Lindsay Sanger Norton

I attribute my success to having a very strong work ethic - I'm not afraid to put in the work on something, and in fact, I look forward to being able to work hard on projects. I've learned to be very smart about what I work on, because you could work on things that aren't going to be successful or yield any kind of results all day long. I'm always asking myself: does this make sense for what I'm trying to accomplish? Because I will work until something's completed, but I've also learned that sometimes you have to say this is not working and this isn't going in the right direction, and as hard as this is, I'm going to stop working on this and start working on this other thing that would be the smarter move. It's about combining that strong work ethic with strategic thinking about where to focus my efforts.

The best career advice I’ve ever received is to work strategically and stick to a strict schedule for prospecting for leads, focusing my time and energy on the areas that create the return and impact instead of trying to do everything. Everyday you have to remember that no one will save you or owes you anything so you can make money or you can make excuses.

My strongest advice to young women entering real estate is to get with strong leadership - it doesn't necessarily have to be another woman, but you need somebody who can help you really navigate the industry, because the failure rate in our industry is extremely high. It's higher than 80 percent. This is a hard business, it's a tough business, it's cutthroat, and you really need a strong leader to help you - not necessarily someone who will handcuff you to where you're always stuck on their team and never have any other opportunities, but someone who can point you in the right directions, who wants to see you be successful, and who wants to see those things happen for you, versus hiding you away and selfishly using your talents or skills for themselves. Having that proper leadership and direction can make the difference between success and becoming another statistic in an industry where so many new agents fail.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in my field is overcoming difficult shifts and trends in our industry. Being an early thought leader on this has been and continues to be a challenge and impacted many aspects of my career and life. These experiences required me to stay focused, resilient, and committed to consistently proving my value through results rather than allowing difficult times to define my trajectory. Over time, I learned that building a strong reputation grounded in performance, integrity, and professionalism is one of the most effective ways to overcome and continue establish credibility in the industry.

The values most important to me are integrity and making sure I never compromise my reputation for a single transaction. A lot of times in real estate, people will approach you to maybe not necessarily full-on mislead someone, but maybe leave something out or not fully investigate something because it would benefit that one transaction or situation. I always try to look at the bigger picture and ask myself: is this something that would make me feel like I don't have integrity in what I do? If the answer to that is yes, then it's a no for me. I don't ever want to be who you think of when as the shady agent that people go to when they want to make sure something goes through no matter what. At the same time, I do think one of the biggest values you can have in business is being a person who makes things easy for people - being someone who can make a situation agreeable for everybody involved, even when things can be very contentious. That's a huge skill that a lot of people don't realize how valuable it is. But I also know the difference between making things work smoothly and knowing when to say, no, I'm killing this deal at this point because it's just not worth losing a piece of my values.