You can love your brokerage. You might think it's the best brand ever and your broker is the greatest person on earth. You're fully bought in and have no plans to EVER change.
And just like that, things can change.
Maybe you're working for an indie brokerage and Big Box brokerage makes an offer that can't be refused.
Maybe you're part of a one broker operation and not to be morbid, but you're one heartbeat away from suddenly not having a broker.
We've personally been with the RE/MAX brand for our entire careers (as of 1/11/2022, always subject to change!). But even within that brand, we've been affiliated with three brokerages (one move by choice (which happened prior to an unexpected brand change), the other by merger).
So how to you minimize your personal risk to a brokerage disruption?
Know YOU need to be responsible for yourself and not your broker/brokerage. That doesn't mean you're not answerable to your broker or brand, but understand that YOU are responsible for executing your business plans and generating business.
Don't plan to be a nomad, but be prepared to move.
- Have an email that is independent of your brokerage. (e.g. we're Liz@LizSpear.com).
- Along the same lines, as much as state license laws allow, push your own phone number and not the general office phone number.
- Don't set up your usernames/profile names to be brand specific (e.g. our ActiveRain ID is lizspear, not lizspearremax)
- While it may be smart to leverage the SEO of your brokerage website, I'd rather have the emphasis on our own site with IDX search. When our brokerage merged last year it was less than a day for our website support people to switch our site's brokerage name to the new name. Any work I've done on the site is protected and ours no matter what happens with our brokerage.
- When you blog, consider keeping brokerage names to your signature file and profile details. Can you imagine needing to go back and edit 1000s of blog posts to remove a name to be compliant with your state's license law? Keep it in your ActiveRain signature block and your profile and a few clicks later every post is updated.
- If using a CRM, is it brokerage provided or your own? Again, nothing wrong with using your brokerage's tools, but have a Plan B, and that applies for any tool your brokerage provides.
- Do you know the process for your state if you need to switch brokerages?
- What is your office policy if you switch? What happens to "your" listings? Any closings in the pipeline?
- Have you checked out your options for other brokerages so if you need to switch on short notice, you're not starting from scratch?
Just food for thought. Maybe you never need to make a switch, but it's best to be ready just in case. Life can be funny that way.
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help.
Bill & Liz aka BLiz
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