What It Really Takes to Succeed in Real Estate | The DASHcast Podcast with Derrick Taylor ft. Kasey Proctor

Episode originally aired: July 30, 2026

In this episode of the DASHcast Podcast, the DASH Carolina team dives into Did you know that 75% of real estate agents fail within their first year and 87% leave the business within five years?In this episode of The DASHcast Podcast, Derrick Taylor sits down with Kasey Proct…

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Episode Overview

Did you know that 75% of real estate agents fail within their first year and 87% leave the business within five years?In this episode of The DASHcast Podcast, Derrick Taylor sits down with Kasey Proctor, Broker-in-Charge of the Raleigh office at DASH Carolina, to discuss what separates successful agents from those who struggle. Kasey shares what she looks for in new agents, the habits that create long-term success, common mistakes new agents make, and why discipline matters more than motivation.Whether you're a brand-new agent, considering a career in real estate, or looking to level up your business, this conversation is packed with practical advice from someone who has helped guide hundreds of agents.Subscribe for more conversations with top-producing agents, industry leaders, and real estate professionals.

Full Episode Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript of this DASHcast episode. Some portions may be condensed for readability.

Foreign. If you like your standards high and your growth even faster, pull up a chair because this is the Dash Cast podcast. I’m Derek Taylor and we are here today with the BIC of the Raleigh office for Dash Carolina, Ms. Casey Proctor. Derek, Hello. Thank you for joining us today. We’re going to get in depth into exactly what it is to be a bic, what you look for in agents, things that they should stop doing, and

some other interesting items we’ll discuss. So can you tell me right off the bat, what do people not want to hear about our industry? Sure. Like an agent getting into the industry. So I would say that in the first year, statistics show that 75% of agents are going to fail and then with, and within five years, 87% of them are going to be out of the business. Wow. Yeah. What, what is what. Why, what contributes to

that? Sure. So, I mean, I think there’s a few things one’s going to be. Obviously you don’t know exactly what you’re getting into. I mean, you know, you’re gonna go out, gonna show houses, you’re gonna have a good time. But it’s obviously more than that. What we see on TV, when you go look at three houses and they pick one or when they’re showing 25 million dollar houses in, you know, six inch heels, that’s not what

we do, most of us. Right. The other thing I would say is people, you know, you say, oh, I have a flexible schedule, which we do have flexible schedules, but that also means that we’re working when other people aren’t. Right. So evenings, weekends, those are the things that, you know, you’re working when everybody else isn’t. You might be able to go and have lunch with your kid at school, but then you miss dinner because you’re out

showing houses. Right. I would say another thing is going to be that you’re your own boss. And people, which I would say they don’t want to hear that you want to hear, I’m your own boss. Like I get to choose. But in reality, that’s why most agents will fail, because they don’t have the discipline that it needs to carry through and follow up and, and be in places without having someone to tell them they need to

be there. Exactly. I, I’ve been doing this for about 10 years now, so I’ve seen a lot of agents come and go and it is kind of sad because sometimes you see people making the choices that you know, are going to lead them down the wrong path and, and you try and you know, stop them, but everybody’s gonna. You know, it’s their choice. Right. They don’t have to listen. What made you decide to take the BIC

road? I didn’t have an option. Great answer. It was. It was kind of the progression of. Of my time at dash, but it was. I started off, obviously, as an agent, and then I had a small team of 20. And then I, you know, was the managing partner of the Raleigh office, which has about 180 agents. We go up, we go down. Right. And then, because I was already overseeing all the agents, they were kind of

like, okay, it’s your time. Good luck. Right. So. Yeah. So are there any aspects of having the BIC title that are more challenging than others besides the time? The thing that I dislike the most, which is, I’d say the hardest is, you know, there’s provisional brokers and then there’s brokers. Right. You’re a broker, you’ve finished all of your post licensing. So if you mess up, that’s on you. If you’re a provisional broker, if you mess up,

that’s on me and you. And that’s just really scary. Right, which is why, you know, one of the reasons why we have the systems and processes that we have in place, that we have the different layers of support and so many people is to, you know, protect the agents, but it also, at the same time, protects me. Right. Yeah. Are there things about the provisional agents? Because, I mean, a lot of our audience will be provisional

