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Recruiting agents

I am a broker - owner of a small independent startup real estate office located in Lake County Illinois and as such I am in charge of recruiting for our company ... Mipeco Realty, Inc. I could write this blog with the plan to attract and recruit more agents. However, that is not the intended purpose of me writing here.

... Little bit about us ...We are NOT a traditional real estate company, but rather a small office offering great amount of flexibility to both agents and clients! We realize the importance of adjusting to new market conditions and trends!

... Now, I am not looking for a "cheat sheet" with answers on how I should design my recruiting strategy ... my goal is to recruit agents who will last ... who will not consider us being only a "transit station" between now and the future ... I would simply like to make this into a pleasant experience and build a great team who will work with each other and not consider everyone else in the office a competition. Any agent who stays for a long term saves me unnecessary recruiting efforts in the future!

My question is ... as a potential recruit, what would make it easier for you, the agent, to decide to join us? What is important to you? ... is it the vision of better commission split? ... more independence? ... smaller office environment? ...obviously, a "name recognition" isn't going to work in my case because the office is only a startup, but that is only for now! ... what way of recruiting do you consider acceptable? ... being actively targeted? ... or passively targeted receiving general recruiting information and contacting the brokerage company yourself once you decide it's time to research your options?

Any suggestions and comments (not limited to Illinois) will be greatly appreciated! ... and for those agents living and working in Northern Illinois, if you are thinking about exploring other options, call me at 847-791-1372 or e-mail me at mkrestenic@mipeco.com.

Posted by Michaela Krestenic on 12/03/2006 05:34 PM

Comments (4)

recruiting, real estate, professionals, agents, brokers, illinois, lake county

4 Comments on Recruiting agents

Michaela, I am a loan officer but recently companies like Keller Williams and Buyers Capital started to recruit and steal agents from other offices here in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I believe they had better commission splits and each agent was considered a part of the company so they had bonuses and profits that were made by the company.

12/03/2006 06:16 PM

by Nima Countrywide Home Loans CT Mortgage CT Mortgage CT First Time Home Buyer FHA (Countrywide Bank, FSB: CT Mortgage, CT FHA, CT Home Loans)

Nima, thank you for your response. Better commission splits are something that anyone can use in my opinion ... especially with the market being quite slow in many areas right now ... working for a company with a great recognition may be of a benefit to some but what good is it if you have to pay a substantial desk fee or start at 50/50 as a new agent?

... A lot of companies have their commission schedules designed based on yearly volume / Gross commission / etc. ... if they don't have enough sales, their split goes down ... but why punish the agents for the market conditions, which they can't change on their own? ... it's hard enough to survive in this business as is! ... I will much rather value agents overall experience!

12/04/2006 10:51 AM

by Mipeco Realty, Inc

Michaela: The reason I moved from the "Name Brand" to Global Realty Marketing was the first thing from my brokers mouth was "I will not compete with you". My broker does not list or sell at all. He is there for me whenever I need him and I can build a team with residual income. I don't know if that will work for you as you are the broker/owner, but I know it made a difference for me.

Another thought, have a well laid out office policy that defines the lead process and how office issues will be dealt with. I understand it is hard to come up with a quick "blurb", but you need to realize that conflict is going to happen and your associates will need to know how it will be handled by you.

Feel free to call me with any questions regarding our structer, it may help you set up yours.

03/04/2007 09:47 AM

by Theresa Cavanaugh (Global Realty Marketing)

Michaela:

Agents generally are not as strong as their Broker. As an Independent Broker, I have 65 agents and I know how they think. They need a crutch. We designed our office to look like a Franchise and the consumer thinks we are. We pay the most money to them we can, etc and we give them much flexibility to negotiate as they need to.

This better explains it and what we look and act like:

www.realtyflex.net

Dave

08/08/2007 05:27 AM

by RealtyFlex

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