It has been talked about in the industry that agents should be on salary and not on commission. This salary for agents would be paid by the brokerages and then the brokerages would be forced to hire better people and train them. In other words, the brokerages would carry the risk of someone else’s actions, they would pay taxes on this person and they would spend thousands of dollars training these folks in hopes that these people who work outside the office, in their own homes and cars, would actually have the ability of self-motivating themselves and perform under any circumstance just because they are on salary.

I feel that this is too much risk for the brokerage. The risk is two-fold. The buyer and seller’s motives are not clear to the upper management and the real estate contracts are based on time, not really on payment from the buyer and seller, and the agents can get too loose in their thinking and not be motivated to work at all.

Back to the real estate agreements. If all of the contracts between the consumer and the brokerage was based on payment up-front, then the model of salaried agents makes sense. Then the brokerage is only responsible for advertising to get such and that is a similar model to other retail businesses.

But the bigger issue is the attitude and ongoing skill set of an agent that works in a business where buyers and sellers are fickle. It is easy to get sucked into the media and buyer and seller thinking and be in a fog that no one around the agent recognizes. And, the skill set needed to take a buyer from A to Z in the transaction is often missing a few letters.

So, the model that makes the most sense to me is one where the agent is an independent contractor and is on a 6-month quota. The quota is based on how much money they make the brokerage. Some brokerages have elected to have the agent pay a desk fee instead. This too is quota but is run a different way. The brokerage is not worried about the business that the agent is doing; they are worried only about collecting their monthly fee.

The quota paid based on transactions and revenue to the brokerage is best though when you are a lead-producing machine. How many buyers are being sold is important to know when the brokerage is spending money to advertise.

The way we know real estate today is not the way that real estate was once known. Real estate has evolved over the last few decades into being less of a service business and into more of an expertise. Real estate brokers and real estate agents do business differently today than they ever have before.

Here is the history of the real estate broker and real estate agents from the 1950’s to today, 2008, some 60 years later…

1950’s – In the 1950’s there were no women in real estate. Real estate was a man’s world – period. All deals sold by a real estate company were the real estate companies listing, with few exceptions. Brokers knew each other, but they rarely sold each other’s listings. The broker was also the “deal doctor”. The broker was the smartest person in the office when it came to real estate. Agents did not do a deal without the broker being involved and them going to every listing and buying appointment. The agent was basically the assistant. The broker was the agent in the 1950’s. Listings were kept on index cards and buyers viewed these cards only if they met the broker’s approval.

1960’s – In the 1960’s the first multiple listing service was formed to help companies sell each other’s listings. The first multiple listing service was done with index cards, similar to how brokers had kept their listings before. Cards were sent to each other’s offices listing the commission that an agent from another company would be paid. Then the MLS progressed into the book that was published every week. An agent was prohibited to give this book to their clients. However, every Friday (or whatever day of the week that the book came out) the offices would have new listing night where families could come to the office and see the new listings in the new MLS book.

1970’s – Franchising became popular. Franchising offered brokers some continuity in training. Franchising also brought in referrals from other parts of the country to the broker. The Realtor boards also started offering training and designations. The agents were able to tell the public that they were “trained” and that they have this or that designation. The Million Dollar Club became known as a designation to the public. However with all of this “training” agents became more independent and they started doing business without the broker.

1980’s – The real estate agents take over. They start marketing themselves on signs, not just the brokerage. The real estate agent starts demanding higher splits from the broker for the business they are doing. They start getting glamour shots and personalized advertising. ReMax starts with a bang and many agents leave their current broker for higher splits. Their thought is, they already know what to do to bring in their own business and they have been trained by the Realtor board.

1990’s – Cendant now known as NRT starts to buy all the big affiliations. Coldwell Banker and Century 21 become one in the parent company but still appear as different brands to the public. The real estate business becomes more about branding of the company than advertising homes. Agents are taught more about synergy and passing leads through relocation companies.
The co-founder of MTV is involved in this giant corporation and he starts to teach the business about selling other services besides the home. One-stop shopping for the consumer starts.

1998- Brings Internet shopping for homes to the consumer. This shopping also brings the emergence of discount brokers and multi-level brokerages like Keller-Williams, which is a model based on recruitment and overrides of what those who you’ve recruited sells.

2001 – Hyper inflationary market begins and produces rapid increase in broker and agent populations. The Realtor boards grow from 800,000 agents in the U.S. to 1,400,000. Everyone was getting into real estate. There was absolutely no lead management in most of the brokerages because buyers were plentiful.

2005 – Contraction in home sales begins. Unprepared brokerage firms begin to fail. Unprepared for a lack of profit and agents start getting out the business and many affiliated firms drop their contracts to become independent. Their effort is to make more money for themselves as brokers in the everyday business.

