Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

From Struggle to Success: Sandy McAlpine's Guide for New Real Estate Agents

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 309

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Ever wondered why the real estate industry has such a staggering 87% failure rate for new agents? Sandy McAlpine, a veteran REMAX agent with decades of experience training newcomers, pulls back the curtain on the harsh realities that HGTV doesn't show you.

Sandy's candid conversation with host Maria Cuatrone exposes the dangerous misconceptions luring people into real estate careers. "They think we just show beautiful homes, dress up like on HGTV, and contracts magically appear," Sandy reveals. "What they don't know is how competitive it truly is." This disconnect explains why even when Sandy explicitly warns candidates about the difficulties ahead, they remain shocked months later when facing the actual demands of the profession.

The financial reality is equally sobering. While many outsiders envision agents driving luxury cars and living lavishly, the average agent earns just $40,000 annually—barely enough to qualify for homeownership themselves. For those attempting to transition gradually from another career, Sandy doesn't mince words: "You'll be working your full-time job plus 4-6 hours daily on real estate, including weekends." This punishing schedule explains why so few succeed.

What separates the successful 13%? Sandy identifies innate drive and work ethic as non-negotiable traits. "Real estate skills can be taught, but you can't teach someone to have that internal fire," she explains. Her team's sophisticated approach to online lead conversion—averaging 22-23 contact attempts per lead—demonstrates the persistence required. The conversation offers valuable insights into team management, morning huddles, and adapting to today's market where client loyalty can no longer be taken for granted.


💡 Key Takeaways:

  • Only 2 of 10 agents survive the first two years. Why most fail—and how to beat the odds.
  • Work ethic wins. Sandy shares what she looks for when hiring new agents: it’s not skills, it’s drive.
  • Real estate isn’t HGTV. From open houses to missed weddings, Sandy and Maria dish on the real day-to-day grind.
  • The part-time agent myth. Why trying to “ease into” real estate is often a recipe for failure.
  • Online lead conversion secrets. Learn Sandy’s high-converting strategy using ALM (Appointment, Location, Motivation) for Zillow Flex and Google PPC.
  • The power of post-close follow-up. How staying in touch turns one transaction into many.
  • Why teams win. How leveraging support, systems, and accountability sets agents up for long-term success.


🔥 Quotes to Remember:

  • “Most people say they’re full-time in real estate—but if they worked a real 9 to 5, they’d be fired.” — Maria Quattrone
  • “You can teach real estate. You can’t teach hustle.” — Sandy McAlpine
  • “If you can believe it, you can achieve it.” — Maria Quattrone



Whether you're considering a real estate career or already in the trenches, this episode delivers the unvarnished truth about what it takes to succeed in an increasingly competitive industry. Ready

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
Facebook Page: REMAX at Home Facebook
Facebook Page: Rise in Real Estate Facebook
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Speaker 1:

This is the Be the Solution podcast and I'm your host, maria Cuatrone, and today I have Sandy McAlpine, and Sandy is also a REMAX agent and has been in the business. My gosh, it's got to be a couple decades and she rocks it in Myrtle Beach. South Carolina Also has a team in Lake Norman, is it Norman?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, lake Norman, north Carolina.

Speaker 1:

Lake Norman. So say the talk, Sandy Day. She brings on new agents and trains them from the ground up. Sandy, you're a brave woman.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. Oh, man, I love your intro. That was awesome. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. And yeah, I mean my passion is for helping new agents. I actually love working with agents that just got their license.

Speaker 1:

So 80% of the industry fails within two years they're out of the business. So it leaves 13%, and then that's a whole other story about what happens with those. But let's focus on the 87% or let's focus on the 13%. What do you see with bringing new agents into your company? They make it two years. What percentage don't make it? They're done.

Speaker 2:

I think two out of 10. Honestly, that's a real number for two.