or new agents. Are there things that you look for that they need to specifically pay close attention to, that you find new agents, make a mistake with? So luckily, we really. We just have so many good systems and processes in place and so many people there to help. Last year, we did 1700 transactions and. And just our office alone. And we all. You’ll hear it. If you’re in real estate, you know, the brown envelope, the yellow

envelope means that someone’s filed a commission complaint. Right out of the 1700 transactions that we did last year, I’d say we maybe had eight complaints. Wow, that’s great. And every single one of those ended up being that our agents, they said, we’ve looked into this. You did the right thing. This was just someone being mad, you know, and looking to point a finger. And we don’t blame you. So I don’t know if that really answers the

question. Yeah, absolutely. What’s the vetting process like? Like someone comes in, they just got their license. What does dash or you look for in that person to say you Know what? They could be a real asset to Dash. So the first one is going to be, are you on time? That’s a big one. If you’re not showing, I mean, it’s an interview. This is your first impression. And if you’re showing up late to an interview with

the potential employer, I mean, you’re not off to a good start. Right. So if you’re going to be late for me, then how do I know you’re not going to be late for your clients? Right. Because we all know how that goes. You need to be there 10 minutes early. You need to have looked into, you know, the background of the house. You need to have an idea of what you’re going to be showing. You’re the

expert. You need to know. So someone coming in and they’re not even on time. Yeah. I mean, it just sets a really bad example. Exactly. Yeah. And you mentioned about time and time management and things like that. You, as a BIC, you’ve got 180 agents under your belt or that you have to keep an eye on, so to speak. What’s your calendar like? It’s full. I have two kids and I have two dogs and a husband,

so it’s pretty much full. I live off of my calendar. My husband and I do, you know, whenever I go to plan anything. Same for you. I’ll Derek, you know, let’s meet for da, da, da, da. Pull up your calendar and I’ll be able to see. But it’s. It’s packed. I live by my calendar, okay. If I have any kind of appointment, it’s going to be on there. I even have reminders for myself. But being organized,

that’s one of the things that will help you be extremely successful no matter what you do. Right? Is there a task that you’ve had to do so far since you became the BIC of the Raleigh office that you just cringed and didn’t either want to do it or just upset you to the point where you kept putting it off? I asked the hard question. Sorry. No, I hate. I personally, I don’t like the administration. Administration part,

administrative part. I would rather be, like, talking to agents. And, you know, that’s one of the big parts of my job, is going around and talking to them and knowing about you and your family and your new house that you bought and your new puppy. How is she? Bailey’s great. She’s doing good, actually. I wish she had be she could have come today, but, you know, I’m sure she would have been too loud. As far as

being the BIC of the Raleigh office. What let the agents who are watching this and anyone else out there, what does the bicycle have to watch over? Like what give them an explanation of. Not necessarily a day to day, but what does that mean to someone who doesn’t understand what a BIC does? What’s my day to day? Kind of like what I again, it’s going to be coming into the office, talking to people, finding out how

their weekends were, how many showings they have. A lot of times it’s, they’re asking my opinion. We’re obviously, I don’t know if you talk about this. We’re a Zillow brokerage. We do a lot of Zillow deals. So a lot of my stuff is going to be getting into the details of Zillow. Why are my leads not on? Right. You know, I haven’t gotten any calls. What’s going on? I live in Wake Forest, but I just got

a call in Smithfield. It’s a lot of Zillow related questions and it’s also a lot of in the field, like can we get some of your expertise? Are you getting contacted like every day, all day from agents asking questions or is it something where it comes in spurts and you’re still able to handle the things that you need to do on a daily basis? Yeah, it’s that, it’s the second one. I mean there’s of course there’s

some days where it’s back to back to back. But overall, again, I’m not trying to, I’m just telling it how it is. I’m not trying to sell anybody on anything. Right. But like we have so many systems and processes and so many helpful things in place that it kind of like before the problem, when a problem gets to me, that’s bad. That means that it’s already gone through multiple people, multiple conversations. It’s like we really need

some help. So if I do get a big when a question comes to me again, if it’s not just our day to day talking, sometimes when agents call, I’m like, oh gosh, what happened? That’s how I answer my phone. No, it’s not a big deal. I’m like, okay. But that’s just. Yeah, it’s like, okay, this person’s calling me. There’s a fire I have to put out. Exactly why are you calling me? Yeah, what’s the fire? Or

