Book excerpt: In the Real Estate industry, as in most sales professions, prospecting is a dirty word. Far too many people enter the field of Real Estate believing they can wait for the phone to ring and earn a great living. Unfortunately, many new agents set themselves up for failure by this approach to the business.A real estate professional¿s goal is to list and sell real estate. One of the primary keys to being successful is to identify those people who truly want or need to move, and find a way to meet with them. This concept of identifying and targeting likely buyers and sellers is called prospecting, and it is a process, not an event.