Speaker 1:

Two out of 10 make it. Yeah, Okay, so you know it's interesting. Years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I had this crazy inclination that if they were under my tutelage, that I would be able to change that statistic.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's like I think we all have that like ego, you know, like, oh, I'm going to make everybody awesome like me. But a couple of things I've learned is you know, we, you have a certain amount of drive in you as a human. You have a certain amount of drive, you have a certain amount of work ethic and you you just that, no matter what you do and I'm literally trying to find people that have that inside them, because you know real estate can be taught as a skill, Because you know real estate can be taught as a skill they don't need to know real estate, but they have to have that work ethic and that drive, Because if they, if they don't, they're not going to make it. Because you know, in our industry I mean, it's really tough. You have to work a lot of hours in the beginning to set yourself up as a new business.

Speaker 1:

And I think you have a lot of hours right now too, Sandy. I think you have to work a lot of hours right now too, Sandy.

Speaker 2:

Huh, I think you have to work a lot of hours. Right now, oh yeah, I mean right now, we have to double the calls, double the reach outs, double the attempts to our SOI, even Not you know leads are becoming. You know, just, they're ignoring their phone. Right, it's even harder to get people on the phone. They don't want to answer calls.

Speaker 2:

So I think you know, just knowing that and knowing that, you have to hire people to be on your team that are aren't afraid to reach out, to make hundreds of calls every week to talk to their SOI and let them know I'm in business, I'm a real estate agent, so they can't be shy. I mean, I've had introverted people and it's really interesting when you're hiring people. They want it so bad when agents are interviewing for the role and they go and they get their license. A lot of times I notice they get it for the wrong reasons and their actions of what we do completely false. They think we just show homes, beautiful homes, we dress up like HGTV and we we just get a contract every month. It's just so easy, like people just call us up and say I want to list my house and there's no way.

Speaker 1:

And what they don't know is it's so competitive? Do you believe that that's what they believe? I mean, I think there's a portion of that that they believe, but do they really believe that somebody's just going to call you in the phone?

Speaker 2:

yeah, or that they're going to make. You know 50 calls and 25 people are going to answer and I can I hear someone in an interview so badly I can tell them how horrible their days might look. I can try my darndest to talk them out of even doing it and going back to their corporate job and they will look me straight in the face and they'll be like I want this so bad. I talk I've got my license, I'm so excited. And then, about two to six months in, they're like I oh, I had no idea. And I'm like I told you this was exactly what it was going to be like. I said it straight to your face. I think they are ignoring you Like they're just so excited They'll say yes to anything, they'll agree to anything. They see money. I don't know what people out in the world make it look like real estate agents are like dripping in money and running around driving in Mercedes or you know. I don't know. I don't understand why people think that every I mean the average agent makes $40,000.

Speaker 1:

That's right. The average agent makes $40,000. I mean, that's what?

Speaker 2:

everyone has to live on, you know.

Speaker 1:

You can't buy a house.

Speaker 2:

With a $40,000 income you can't even be a homeowner. Some of the agents I bring on have never bought a home before $40,000 is what really what most people make.

Speaker 1:

I mean to be in if you're in the top. Unless you're in the top, 5%, but basically 95% of the business on the list side anyway is done by 5%. Yeah, I saw something the other day. Sandy, Maybe you might find this interesting because you do work with new agents. I think it's important that people really know what do you tell somebody their schedule should be, Because mine's pretty tough.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that's part of it. I get a lot of calls from people who cannot quit their full-time job and they got their license and they want to quit their full-time job. Most of them hate whatever they're doing, whatever that is, and they want to quit their full-time job and they want to like roll into real estate, but they need to replace the income first or they need to make some money in real estate to show their spouse that, hey, I can do this so I can quit my other job. And they're lying there. In lies the problem and I have to tell them you will be working at your full-time job and then you will also working at your full-time job and then you will also be working a full-time real estate job and you will be working four to six hours a day on minimum on your real estate business, including weekends, and you're going to be doing open houses and you're going to be making calls and you're going to be catching up on paperwork every waking hour. So you will be working 12 to 16 hour days and I and I tell them if your other job is not flexible, forget it, because you're going to have to leave your other job to get to inspection, to meet someone, to show a house at three o'clock. You need to have like getaway is what I call it. You have to have some kind of job that's flexible.

