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Anthony Lamacchia – August 1st, 2018
Hey everybody. It’s that time of year. It’s that time of year that some agents who aren’t hitting the goals that they would like to, are starting to think about changing brokerages and if that would help their businesses. And in some cases, it will and in some cases, it won’t. Here are some things that I think you should think about, things that you should take into consideration if you are considering changing brokerages whether you are an agent, a team leader, or– if you’re a broker, I guess you’re not changing brokerages. Or maybe you’re joining a larger firm or something like that or considering going out on your own.
Here’s the things that I recommend that you think about. One is how much support are you going to get from the company? Are they truly going to provide you with support? Are they going to be there to answer your questions after hours and help you in any way, shape, or form that you may need depending upon your experience level? Those are the types of questions that you should ask. You should ask specifically, “Who would answer my questions when I have a question after hours? Who would answer my questions on a Sunday afternoon if I’m having trouble writing an offer?” Those types of questions related to support are very important.
Now, let’s also think about various other things like leads. If you’re a newer agent in the business, you’re going to need leads. It’s hard to create enough leads on your own. Despite what some companies might tell you when you’re brand new to the business, it is difficult to produce enough leads on your own. Is the company going to provide you with any leads and if they do, what does the commission look like when they do? It’s obviously going to be lower if it’s their lead. How often can you expect to receive a lead? Will you receive training on how to deal with those leads? Training is my next subject.
So far, we’ve talked about support, leads, those are two, now we’re going to talk about training. What type of training does the company provide? Is it real? Are they going to talk to you about contracts, and where to sign, and laws, and all those things that scare people away, or are they going to talk about real things that will actually help you grow your business, that will actually help you in a sales process? What to say to a buyer on the phone, what to say a seller on the phone, how to get someone to sign a listing agreement? All those types of things. Are they going to teach you that? That is critically important.
Leads, support, training. What about services? What about help? What about things that you need? There’s many realtors out there, several realtors out there, especially at this time of year, that are simply overloaded and they need help. Some companies provide different types of services, be it administrative assistance services for their transactions, maybe they help with putting up their signs, their lockboxes, things like that. If you’re an agent who’s doing a lot of businesses, services is possibly the most important thing to you and you should ask specifically how that works, is there a cost to it, if there is, what is the cost. Always remember nothing good is free. That’s something to keep in mind.
Last but not least, I just want to mention, don’t get too caught up in splits. I don’t say that for some self-fulling reason or anything like that. At our company, depending upon what level an agent is at, depending upon how an agent gets a lead, some of the splits are lower, some are of the splits go very high and are generous. All depends where the agent is at, how much business of their own they’re doing. We have agents from brand new to 35 years in the business, we have agents from selling two houses a year to agents selling 60-70 houses a year. There’s no self-plug here, but what I want to point out to you is don’t get too caught up on that because, as I said a minute ago, nothing good is free, nothing good is cheap.
Focus on those other areas first, support, services. When you say services, some type of help from the company, leads, training those kinds of things, inquire about those, find out about those, dig deep on those, interview a few different companies, see how good they are at interacting, see if they’re on time, see if their office looks good. All those things are critically important for you to make the decision because choosing the right brokerage could be the major difference between you being very successful, or staying the way you are, or even seeing a decline in your business. That’s all folks. Thanks very much and have a wonderful day.
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