“I felt like Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” says Brett Andreassen of being named the 2015 REIQ residential salesperson of the year. At 29, Andreassen is certainly a young winner, but says, “I’ve been doing it for 10 years now so I don’t feel that young!”

Before real estate, Andreassen was a bartender at The Regatta Hotel in Toowong, working mostly on a tips-only basis. A natural salesman, he was pulling $400 to $500 in tips each night “just through customer service.” One afternoon, a patron who was sitting at the bar chatting asked Andreassen what his plan was. “He said, ‘Well you’ve really got two options, you could jump on a cruise ship and do bar tending all around the world, or you could start selling something a bit bigger. How about real estate?’” says Andreassen. “I’d never even moved house at the time, but I started to explore that option. I had a look around at some of the different agencies, and did the Ray White cadetship program.”

He ended up working at Doug Disher Real Estate because the family environment of the firm was very nurturing toward a young agent. “It actually took me three or four interviews to get a go, Doug probably thought I was a bit too young because I was 19 at the time,” says Andreassen. “In the end, he gave me an apprenticeship to work alongside him. He gave me a chance when realistically no one else was willing to give me a go because I was so young. All the others were saying I needed to have a minimum of two years experience or a proven track record. I don’t know how people are meant to get a go when everyone says you need two years experience but no one is willing to give the two years experience.”

Andreassen believes mentoring is key to success in the industry. “Everyone wants to try and poach someone who is doing well from someone else, no one wants to put the time and energy into building someone from scratch,” he says. “That’s why the churn rate is so high in real estate, because no one is willing to train the young rookies that are coming through.”

Now that his career is flourishing, Andreassen has people trying to poach him away from Doug Disher. “I’m big on loyalty, he gave me a go and I want to repay that,” he says. “Realistically, I’ve put sweat, blood and tears into the business, why would I want to chop and change?”

In terms of starting his own firm, Andreaasen says he wouldn’t want the headaches. “I’m a salesperson, I enjoy the lifestyle,” he says. “If the printer breaks down, I don’t want to deal with that.”