Speaker 2:

I don't care how much staff you say you think you can hire. There's no way. It used to be that you could do it in our business, but in my area there was only 7,000 agents at the time and we had 40,000 listings or whatever. It's different now. We have 20,000 agents in our MLS. There's plenty of agents that are willing to jump when someone snaps. So you have to be on it and I end up you you know finding out can they do this other job? Because you know otherwise, if they're not working another job, they need to be on. We have huddles at 8 am. They need to be on huddle. They need to be making their calls. They need to spend the afternoon showing appointments and how do you spend your?

Speaker 1:

how's a day 30? What do you do in your 8am huddle?

Speaker 2:

So we discuss what's going on in the industry. I don't do a weekly team meeting in person, since my team is spread out. We do an 8am huddle and it's every week and we talk about what what's happening in the team, how many contracts are we, do we have? We I absolutely people out on stuff they are doing or not doing, right I? We talk about wins, we talk about people that are doing the right things. We celebrate those folks that are. I mean, I have a girl on my team that just turned in her 10th contract for this year and she has two children and she's very, very busy mom and she's able to turn in 10 contracts, right. So we celebrate that. We celebrate people who aren't showing up. We are with that.

Speaker 2:

But we talk about people that aren't showing up and we say you know this person isn't showing up and look what's happening, it directly correlate the business with their activities, right. So we kind of kind of like show that. We talk about that a lot on the calls, about how your activity matches, how much business comes in for you, and we talk about you know compliance and hey, I'm, I'm the first, so I have to talk about you know paperwork. I'm not seeing paperwork. I'm seeing like things that I see happening. That shouldn't be. So there's just, you know, quite a few little things here and there that we talk about, but I think it's just very typical of a old school style brokerage meeting. How you know, we used to have it when we showed up in person, but we're all on a zoom call with our coffee, you know, early in the morning so you mentioned something I'll go back for about working in a good job.

Speaker 1:

It was interesting when I started in the industry I was in radio sales, meaning I sold airtime for a group of radio stations here in Philadelphia and I got my license and I was doing both. And the reason I could do both is because I was in sales. So I could be on my way to meet a client to sell airtime, to having lunch with them or whatever, going to their office and I would be talking to a buyer or seller on the phone in the car and I basically worked from I don't know, eight to eight or eight to nine or whatever. It was Monday to Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday, all day real estate. And this was in 2004.

Speaker 1:

So it was different in 2004 as well, because there wasn't DocuSign. You had to drop off agreements of sale in the packet with the check. People came into the office to sign documents, or you went to their house documents or you went to their house. You know we didn't have as many tools to make things easier as we do now, so it really was an enormous amount of hours and you know I knew within that first beginning of it I did. I started in my first started in march, my first closing was at the end of march and I did 17 sides while working full-time at the other job that's amazing yeah, my other career.

Speaker 1:

It was a career I was there for. I was in the industry for 11 years, but it was a you know. People say, uh, you see all the glory but you don't know the story. So it was 11 years. But that's how I learned how to communicate with people and I worked with business owners. So you had to learn and I'm asking them for their hard-earned money to grow their business by utilizing radio as a medium. It's not like buying a house Everybody has to sleep somewhere. So you like buying a house Everybody has to sleep somewhere. So you can buy a house. You're going to rent an apartment, you can live in, I guess, your mom's basement, but everybody has to sleep somewhere. So everybody at some point can be a client. It's different. Actually, selling real estate is a lot easier than selling radio advertising.

