Agents, what matters most to you about your brokerage?

Do you remember the day you got your real estate license and joined your brokerage office? In all likelihood, it was a happy day for you and it was the first step on the path for you to become independent, helping others pursue their dreams while simultaneously pursuing your own.

What’s interesting is the process that people use to choose the brokerage that they associate themselves with.

I know people use different criteria, such as the freedom to run your own business, training, leads, desk space, support, compensation, advertising, brand recognition and I have even heard people say they chose a certain brand because of the color of the blazers that their agents wear on commercials.

What ever the reason, I’ll bet that your needs and wants regarding your brokerage have changed with time. Experience in the real estate business tends to change the priority of the criteria mentioned above.

"Pong is no longer a high tech game, cell phones that only make phone calls are passé and commission splits with the brokerage are history!" 

First off, Realtors don’t wear brightly colored blazers with their franchises name on the pocket these days as they once did in the 80’s. Also, when you begin in the real estate business, you assume that brand recognition is a huge thing. In actuality, people really do business with individual agents. The big box real estate franchises would like to think that they have customers who are loyal to their particular brand, but the fact is any loyalty is given to the individual agent, not the franchise.

Desk space and use of the company fax, phone and copiers was once an important aspect of working for a brokerage. Now days most people have a home office that is not only tax deductible, but is more convenient and often time better equipped that most real estate offices.

The days of the full page real estate ads in the Sunday paper are over. Now days, folks hunt for a home on the internet primarily. What does this mean to the individual agent, it means that an individual agent or small group of agents can compete on a level playing field with huge big box franchise companies for the customers searching for a home at any given time. What matters most to consumers now days is that you have a presence on the web and that it may be even greater than a national company.

This leaves five areas that are most important to agents these days, freedom to run your own business, training, leads, support and compensation. Let’s take each of these areas separately.

1. The freedom to run your own business is huge. This means you decide where and when to advertise, how much commission to charge and much more.
2. These days training is not controlled any longer by the brokerage that you work for, but can come from sources such as webinars, your local MLS association or any number of other sources. You sign up for what you want or need and get it quickly and easily.
3. Let’s be honest here, buyer and seller leads from your brokerage company sounds good, but how many actual leads has your broker given you? If you have received leads, how good were they and how much did they cost you? Experience shows that 99.9% of agents leads come from activities and sources they control.
4. Support these days comes in the form of the brokerage keeping the agent straight with the state licensing authorities with such things as record keeping, licensing and insurance.
5. Most experienced agents in real estate today not only want, but demand 100% of their commission. You do the Lion’s share of the work, why not get the Lion’s share of the commissions?

What this all boils down to is where can you find all of the important items listed above that agents want plus more? The answer to this is simple, Florida’s Beautiful Homes™. You will find all of the important needs of today’s real estate battle tested agents plus more.

For a complete list of our pluses click here. 

Dave Tipton, Managing Broker