While visiting a broker open house this week I had the opportunity to chat with several team members from another brokerage.  I asked the group the question, "Why did you choose your company?"  It was very interesting to hear the responses.  It was not the commission split, it was not the tiered profit sharing plan, the consistent answer was flexibility.  My next question was, "How so?"  Several items came up, and one by one I mentally checked off that Coldwell Banker offers our agents all of these things. 

The area of debate that came up was individual branding.  This particular organization heavily promotes the agents brand themselves.  I know this is true as many times when I see a sign in the yard I don't know what company that individual works for until I see the company name in tiny letters in the bottom corner.  One of the agents actually stated that it really doesn't matter what company you work for, it is the individual that the client hires.  I knew there was no point in arguing this statement, but I quietly thought to myself, boy is she ever missing the boat.  If brand doesn't matter why does our entire consumer economy revolve around it?  If the price were the same, would you buy a Sony TV or a Vizio?  When you go to a restaurant, do you ask for a cola or a Coke?  Do you reach for a tissue or a Kleenex? 

Don't get me wrong, I am a true believer in agents marketing their personal businesses, but the smart ones do it in conjunction with a major brand name.  To back up my statement I offer a couple of quick facts.  First, according to the "Real Estate Top 200," sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and Real Trends, 45 of the top 200 real estate professionals were NRT associates in 2006.  NRT is Coldwell Banker's parent company.  In addition, our regional management team recently compiled statistics for the Greater Washington DC/Northern Virginia area comparing productivity per agent of the largest real estate companies in our market place.  Over the past 12 months, Coldwell Banker agents were outperforming our friends mentioned above by 83% on a productivity per agent basis. 

Finally, I share one last case in point.  An agent on my team came to me this week to share a great opportunity that found him.  Steve Lizik received a call from a client that is overseas in Paris to have him list a $1 million + parcel of land for him.  As any good agent would do, Steve inquired how the client found him.  The client knew the Coldwell Banker name, located our office website, and then selected Steve as the best agent for the job.