Speaker 2:

Well, you described how I got into the business. Exactly the same as you and even during the recession I had to go back and get a job and I mean I had to be there at 730 and I had ways where I could leave and I would go show homes in the lunch breaks and here and there and go to inspections and I had to drop off checks and do paperwork in person. We had a fax machine. I used to fax from my other job and um and I used to work until like 11 o'clock at night because I was writing offers and doing my paperwork and trying to keep up with my database and doing mailers from my kitchen table. On the weekends I missed weddings, I missed kids' birthday parties, I missed on the lake with my friends everything because I had clients and I was Wanted to make that transition.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting ahead. So what does it look like for somebody to make that transition? I mean, I think in this day and age it's almost impossible to be a part time agent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's. It's really hard. I think a couple. There's a recipe for it and what I would say is you, if you're an entrepreneur and you have another type of business that you own like you have a business like pressure washing or cleaning business, or I have some folks on my team that run CBD stores that they own with partners If you are an owner of a business and you are super flexible and you can run your business on the fly and be on phone calls in your car and go to different locations and you're not sitting in a cube, I think right now those are some of the best agents on my team because they're doing.

Speaker 2:

They brought on real estate as an additional vehicle for wealth because they need to fund their other business or they need real estate as an additional stream because their business is a roller coaster. It's not. You know, a lot of businesses small, hurting right now for whatever reason inflation, economy and so they have used real estate as a vehicle for paying their bills and creating additional income and actually, believe it or not, the entrepreneurs and the business owners sell the same amount of transactions, if not more, than agents on my team that are just full time that have the entire eight hour day and what I've watched is they've squished it. They've made themselves extremely efficient, right and they're not high-pricing.

Speaker 1:

Sandy, most people that say they're full-time in real estate are not full-time in real estate. They do not actually do activity that is a full-time. Let's say that that person says they're full-time and they worked a real full-time nine to five. They'd be fired.

Speaker 2:

Person says they're full-time and they worked a real full-time nine to five, they'd be fired absolutely bad. People sitting on a corporate desk, though, don't work the eight hours either. They're eating lunch, gossiping, standing by the coffee machine. You know, people at corporate don't even work four to six hours.

Speaker 1:

They spend a lot of time. Just let's pretend they work a chop rate or giant whatever, and they have to actually do work because they're standing at a cashier Right or when they're just bored. There are people that actually still have to work their shift. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

People like at Amazon warehouses.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're holding packages, they're holding garbage, whatever. I mean. There are a lot of hardworking people out there, but the majority of people waste most of their day A good portion 30%.

Speaker 2:

I have a guy he's brand new, he called me and he's looking to join a firm and he works at the Amazon company and I think he's in the warehouse and he works all night long. He's in the night shift and he's willing. He wants to do real estate so bad, he's willing to work all day as well and only get a few hours of sleep. So those are the types of people that I think will make it is all or nothing attitudes, and people that are willing to accept technology to be efficient, put every app on their phone, like docusign, like we were talking to you earlier, the different technologies and the apps that we can use to, you know, have our time be more efficiently used, or even people that are willing to.

Speaker 2:

I think you know the team aspect works in some respects. Some teams not all, they're willing to take on part timers, but some teams are able to make help the person be more efficient for a healthy split right. So the team has admins and transaction coordinators and leads coming in, flowing in, so that these agents don't have quite the amount of expenses coming on as a new business and they're able to transact and they're able to have a lot of support and help. So that's why I think some new agents work better on teams than trying to do it themselves. Cause I, it took almost two years to get inbound business as a solo agent brand new with no, no team. I mean I had to go out and get business right. I had to go out and find it and get it for myself, but it was like it was literally two years when someone just called me up on the phone and said I would like to hire you Like branding marketing. It took that long.

Speaker 1:

It takes at least that long. Now probably even more, because there's so much clutter, there's so many things coming at people on a daily basis. You really got to be able to cut through that clutter. But I wanted to ask you about your online leads. You had mentioned that that's something that you you and team excel at.

Speaker 2:

So with zillow, and then realtorcom, we do zillow flex realtor, we do and we do heavy google pay-per-click, and that that's where, if someone was searching online and they said I want a home in Mooresville, north Carolina, then our ads would pop up are sponsored.

Speaker 1:

So is this heavy buyer-driven or listings?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're about 70% buyer-driven. But the way that I look at it is this is a long journey of a career. But the way that I look at it is this is a long journey of a career and all of those buyers end up selling, as long as we keep post-closing follow up. We do a great job with post-closing follow up. They will use us to list in the next two to six years on average and we'll sell them another house so that one transaction ends up turning into several transactions if we do the right post-closing follow-up.

