When children draw pictures of their parents, they sometimes depict them in the roles they fulfill in the family. A youngster might portray a working parent carrying a briefcase as they leave the house, for example.
When Amanda Durham drew pictures of her father, Chattanooga Realtor Randy Durham, she showed him talking on the phone. Although she didn’t fully understand what he was discussing, she knew he was working and she was to leave him alone.
Now 34 and an agent on her father’s team at Keller Williams Greater Downtown Realty, Amanda knows why she remembers him with a phone attached to his ear: If a Realtor isn’t prospecting, then they’re helping a client, and when they have a client, they’re in constant demand.
Amanda says this gave her a realistic view of what being a Realtor is like as she followed her father into the profession.
“A lot of people think Realtors show houses and work four hours a day,” she says. “No. Dad was working all the time, and to be successful and build your business, you need that flexibility.”
Amanda began working for father in 2013 in an administrative capacity. Clutching an undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, she focused primarily on digital marketing.
She says she liked the data-driven aspect of the work and discovered she has a knack for search engine optimization.
“That’s how my brain works,” she says. “I can be too analytical at times, but it’s a strength of mine.”
Amanda eventually began to manage all the day-to-day operations of her father’s business. As she took on more and more responsibility and found herself multitasking perpetually, she faced her first true challenge in real estate: learning to delegate.
“I have a control freak living inside me, so that was a struggle,” she laughs. “But the top producers in real estate say you have to delegate, so I figured if I learned that early on, I could get somewhere someday.”
Amanda says she was comfortable as she labored behind the scenes. Her father existed in the public eye, both as a top agent and as a servant of his profession. And as he did the civic work that had led Greater Chattanooga Realtors to name him Realtor of Year earlier in his career, and as he served as president of Tennessee Realtors in 2016, Amanda liked operating in the background.
Over time, however, she says she developed a desire to step out of her box.
“At first, I didn’t want a role that would put me face-to-face with others. But the more time I spent working independently, the more I craved being in contact with people.”
The desire for human interaction produced another challenge for Durham to overcome: leaving her comfort zone.
“Working behind the scenes was easy, but life begins outside your comfort zone,” she muses. “It’s only human to want to stay in your comfort zone, but you have to push yourself out of it if you want to learn anything. I’ve never been one to seek attention, so that was a first for me.”
Amanda began working part-time as an agent in May 2021. Her father wanted her to assist with listings, which gave her a niche to cover, but buyer demand was high so she leaned in that direction instead.
Doing double duty generated a third and final challenge for Durham to conquer on the road to becoming a full-fledged agent: letting go of her regular paycheck.
“I was burning the candle at both ends and became frustrated because I couldn’t give 100% to either of the jobs I was doing,” Amanda recalls. “Several people close to me told me to bite the bullet and quit my administrative job, and other agents said going full-time was the only way they were able to make money, so I did.”
Much like Amanda’s skills at search engine optimization fueled her success as a digital marketer, her flair for self-learning powered her through her first few months as a Realtor. While her father was available when she needed him, she says her lifelong proclivity for independence enabled her to dig up the answers to many of her questions on her own.
“He’s not a hand holder,” Amanda says of her father. “ He might become frustrated because I don’t go to him enough, but he’s never been a helicopter parent.”
Amanda says she believes her sink-or-swim approach to learning the ropes as a Realtor has made her a problem solver and given her the confidence to remain calm when her clients aren’t.
“When a client isn’t handling stress well, I have to remain levelheaded and focus on the issue,” Amanda notes. “I also have to take my ego out of the equation and remember they’re not mad at me, they’re upset about the transaction.”
If there’s one thing Amanda says she could use less of while working, it’s prospecting. But she says she remembers watching her father spend hours on his phone when she was young and believes her success will be a factor of the amount of effort she makes.
“I don’t like spending all my time making calls. I wish my phone would ring and I’d have business,” she laughs. “But I have to prospect and put myself out there. Any guru who tells you prospecting is dead is full of it. Cold calling and pursuing your own leads will never go away.
“Some agents are purely sphere-based, and I would love to be, but I’m not there yet. Thankfully, I’m more comfortable calling strangers than I thought I would be. My first call was awkward, but prospecting is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.”
As Amanda looks at the year ahead, she’s aiming to double the income she made when she was working as an administrator and a part-time agent. She knows this will require her to work diligently in 2023, as the market has shifted from when contracts were dropping out of the sky like rain.
Amanda says she realizes the image of her with a phone attached to her ear creates a parallel between her and her father. But she says she’s not trying to duplicate his career or live up to his legacy.
“I don’t feel pressured to do that. Some people fall into that trap but I don’t measure my self worth by anyone else’s success. If I chart my own course, my success will come.”