Age: 28

Home: Brooklyn Park

Job title: Partner of BF Schaffer. I am a property owner.

What do you do? I take tax records of building owners and call on them to see if they are interested in buying or selling buildings. I create income by buying and selling properties.

Salary: It depends on the market. Typically above $150,000.

Education: High school

Typical day: I try to make 25 to 50 calls a day and read a lot about anything from the Asian real estate market to the U.S. real estate market.

How did you get your job? I went to a small private school and was a teacher's aide for a kindergarten teacher whose husband was in the mortgage and real estate business. A woman who did business with the school owned the company that the teacher's husband worked for. Eight months after I graduated they asked if I was interested in pursuing a career in the mortgage/real estate business. I worked there for five years. There was a gentleman who ... was leaving his father's business to start his own and, over a 12-month period, I probably called him once a week asking if he needed help. About eight months later, he asked if I wanted to start a small property management company together and do real estate on the side. He figured we would make $35,000 a year. I worked both jobs and eventually started working exclusively with him, working for free for the first year. ... The company grew exponentially as we started doing condo developments. Four years later, I started my own company with another guy.

What about your job gets you going on Monday morning? It's exciting to work for yourself on a couple of levels; [you are] not capped on your potential income. ... and it's exciting to feel that you can kind of control your day. It's also exciting to think that one day I might have one of my three kids run the business.

What kind of person would be a good fit for a job like yours? Someone with an inner drive, personable and outgoing. You get "no" all the time and you have to get to the "yes" that lies within that person.

Advice for others? People get into real estate without researching it, think it's easy and that it just comes to you. Also, it's about being selective, not just jumping into it. You have to own property that makes sense.

What has best prepared you for this job? Prayer and goal-setting and some of the relationships that have been put in my path.

Networking tips: Don't give up. Be real and act like yourself. Try to be honest. If they don't accept us for who we are, move on. Set goals -- I've had a book where I add goals ever since I was 14.

ELENA KIBASOVA