is great. Okay, Brooke, let's see what we can do. That September, I went back into school. I was a little bit hesitant, and I went right up to my principal and I said, Mr. Blank, I am making an executive decision, and after Christmas break, I'm giving you four months after Christmas break, I am not coming back, and I'm going to go explore the real estate world. And that year, when I did that, my business expanded, boomed exponentially. So in year three and year two, I sold 16 houses. In year three, I sold 48 houses, which was $20 million worth of real estate. And then I'm like, I can do this. I can take what I'm doing and I can 10x that. So the following year, went up to 63 houses, $33 million worth of real estate, and I'm just on a sky high trend for this upcoming year too. What I think I love about real estate is the fact that there is no cap, but also there's a whole ecosystem and avenues that you can go off of instead of just helping people buy and sell. So like, yes, that is my main thing. I help people buy and sell houses with a bunch of different clientele, first time homebuyers. I work with builders. I work with selling luxury homes. And everybody's different, just like in the classroom, everybody's different. So that part helps, but also off of that, I own an investment portfolio myself. I'm like, if I'm helping investors buy these multi family properties, I should probably know what I'm doing too as a buyer. So I started purchasing multi families. My husband and I, we have seven properties, 14 doors, and that's just another stream of income, a business in itself. I have an Airbnb company too, which is fantastic short term rentals. And we manage other people's rentals as well, which that in itself is so cool, because some of the properties that we manage, we don't own the houses, we just run their management system. And I'm like, I'm on my phone all day, every day anyway, selling houses. I could run their Airbnb apps. My cleaning team cleans in between stays. I'm eating three times off of this one business that goes off of it. And then my, She closes deals. I'm like, I might as well take everything that I know and put it in a book, put it in a course, because I have agents at my brokerage, or even just from social media and following reaching out to me and saying, Brooke, how did you do it? And instead of individually wanting to help every single person, I'm like, let's take all of my knowledge, all of my expertise, my lessons learned, my failures, and put it in a book. So I can say, the next time sweet Sally messages me, asking for how I would respond to this situation, I'll say, read my book. I actually have a perfect response for it on page 10, which will just allow me to help more people grow their business too.

Speaker 1  18:59  
What a teacher thing to do. You essentially have a lesson plan for how to achieve what you have achieved. I love that. That's such a teacher brain thing to be able to form a pathway to understanding something which is what you have achieved. And I just couldn't be more happy for you being able to one like, make that leap, tackle something that you know you you had your mindset on a certain career path, and you were flexible. You thought, I can do this. And you didn't just, like, dive in head first. You took bite sizes before you made that full shift, which is something we like to encourage teachers who are seeking that support is, if you're not ready to dive in fully, try a little bite size. Try to dip your toes into something new. So you mentioned that you know a lot of things that you really love about being a realtor, other than just kind of like, you know, working with your clients, increasing your salary. What is like one thing that you really, really just love and you and you don't want to let go of after kind of moving into the shift, that it's just like kind of drives you every single day?

Brooke  19:00  
There's a lot, but I would say the time and the flexibility. Like I work for myself. I am my own boss. I can do as much or as little as I want to, which is so empowering to me. Yes, I have mentors who check in on me on a regular basis and make sure I am reaching, hitting my goals whole nine yards. But at the end of the day, I am in charge of my own destiny, and I think that is the biggest thing in the driving force. And I wake up every day excited for that, and I am the most competitive person that I know. I don't know if that stems back from college basketball. 

I was gonna say there's a little bit of a athlete in you that might have something to do with it. 

Don't ask me how many games we won in college, but I'm still very competitive that whatever I do, I want to be the best in what I do. And am I the best? Probably not. But I believe that I am. So I radiate that out to my entire following, all of my clients, whole nine yards. So I believe and trust in myself, which allows everybody else to believe and trust in me too.

Ali  21:16  
And you're constantly evolving and growing like I hear that in you. You're like, how can you improve upon, you know, being the best realtor, like, you know, managing the companies, running your own business. I hear that enthusiasm, and I'm really glad that you that you shared with us about the book, because I want to know what can readers learn from your book and tell us a little bit more about it. 

Brooke  21:38  
I can hear my journey from how I started just as a small teacher to making over $100 million worth of real estate sales in less than two years. We talk about the journey, the past, negotiations, but we talk about mindset and how important that is. We talk about so many things that pop up in transactions and how to deal with them. We talk about the power of network and how your network is your net worth. We talk about the power of putting yourself out there. Trust me, there are so many days that I feel super cringy posting my face on social media 10 times a day, but it's necessary to get the following and the leads that are coming in. So just stepping out of your comfort zone. Ways to generate leads, because in real estate, like I said, you eat what you kill so you don't get paid until a transaction closes. And how do you get people coming to you versus you going out looking for them? So all of my little sale tactics, everything, if someone's looking to grow their business is in the book. And as I've been rereading this book, because it actually launches on the 29th and I have a very big book launch party on the 30th. I'm like, this book is more geared towards people who are just getting into the industry, or have been in the industry and haven't had much success to take them to their next level. But I'm like, I could already write a sequel of this, of somebody who is selling, you know, $20 million worth of real estate, and how do they go from 20 to 40? So this is more preliminary, just getting started. How do I take my business to the next level? I just got licensed, shat do I do? So my brain is already thinking of, okay, how can I take this book and then make it geared towards the next set of realtors.