don’t call me. Yes, yeah, I got you. So because you have 180 agents under you and you know you’re Basically responsible for what happens as far as the functionality of the office. Are there times where the agent has gotten blamed for something and you’ve had to step in to handle the transaction for them or anything like that? Yeah, like if I. I don’t ever have to step in because we have the ops in place. You know,

when people hear things like, oh, I’ve had 200 closings. What for someone who doesn’t know what that means, can you tell them what that entails? Sure. So it’s over 200. Over 200. So how silly of me. 201 closing. 225. Right. But what is that? What does that take? Yeah, what does it take? It takes, you know, being your own boss and getting things done on your own. One of the reasons that I like real estate is

because the harder I work, the more opportunities I have and the more success I see. Whereas in other industries, you know, you’re capped. You could be the hardest worker in the room, but you’re capped at a salary. Exactly right. And so that’s what I really like about real estate is the more time and energy you put in and the better you get and the more you practice, the better you are and the more confidence you have.

Right. That’s when you’re going to see results. And in the beginning, it’s obviously harder. You don’t have a pipeline, you don’t have past client referrals. Nobody. We say the three steps. Steps. Get in front of them. Get them to like you, get them to trust you. You’re starting at zero. You’re a sleazy agent that has no sales. Why should I like you and why should I Damn sure not going to trust you? Exactly. So building that

relationship. Yeah. But, yeah, it’s just grinding. It’s putting in the time, it’s practicing, it’s going. It’s using every opportunity that you can in every minute of the day. Just because you don’t have showings doesn’t mean that I’m going to go out shopping or I’m going to stay home and watch TikTok for six hours, you know. Yeah. There’s administrative stuff that has to be done. Yeah. And I’m taking that time to learn. I’m taking that time I

used to go out, show myself houses. I would shadow every opportunity I can. I would go to as many inspections as I possibly could. I remember I’d been in real estate for like three years at a time, and I was. I had nothing to do that day. I was in the office just you know, doing computer stuff. And Quentin was going to go Show A, like, $3.6 million house, which today is probably like $6 million. Right.

So I hadn’t. I had never done that before, and I was like, I’m in. And I would just take every opportunity I could to go shadow and to learn. Yeah. But that’s really what it takes, is to, again, build your confidence, because it just gets easier. It’s hard in the beginning, but the more you do it, the more you see, the more you can look back and say, I’ve seen this before. I know how this is

going to end. And to catch those mistakes or to handle a problem, which is a great nugget for a new agent, because we talk a lot about coming to the office. It’s better for you to come into the office. You can hear different scenarios and know what to expect when it happens to you. But not only coming into the office, but if you’re there, or if you know somebody’s going to go do a showing or an

inspection or something like that, it is great to tag along. Because unless you’ve gone through every scenario, possibly to mankind for real estate, which you never will. Exactly. At least you’ll know how to handle the one that you did. Go and take the time to do a little extra investigation or tagging along with someone. That’s how I knew you were going to be good. Because when you first started, I mean, you shadowed me. I can’t even

count how many times to this day we still sit next to each other, talk things through. Right. Right. Yeah. You’re at the office almost every day. Yeah. But I knew you’d be good getting into real estate because you came in, you wanted to learn. You didn’t have your three check boxes where it says shadow, three people, check, check, check. It was like, okay, I shattered my three people, but I need to continue this. So you know

all this stuff. Thank you. You’ve done it. Yes. You’re almost at 100. Almost. We’re almost there. What are we, 90? 93? 93. Yeah, something like that. And I’ve been tasked to get my last few contracts before the next graduation, which is not going to happen. I don’t. It’s in two weeks. It’s too many. Too much pressure. Yeah. Not that it couldn’t be done, but it’s too much pressure. And it’s not. It’s. It’s. It’s about the clients

and finding the right house. And you’re never going to push anybody. No, Absolutely not. So not this graduation, but the next graduation. Yeah, absolutely. So back to the agents that could learn from a more seasoned agent’s mistakes. What’s the one thing that you would tell someone that you did as a new agent that you wish you could do over? Hmm. That I wish I could do over. What do I wish I could do? You thought about

it and you said, you know, I really jacked that up. I mean, I. I know you have so many to choose from. I was gonna say I did everything perfect, so skip the question. I know you have so many to choose from. I don’t have any, but we only want you to pick one. I really don’t know. What could I do to change things? Did you offer too much information? Did you not help them with the