2007 – Housing sales drop as doom and gloom sets into the financial markets. Lenders face record numbers of foreclosures due to hyper inflationary markets in 2001 and their lending practices. Under the Clinton administration, Congress had passed laws for social engineering to help buyers buy homes with loose financing restrictions. These homes could not have been purchased by these buyers without more stability or while under free market conditions. Realtor board numbers drop back to 800,000 as many agents get out of real estate.

Today, the Internet tells the story.

Market and Neighborhood demographics, mortgage history, taxes and Google Earth shows buyers exactly what they want to see before they visit a home. The information highway is doing the job that real estate agents once coveted as the most important part of their job – finding a buyer a home. Now, buyers walk into real estate agent’s offices prepared with the facts that ultimately prepare them to buy a home. Sellers are telling agents what their neighbors sold for and how long it took them to sell. Buyers are now literally and figuratively driving the agents. The power that a real estate agent and a broker for that matter have individually and collectively has now shifted. Real estate agents now need to re-invent themselves to stay in business.

Redesigning Your Real Estate Website

Redesigning your real estate website is essential to keeping your business current in the marketplace. It is also essential in keeping your mindset about your business current as well. So, although the website is the focus of this article, you must know that if you are not current in your thinking about whatever business you may be in, you are not staying on top of your business. And in business, if you are not going forward, you are going backwards.

Here are the benefits of redesigning your website:

1. Gives you an opportunity to check your work. Often times as you re-read your website you will see that you have changed something that you forgot was on your website. This gives you an opportunity to change the statement or idea and also ponder the thoughts around the idea to make sure it is still germane to the business.

2. Gives you an opportunity to change and update pictures. Many times when I view my friends’ websites, they are still using a picture of themselves with a haircut that is not their current haircut or before they lost all the weight, both of which would make their appearance look much better. All photos can use updating from time to time and focusing on this will give you ideas of how you want your company represented.

3. Changing the content of your website will allow the spiders and robots that search and rank web sites in organic searching to know that you are still around – in business and kicking. This is very important as many people spend a great deal of money monthly updating their site to make it search higher on the search engines.

4. Redesigning your real estate website also allows you to use newer technology like Joomla – a free software site that has search engine optimization built-in to each block of your page. This gives you so many more options to increase your website traffic.

5. A re-design allows you to re-address email options and phone numbers – basically ways people contact you. Now, you can choose chat features where viewers on your site have the ability to chat with you on the site. There is now also a new feature available that allows you to reach out to them and initiate the chat first.

6. An overall overhaul of what you learned and how you want to change your business can be implemented on your website. This is the most powerful contact to your business that the public has because your website is your creation – their first impression of you. And as you grow and get better in business, your first impression also grows and gets better. You are your website and your web site is you.

Constantly changing your website is not a bad thing. Embrace the change and reap the benefits.

Visit and Contact BHG Digital for a consultation to re-design or develop a site today!

Atlanta has many real estate jobs. According to the First Multiple Listing Service in 2007, there were 42,000 agents registered as members in the state of Georgia and most of those of course, were in Atlanta. And as in any industry, the types of jobs in real estate vary.

Here is a list of the real estate jobs that you could have in Atlanta:

1. Real estate agents working on behalf of clients. This requires a salesperson license in the state of Georgia, which means that you must take a 75-hour course for a salesperson license. There is also a state test. There are many real estate schools in the Atlanta area, which include The Georgia Real Estate Institute, Barney Fletcher and many others. Course work can be taken in traditional day classroom settings, night classes for those who are presently employed or online. The fee for most classes is around $400.00 and the test is around $195.00. Real estate agents are licensed to do both residential properties and commercial properties. However, it is rare to find an agent that specializes in both.

2. Real estate brokers run and sometimes own the office that real estate agents work in. A real estate broker has 3 years of experience as a real estate agent under someone else. Real estate brokers are required to take an additional 90-hour course and state test. Classes are held in the day, night and online at any school that offers continuing education. Many agents today become brokers as part of their continuing education and they work in the brokerage as an associate broker continuing to perform the duties that they originally had as a real estate agent. The advantage that they have however is that they can open their own brokerage and hire agents to work under them.

3. Real estate assistants can be both licensed and unlicensed. If you are a licensed assistant to a producing agent, you are able to do everything for the public that the real estate agent can do. If you are not licensed, you are not able to speak to the public about property at all. You can do limited paperwork and procedural items but an unlicensed assistant is highly restricted in the eyes of the law.

There are many other jobs in real estate like appraising, inspection, mortgage broker and surveyor. Not to mention closing attorneys, insurance agents and home warranty representatives. Most all of these jobs require schooling and a license. All real estate licensees are required to do continuing education every one to four years.

At Duffy Realty, we hire real estate agents and brokers. We have an aggressive split and we have plenty of leads that are generated during phone duty wherein you take live calls from real buyers. These calls are generated from the over 1,000 Duffy Realty yard signs representing listings all over Atlanta. We also do extensive training to help our agents become experts in the art of negotiating contracts, implementing sales skills and exercising common sense. If you have a desire to be a real estate agent because you want to impact how the public buys and sells homes and want to be on the cutting-edge in the future of real estate, you must join Duffy Realty.

