2016 Swanepoel Power 200 List

Brigitte Jones I reviewed the list and I have to opine that I disagree with so many of the choices. There are so many more influential people with much higher sales numbers and market impact. This must have been a popularity contest or did Swanepoel sell-out?

Sandy Padula and Norm Padula, JD, GRI  Hi there, let me start my comment by saying that after 10 years of working in the brokerage world, I now work for the T3 Group.

The SP 200 is not a ranking based on sales volume, although there was a minimum threshold of $1 billion for 500 agents for a brokerage. The people on the list represent many categories in the industry, including MLSs, Associations. technology vendors and coaching/education/consulting. Stefan and his team -- and I was involved this past year -- spend countless hours documenting the activities and successes of over 1,000 industry leaders throughout the year.

The criteria for "influence" was quite strenuously debated: is it how many people that person can instruct, or how big a check she can write on her own, or the number of subscribers or users of a product? Brokers who are doing something interesting or novel are noticed, with a look at how many people that something affects.

I'll tell you one thing that I learned in my first go around, is that sending Stefan and his staff emails on why you're qualified and deserve to be included gets a look, but criticizing the choice of including specific people in previous years backfires.