price correctly? Do you wish you had shown somebody a different house or they had bought a different house? Were there ever any inspections that there was so much crap that came up, but think that there was. No, of course not. No. No. So we’re gonna take a commercial break now. No, no, I really think I am. I’m just. I’m trying to think, I guess. Okay, here we go. I got it. So you hear this. You hear

this. We say, take the emotion out of real estate. That is. He’s laughing. He’s heard that hundreds of times. For me, that’s something that I learned from Quentin. Take the emotion out of real estate. It’s such an emotional process for everyone involved. Yes. I mean, you have the buyers and the sellers. You have both agents. And we all know, like, things don’t go perfectly, things can get heated. Right. If you’re in there and you’re fueling the

fire or you’re, you know, be telling. If I’m just telling my client everything and not kind of like protecting them. Right. They can get overwhelmed. Yeah. And once I learn to take my emotion out and just stick to the facts. Because you’ll have agents who get mad at you and will raise their voice and yell at you. Yeah. You’ll have clients who, you know, very rarely, but they exist, you know, where they will get angry with

you. Yeah. And so if you can take the emotion out, it just makes things so much easier for everybody. And once I was able to do that, I mean, I just. Everything took off. Are you. I know your calendar is jam packed and you live by it, but you are still practicing. Correct. Yeah. How do you incorporate that with all the responsibilities that you have as a BIC one? Because I have the past clients that I

have because there’s been so many I do get referrals. I got one. Was it Saturday? It was either Saturday or Sunday. I got an email. Hey, my friend told me that I had to use you to buy a home. We set up a call yesterday. We talked. Their lease is up in September, so we’re gonna go find something. I had an appointment this morning with a buyer. It was a design appointment for new construction and it

was a referral from somebody that I helped buy in 2017. And then they came back and bought again with me last year. Nice. So it is easier for me to the leads at this point. The clients come to me versus with Zillow, when you’re just getting started and I’d have to go out and meet them. Yeah. So that does help. And again, because I’ve seen so much, I kind of know where things are heading. I know

how to manage my time. I know how to manage my schedule now. Right. So it’s really not difficult. I’m at the office every single day. I’m always available to help. That’s the other thing is I can meet with you if you have a question, you know, you can call me at 9 o’ clock and I’m there to help. Yeah, absolutely. With the success that Dash has clearly had and is still having, do you find that it

really lies on the backs of the new agents that are incorporated into the fold, or do you find that something else is the answer as to why Dash is so successful? I would say it’s up to the agent. It’s going to be what you give is what you get. It truly is. You know that. I know that. We’ve seen it. And like I said, as a new onboarding agent, I saw what you were willing to do

and the time and energy you were willing to put. Put in. I knew that you would be successful. Someone who shows up one day, their boot camp, and then we don’t see them again for three months. Right. Probably not going to work. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that in the onboarding classes that it would be helpful for, even though some of the instructors are seasoned agents, but to get a different perspective, have people come in and

talk to the new agents, have them do a question and answer that kind of thing, either about Dash or their experience. Experience. Maybe incorporate that into the onboarding process? Because, you know, those people, we were just out of school, we didn’t know how to be an agent. Is this your plug to. Basically, you can watch this. No. So that they. They get an idea of. Of what it’s like and it’s A more intimate kind of, you

know, experience for them to be in that room going through the onboarding classes and then have somebody come in and they could just beat them up with questions. Because that’s what I needed. I needed to go to somebody and say, so what was it like to do this? And what is it like to, you know. But some people are just afraid to ask those questions. And so we do have those pro panels where we have them

about once a month and people will, you know, we have different topics, we have different trainings, and it is a panel of top agents of the best of the best of, you know, whatever the topic is, because it’s not always going to be the same people. We want to hear those different voices, which is, you know, something that’s super important is finding your own voice. And it might be hearing it from you and some from her

and some from him and putting it together and finding your own. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I mean, as. As many opportunities as you can to hear the different voices, as long as they’re saying the right thing. Right. Let’s do it. Perfect. Well, thank you, Casey Proctor, for stopping past. Of course. And if you’re ever in the neighborhood, please feel free to stop by again. Stop by here? Yeah, why not? Thank you for joining us today.

I’m Derek Taylor, and if you could follow like and send us any of your suggestions for the podcast, we would love to hear what you want to know and what you want to hear. Again, I’m Derek Taylor, and thank you for joining us for the dashcast podcast.