In 2015, there were some excellent real estate brokers who earned 6 billion VND, but many people in this profession have not sold any products and are preparing to celebrate Tet quietly, without salary or commission.

Although the real estate market recorded many brokers earning billions in the past year, there are still many people who could not sell any products, meaning their income is zero.

Currently working as an office worker with a salary of 6 million VND per month, Pham Thi Hoa (born in 1989) has a bachelor's degree in administration.business, Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics, is looking for a new job with better income in a dynamic environment and flexible working hours.

At the end of June 2015, at the age of 27, the young woman quit her old job to start her adventure after a friend who was a real estate broker shared about a career opportunity. In July 2015, Hoa applied to be a sales staff of a real estate company located on Bui Bang Doan Street, Hung Gia 4 Area, Tan Phong Ward, District 7. Her luggage was the eagerness to learn, conquer new challenges and the dream of achieving a breakthrough income.

This real estate company applies a mechanism of not paying salaries to employees, in return, the commission for products sold is higher than other units in the same industry. The company has a training center for knowledge and skills from theory to practice so that newcomers can integrate quickly. A flexible working mechanism between independent and team work is also applied in this environment to guide and support inexperienced people.

The business administration graduate herself had anticipated the difficulties ahead, so she had already set aside a reserve fund for 2 months of no sales. However, when she got started, more obstacles appeared than she had expected. Potential home buyers she had advised kept dropping out at the last minute for various reasons. Not just 2 months, but up to 4-5 months in a row without any.transaction, which means zero income. The young girl has to spend very sparingly to be able to cover the minimum expenses of expensive life in Saigon.

Initially, Hoa allowed herself a minimum of VND3 million per month, but the increasingly difficult situation forced her to reduce it to VND1.5 million. Except for travel expenses, she was forced to limit her maximum spending to no more than VND15,000 per day. There were no restaurant meals or street food, and her regular food consisted of instant noodles or simple home-cooked rice.

To continue pursuing her chosen career, the graduate took on a part-time job selling smoked boneless ham hocks, a specialty introduced by a relative. Hoa said she considered quitting her job more than 10 times, and many times she shed tears and lost sleep because she doubted her own abilities. However, she later asked herself why she failed so easily and encouraged herself to continue. "What worried me the most was how to have enough monthly expenses to confidently pursue a career as a real estate broker and find the first deal," she recalled.

Hoa confided that the first month without any transactions, she still felt normal, trying to observe people and learn. The second month without any sales, she told herself that she needed to continue thinking, learning from experience, but she had already started to feel hesitant. The third month, she started to feel weak and tired because of financial difficulties. The fourth month, she still hadn't sold any products, not only struggling financially, she was under increasing mental pressure. Friends advised her to give up, pressure from her family to stop being a real estate broker as well as her doubts about herself grew. During this time, there were times when she had to borrow money from friends, the paid advertising accounts supported by her boss were also negative without bringing any results.

The reason for her failure, according to Hoa, was that she was quite shy, passive, and had poor communication skills. While her colleagues had clearly defined goals and had quick and effective methods of approaching customers, she was still vague, did not know what to do, and lacked initiative in her work, just following everyone else. In addition, the Ho Chi Minh City market was large, but there were many regions and areas with brokers who were familiar with the area, leading to a newcomer like her having overlapping clients with experienced brokers.

By the fifth month, with the help of her colleagues, she had a house rental contract, but the commission had to be split in half, only 2 million VND, not enough to pay off the money borrowed from friends, even though it was only a small debt. Hoa ended December 2015 with no money in her pocket, no salary, no bonus, no sales commission, and almost certainly a gloomy Tet at the age of 27.

It was not until the sixth month, which was the beginning of 2016, that Hoa began to approach 3 customers who needed to rent a house and sent their requests and the opportunity to close the deal became clearer. She found optimism about the future because she started to get used to the job, became more active, dynamic, flexible in handling work and had many potential goals.

In addition to her side job as a specialty food saleswoman, she has successfully rented out the entire house she is living in at the foot of Phu My Bridge, District 7, thanks to the sales skills she learned from her senior real estate brokers. These two sources of income help her temporarily feel secure about the basic expenses to stay in the profession.

Sharing with VnExpress, the business administration graduate confided that she understood that being a real estate broker is only 1% luck, the remaining 99% is endless effort. To find and determine the right target, to convince customers to buy the product, one must go through many hardships, sweat, and tears. The challenges did not discourage the young girl, on the contrary, she became stronger.

"Seeing my colleagues earn hundreds of millions of dong, even billions of dong, I have more motivation. I believe I am gradually on the right track and am determined to close successful deals in 2016, fulfilling my ambition of creating a breakthrough income," Hoa said.

According to Express