This is an article I wrote for the Masters Club organization for Sacramento Association of Realtors. Masters Club is the top 10% of Realtors.

As Masters Club members, I’m sure most of us feel blessed and fortunate. The Holiday Season tends to bring out the generosity in us all. We may adopt a family, donate toys, host a blanket drive or serve food to the homeless and some of us may even do all these things! There is something about the holiday season that brings out a desire to help the less fortunate in our community. And it is beautiful.

The Masters Club Steering Committee was created as an entity to help give back to our community. Did you know we operate as a non profit? This year we were able to give about $50,000 to local charities. Our annual golf tournament is where most of these funds are raised. (Thank you Evergreen Home Loans for your generous matching donation to get us to this massive number this year!)

While all this giving is meaningful, I want to encourage you to add another kind of giving to your life this year- and that is to our fellow Realtors. Most of us in the Masters Club are coming off the 2 best years of our careers. But, there are many realtors who are struggling to survive. I know this has always been the case, but I think there is more that we can do as leaders in our industry to help other agents.

There are many ways you can help other agents. A simple idea is to just work from your office more and make yourself available to answer questions from other agents. You can even become a mentor to an agent in your office or hire one as your buyer’s agent if you have more business than you can comfortably handle. You could sign up through SAR’s internship program and become a mentor to an aspiring Realtor for a semester. When given the opportunity to do a transaction with a newer agent on the other side, try not to patronize, but give gentle guidance for them to seek their broker’s counsel if necessary.

I’m sure many of us would not be in our positions without the help of our own mentors. I encourage you to consider how you can turn around and lend a hand to another agent this year.

Rising tides raise all ships.