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Anthony Lamacchia: What’s more important to you, getting a higher split or growing your business? Think about “that one. What’s more important, higher split? Grow your business? Many agents, the` mistake that they’re making is they’re chasing that highest split. I have news for you. No matter what company you’re at, there’s always a company that will give you back more of your commission.
There’s always a company with a higher split. Last week, I did a video right here and I talked about companies that pay people to stay and pay people to join. Why are they doing that? Oftentimes, when companies do that in businesses, they do it because they don’t have much else to offer. When companies have a lot to offer, they don’t need to offer money. Remember my Starbucks example, they don’t pay you $2 to go in there every day. Think about that. What is more important to you?
It’s like saying to a seller, “Well, what’s more important to you, a higher price or a lower commission?” Same type of thing. What’s more important to you as an agent, a higher split or doing more business? Think about that. Value is what is necessary. There are companies out there in existence, and my company’s not the only one, that know how to help agents grow their businesses, that know how to supply them with the right amount of leads that they need especially for new agents, training, support, services. Think of top agents.
I talked about this last week in that video. Top agents, they just need more help because they’re running around like crazy every day, doing everything themselves, getting no help, no assistance, no guidance, no support. Unfortunately, this is what our industry has turned into. Why has it turned into that? Because it became a race to the bottom. It started about 15 or 20 years ago and got really bad about five years ago.
What it turned into is a bunch of broker-owners competing for, “Well, I’m going to give more. I’m going to give more.” Then agents, broker-owners get under pressure. They start feeling people leave. When people leave and what do they do? Well, I’m going to add a cap now. Let’s give back more, give back more of the commission. Instead of, “I’m going to give more value. I’m going to provide more training. I’m going to provide more leads. I’m going to advertise and put the money into things that’ll make it easier for agents to sign up listings, to sign up buyers.”
Think about that. How many brokerages out there charge a marketing fee? Then that marketing fee money goes to headquarters in some other state. How many brokerages spend the money in their own community on the agents? Think about that. We’re not the only one. There’s plenty of privately held brokerages across the country. My point is, I want to go back to the original question. What is more important to you, growing or a higher split?
If you were to give up 10% of your split as an example, I just picked that number out of my head, but you doubled your business, would it be worth it? Somebody can say, ‘Well, I don’t want to give up any split.” Okay. How much commission you do last year? 200,000. Let’s say you spend 20 on advertising and marketing and buying leads. In the new company or the new way of doing business, let’s say you spend 20, if you were bringing in 200, would you spend 20 to bring in another 200? Of course, you would.
Everyone would. How do you do that? Well, you have to go buy leads. You have to buy CRMs. You have to do all kinds of things. Well, there are brokerages that exist that offer these things. That’s why I’m pointing out what you should be going after is value. See, the problem is, agents can’t fathom the idea of a brokerage helping them grow their business. They literally don’t understand, “Well, how would they help me grow? How is that possible?” I’ve heard people say this to me.
They can’t fathom it because it’s unusual, which is sad. Even other broker-owners, I had lunch with a broker-owner a year ago who said to me, “Geez, everybody seems so happy at your company. What are you giving out? Kool-Aid? This and that.” I said, “Have you ever thought maybe they just are happy. Maybe that we’ve helped so many people grow and improve their lives that they are just happy.”
This broker-owner, who’s a friend, a good person, looked at me and said, “Hmm.” I could tell they’d never thought of that possibility because even they, even that person and several others, not just that one person, they’re filled with skepticism. Skepticism stops so many of us from being successful. Take an agent, for example, they’re skeptical. Well that company or that company, they couldn’t help me grow so I’ll just stay here in my comfort zone and I won’t make a change.
If you don’t make a change, nothing changes. Same equals same. They stay in comfort zone. Broker-owners, “Well, I don’t know that buying leads would help my agents grow. I’m not sure of that. I’m not doing it. I’m not taking part of that. We don’t do that here. I don’t know that training would help agents grow so we don’t do that.” Skepticism stops everyone. How about take a step back and think, “Am I at a brokerage that will help me grow my business?”
“Do they have the tools, the resources, the trainings, the product, the services, the technologies?” You don’t necessarily need all of those to grow, but do they have a third of those? If they don’t, shame on you if you’re not looking around because same equal same. You stay in the same place, you’ll get the same results. Back to the question that I asked at the beginning, what’s more important, growing your business or a higher split? Stop chasing splits. There’s plenty of companies that offer a lot and are competitive with their splits. I hope that makes sense. Thank you.