JoDee  23:27  
That's awesome. I bet she closed this deal. Also can help just you talking about the mindset and kind of how you powered through entrepreneurship. I imagine some of the tips could support someone that maybe just wants to go in a different area, but could learn some of the skills and the path that you took and apply that in a new field. I was wondering, if you have a mentor, is there someone that you kind of look up to, or that kind of helped you at the very beginning to kind of encourage you and push you? A teacher, per se. 

Brooke  24:03  
Yes, he is. He would never do great in a classroom. I could tell you that he'd day one. Oh, my God. But I do have somebody I look up to who is 10 times the businessman that I am. And I've looked at him, watched him, and he just started as regular Joe Schmo, too. And he has built these multi, multi million dollar businesses, and he's 30 years old. And I'm watching him, and I'm like, You know what? If he can do it, I can do it. I want to also empower the same thing to other people as well. If Brooke Coughlin can do it, I can do it too, type of thing. And I think it's so important, and I say it until I'm blue in the face, to surround yourself with people who are bigger and better than you are. If you are the biggest at your table, go get yourself a new table. If you're sitting around five millionaires and you actually listen, you're going to become the sixth. If you're sitting around five bums, you're going to become the sixth. Who you surround yourself with matters tremendously. And no matter what avenue you are in and career and life.

JoDee  25:04  
So true. I'm just nodding my head rigorously, yes.

Ali  25:10  
No. I mean, I really think what I love hearing about your journey is that you were a teacher first, that was what you planned to go into. And really, you know, the first thing you said in the interview was, I took what I learned from being a teacher, and I find value in my time being a teacher. And JoDee and I feel the same way. Like I would never trade those years in the classroom. They made me who I am. They made me better at the job that I do now. And I think, you know, this is my take on it, and like, this is my thing. I think teaching is a great first career. I think it really sets you up well to go into other things. And whether you're in it for four years, whether you're in it for 10 years, for seven years, 17 years, you made an impact in your community, and now you're impacting your community in a different way. You're helping people. You're guiding them. You're teaching them what it's like to make a big purchase in the real estate industry, and I love that for you, and I love it for our listeners too, who might be considering real estate as an option. I encourage them to read your book, She Closes Deals, and I look forward to reading it myself. 

Brooke  26:16  
Thank you. I'm looking forward to a ton of people reading and 10 Xing, whatever they are looking to do in life. And I remember, and it's actually in my book too, when I was going to be a teacher, I am the worst test taker in the history of test taking. Put me in front of anybody that can talk, and I'll hold myself together, whole nine yards. Passing a test is horrible. And to pass my teaching test, it took about five times. And I was like, this is horrendous. And then I passed. And then I was teacher. Life is great. Same thing happened with real estate. It took me, I stopped counting how many times to pass my real estate test. And in my book, the beginning of that talks about it, because I could have given up right then and there, just being embarrassed walking into that same test taking center and having them know me by name, and I could have given up and then not have become this multi million dollar real estate agent teaching others to do the same. So if it was easy, just like with teaching, or just like in real estate, anybody would do it. And I think the lesson of powering through whatever, whatever that little hiccup is that you're going through could be the best thing in the entire world for you.

JoDee  27:21  
I think that's one of the best pieces of advice you've given so far. I mean, lots of lots of nuggets in this episode, but failure is part of the process. And even if it's just applying for jobs and not getting an interview and or not hearing back like if you just keep pushing forward, you will get there. And I'm so glad that you brought that up, because sometimes people think that that all of the success happens overnight, and you're living proof that just perseverance and dedication and keeping your eye on the prize will get you there. 

Brooke  27:52  
And to celebrate those wins and how important it is, you know, to realize how far you've come. Celebrate those wins Before you start jumping into, Okay, what's next? Because I'm definitely Okay, what's next type of person. But I'm like, Okay, take a step back and look what I just accomplished. It's okay to celebrate your win.

Ali  28:11  
You were speaking to me, Brooke, like, I have that problem too, where I'm like, Okay, what's next? Like, I finished a big two day work conference. I'm like, what's next? Like, you know, but I, I think it really is important to celebrate your wins, to know that that these transitions are not easy. And you know, thank you for your vulnerability and sharing that you did have to, you know, sit for your tests multiple times. Like, not everybody is a great test taker. I'm not a great test taker. I'm studying for a professional exam right now, and that was really motivating for me. So I hope that that inspiration and motivation will carry through to our listeners, and I'm super excited to share with them how they can follow you and stay in touch. So Brooke is on Instagram at Brooke Coughlin, and you can also find her at sheclosesdeals.com We'll link both of those in the show notes, and we're so thankful for your time today, Brooke

Brooke  29:03  
Thank you both for having me. This was a great conversation, and I'm very happy that we're connected.

Ali  29:18  
Are you interested in suggesting a topic for Teacher Shift? Being a guest or recommending a guest? Please see the episodes page on our website to make a submission. And if you'd like to write for us, see the our blog page. If you liked Teacher Shift, give us a five star rating and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Apple podcasts, Spotify and Amazon music. Today's episode was written and recorded by me, Ali Simon and my co host, JoDee Scissors. Executive produced by Teacher Shift. Produced and edited by Emily Porter. Original music: Emoji by Tubebackr.