Speaker 1:

So, from what I hear, the conversion on online leads is around 2%. That's a lot of calls, a lot of calls, a lot of touches to get that 2%.

Speaker 2:

It's probably less than that. It's probably like 1%. But I would say there's a couple levers that we've pulled. One, we're a Zillow Flex team, so those are actually. We're paying a heavy split to Zillow as a referral partner and those are converting at 10, 11% because the person is on the line being transferred.

Speaker 2:

There has been a VA that has already done that work or the person lit called the Zillow line and what is ready. They're like more ready in the funnel, so we're not having to do the heavy lifting. They're basically at the top of the funnel. Those people, we're just getting a call on the line with the guy from Zillow hey, this is Alex, I've got a lead for you and they're on the other line. And our first question is what time would you like to see 123 Main Street today? So we practice ALM, so we have high conversion practices that we train on heavy, where Zillow spent millions of dollars, and they have AI technology listening to phone calls going back to 2010. And so they know what we should be saying and how we should be saying it to convert at the highest level.

Speaker 2:

So, ALM is appointment, location, motivation, and then there's some bonus questions. So we mainly ask questions the entire phone call. We're not telling anything about the property, we're not looking at the property, we're not asking you know anything, anything except trying to set the appointment, asking them about other homes that they would like to see what areas they're looking for and why are they moving. All the questions about why are they moving, when are they moving, who's moving, www, all the all the motivation questions and I do think Absolutely, it should be question based.

Speaker 2:

That helps you without having to make without having to make so many outbound calls. Now the Google pay-per-clicks some of them are Google LSA, which is Google local service ads, and or Google my business is now I think what they're calling it. Those are also calls, so you have to have a huge Google presence and spend money with Google. That way. You have to have a lot of reviews, so we spent years trying to get five you know all of our clients to review us, and so we do get calls that way and those are also top of the funnel. And then, lastly, the Google pay-per-click leads the way that I've done it to get the better leads and not the trash leads like what you were talking about. The 1% leads is I have sponsored ads and they go on to look at homes and they're clicking around, and a lot of real estate companies want anybody with a warm body and an email and a phone to fill out the form. They put you through a funnel system and they want you to fill out the form, even if it's an accident or these people just want to see a next photo or something. We don't get those leads. We don't want those leads. We want people who are actually interested in transacting.

Speaker 2:

So my form is 10 questions long. It's do you, are you an agent? Have you? Are you pre-approved? What? How many bedrooms Do you need to sell before buying?

Speaker 2:

There are so many questions and if they don't fill out the whole form, if they click off early, that's called a partial. I don't want it so I do not have delivered partials. I only get full form fills. And these are people at the bottom. It says you're opting in to getting texts and called from this team and it they agree everything, they check the box and they click submit. So we get a lot of great information with the lead that we get and then we just have to follow up and follow the answer. And again, it's probably 22 to 23 times contact attempts till we get in touch on average, because it's 40 for some and 10 for others. When someone puts in the lead, if you don't call them within the first five minutes, you now have to catch them after work or on their lunch break or on a weekend. It gets significantly harder as time goes by after they put the lead in.

Speaker 1:

And it's also oh, no, no, you have five minutes, and then your chances within minutes decrease by like a thousand percent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then you're just chasing them, trying to get them to answer and a lot of times you know real estate's finicky People are actually doing their research 12 to 18 months out. They might be a year out from buying. Most people that I do listing appointments are like six months out from selling. Even so, they just are doing their research. They're interviewing agents. They want to look at a couple of homes to see what they can get for their money, and so it's absolutely not a waste of time to try to meet with them, even if they're not quite ready. So we can look at some vacant homes we can look at.

Speaker 2:

We can just go to do a buyer consult meeting, which I don't know how we got away from doing those. I love doing a buyer consult. I like I can take them to Starbucks and buy their coffee. So we're going back to that. We're going back to doing a lot of buyer consults with new leads and I mean we converted a much higher rate than if we were to buy a bunch of trash leads for sure Takes a lot of energy and enthusiasm to do this business, sandy, yes, a lot of energy and enthusiasm.

