I've finally gotten around to attending a Keller Williams career night. This is a monthy meeting designed to introduce the Keller Williams business model to people considering becoming an agent at KW. At this meeting I learned that ReMAX was actually one of the major forces responsible for the Keller Williams business model.

It seems that way back in the days that Gary Keller was running his brokerage office in Austin, a new kid on the block arrived - ReMAX. ReMAX made a big splash in the Austin market with their business model and most of Keller's top agents were walking out the door to go join ReMAX.

Gary Keller caught up with them on the sidewalk and asked them to come back in and talk. His question to them was - If you could design a real estate company, what would it look like? His agents started with three major points:

• 100% Commisions
• Great Training
• Retirement

From these discussions Keller Williams Realty and the innovative KW business model evolved into what it is today. And that group of agents and Keller at the boardroom table has evolved into the International Agent Leadership Council. The IALC is the corporate entity comprised of agents and officers that continually evolve the business model.

Each Keller Williams office is governed and driven by their local ALC. All decisions on how the office is operated come from these councils. The Keller Williams' business model is agent-centric. An example; KW does not advertise the franchise to increase brand awareness. This can be seen as an upside or a downside. On the upside, the brokerage isn't taking money out of the agents' pockets to advertise the franchise. Agents are encouraged to spend that money on branding themselves and their business. On the downside is lack of KW brand recognition in communities where Keller Williams has yet to establish market share. 

In Danville, we had a recent meeting called by the ALC to discuss brand advertising in our communities. The ALC had discussed the benefits of this and then brought it to the agents to see what people wanted to do. The vote was unanimous to implement some KW brand advertising in our local community publications. The cost - $5.00 a month per agent.

That's the KW business model in operation - leave as much money as possible in the agents' pockets and let them make the decisions on how to spend THEIR money to build THEIR business.

I like it. We like it.