Speaker 1:

What are you seeing in today's market? How can?

Speaker 2:

how can Wow? So I do think, because of the internet and the availability of information on Google and now also Reels and Instagram, tiktok and Facebook and I think a lot of agents are having to be more present online and able to show up on Google and show up on all these platforms social media sites and be present and also show their worth and show their knowledge, because I do believe that's how people are starting to choose their agent. They're not as loyal. So I can't just assume, because I'm mailing Christmas cards and calling my SOI every couple months and sending them a birthday card, I can't just assume they're going to use me anymore because they're being unindated with all of these other you know, social sites with realtors and they're meeting realtors in their foot, their circles, groups, and there's just so many. There's there's like three or four times the real estate agents than there was when I got into this business. So it's ever, you know.

Speaker 2:

I think for agents to be successful, you have to be present. You have to make double and triple the calls. If that means inviting your SOI to lunch and coffee to get in front of them, that's what you have to do. I didn't used to have to do that I just saw my SOI everywhere, but now I don't, and I have to make double the effort to make sure that they don't use someone else, right? I mean, that's kind of the goal. Once you're in this business for a couple of decades like you, you know yourself myself. You have to keep your clients close right. They see you've already spent a lot of money on trying to keep them in post-closing follow-up, and I think that's some you know. For new agents to win at this, they need to stay in front of everyone even more.

Speaker 1:

Always have to be top of mind and we have this little thing over here, magically, you could do a lot of stuff with, regardless of where you are. So this is our friend and we are so lucky to have this little thing because it makes our life a lot easier. As we make a little video, take a picture, we post it on social, we put some music behind it. I'm not really that great at all that stuff, but I try. I'll take a little picture. Now you smile. Yep, I'm a dork. Okay. So, sandy, I get two questions for you before we wrap it up today. Number one what is your guilty pleasure? Oh gosh, I have more than one, you can tell whatever one you want.

Speaker 2:

I would say I love red wine, cabernet. I love Cabernet. Mmm red wine. If it has to be a food, it'd be Cabernet. It could be whatever you want. It could be whatever you want. If it's not a food, it'd be cavern, whatever you want. It could be whatever you want. If it's not a food, it would be the sun. I love the sun. I could be out in the sun all day.

Speaker 1:

I like the sun too. I like the summer here because it's nice. Okay, number two what are you most excited about for your personal future?

Speaker 2:

no kids, no husband, whatever you, just you oh gosh, that's good um, I want to win tennis nationals one day for my, for my level that's exciting yeah, I want to. I've been close, I've been with the team and gone all the way to sectionals. Yeah, I want to. I've been close, I've been with a team and gone all the way to sectionals and we were second place. If you're not, you're last right.

Speaker 1:

So I get a. If you can, if you can believe it, you can achieve it. Yeah, If you can see it and you believe it, you can achieve it.

Speaker 2:

So you see it and you believe it, you can achieve it.

Speaker 1:

So exactly, you see it, you know. You just imagine it's already happened because it has somewhere in some other other universe. We're in.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna channel my inner, serena williams, you gotta show up who you want hey right, she's the guy yeah, you, you create a totem.

Speaker 1:

who is is my? Who am I? What's my superpower? Like my super person, whatever Super you know? Some people would say they go, they have this, um, when they are playing a sport, they become somebody else. That's how Kobe Bryant became black mama and Beyonce has um, sasha, whatever it. Beyonce has Sasha, whatever it is, sasha something.

Speaker 2:

Fierce.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's where it came from. There's a book about it. It's pretty good, but putting yourself, once you get into that you're no longer Sandy, you're Sandy Superwoman, something. Whatever you want to make it, you take on that. It's been great having you today, sandy, and what a great conversation. Congratulations on you and your team. Success and look forward to hearing from you at the end of the year and see how things are oh, awesome.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me, my pleasure.