Duffy Realty’s training program includes DVDs, a Playbook and recommendations of legal manuals you must have in your home library. You will be tested on real life materials used everyday in real estate thus you will hit the streets of Atlanta having a real working knowledge of real estate. Many people feel that they know real estate after taking the 75-hour course, but they are wrong and we can prove it. Let the experience of closing over 12,000 transactions in just 6 years show you we know what we are doing. Don’t just be a real estate agent – be a real pro.

If you fall into the category of someone who thinks that you can’t hold a sales meeting, you probably are taking yourself way too seriously.

Sales meetings should be used as a time to think together, to form what I call a MEME. A MEME is like-minded people thinking together. You have seen this in church, it is called prayer. The Bible says that two or more people form a church and by getting together to concentrate on one topic, they are able to make thought form.

Sales meetings are the same principle. So, if you were going to use your sales meeting only to “announce” something, you are missing the boat. A sales meeting should be used to think. They should be used to work together in a small group on role-play. They should be an intimate, private event that fosters a feeling of safety.

Everyone gets a vote. Everyone gets a voice. And everyone is safe. Nothing should ever result from a meeting that gets someone fired. Firings should only happen based on results and goals that have not been met.

Not giving you the rules of a sales meeting, you are empowered to think more about what you can do at a sales meeting.

What can you do? Anything you want. You can do a conga line, play music, throw a beach ball around, play cards, play games or just plain play… Playing is the key.

Play, then work. Work out problems, brainstorm ideas and most importantly, know that you are doing it together.

So, here is the structure that I typically use.

Gather everyone around the sales meeting in two lines facing each other. Upbeat music is playing. When you think everyone has gotten there, have people tell a joke or a funny story to the person across from them. Then, fold the two lines into each other with everyone giving the two people on both sides high-fives.

Everyone sits down, if I don’t like the energy, I have everyone move. And make sure to break up the cliques.

I start with the topic that we are going to talk about by having them write down statements that are relevant to them about said topic. For example, “Write down the objections that you are hearing from people of why they are not ready to buy a house”.

Then we break into groups of 3 and each person reads what the objections are to the others. The others are instructed to not give advice.

After 15 minutes or so, we all join back as a group and discuss what they wrote down. I will give a brief overview of the four general objections in sales and then we will talk about the specific objections they’re dealing with. I start by writing down what the objections are as they read them to me.

Then, as a group, we start to discuss how to add proof to what they are saying as a rebuttal to the client and how to handle the objection. I don’t give my input until the group is finished bouncing ideas off of each other. Let them talk about it as a group.

Whether or not anything is ever settled, the group discussed it and they ignited their own thought process and innate neurology around things that were unconscious in them.

We usually have tasks and follow up action items for everyone to do and then we go from there.

So bottom line for my team and me is that we all share. No one speaks to the other person. We all speak with each other. You must get the people involved with their physiology, writing and talking in front of the group, in either small groups or out loud in front of the whole group. No one is allowed to be shy on my team. We leave no team member behind.

Delegation is defined as to give power to someone else. Without delegation, you can not have team. So, before I tell you how to get a team, you must answer the question ‘Can others speak for you?’ If you are already getting sick to your stomach you must figure out why you don’t trust others and what you can do to change that. Otherwise, you can not have a team. Before learning to trust your subordinates, trying to have a team will only distract you from the power of actually having a team. In other words, you will most likely go broke. Broke mentally and financially.

If you answered the question with a resounding yes, here are a few guidelines to building a team.

1. Don’t hire people that you perceive to have more power than you or that seem to have more experience than you. In other words, they tell you that they ran a Fortune 500 company for 10 years and before that they were an account representative for a major company for 25 years and ran a team with 10 assistants. This person can not work for others, they have always had people work for them. Stick with people who are not business owners and who like working for others. Otherwise, get ready… you won’t have a brave, you’ll have a chief at your door just wanting to tell you how things should be done!

2. Have all job descriptions and job duties in writing. This is not a long process. It is simply writing things down as they come to your mind. You are free to change the criteria at anytime and you must do so as business changes. Fancy is not good. Fancy is a waste of time in business. Look for the result and having the desired result in writing is so that everyone is on the same page. Be as detailed as possible asking why, who, what, when and how.

3. Have a work manual. Spell out the processes of how things are to be done. Check your work by following the process of what you wrote to see that you are right and on the correct course.

4. Don’t dote over the people. Training should be “Here is the manual, get to work.”

5. Role-play is good. Do it over and over.

6. Demand that people be on time (even before on time) and that they work even if they are sick. If they are too sick to perform, then send them home.

7. Hold democratic meetings and let people decide what should happen next and remind them that you hold veto power.

8. Hold and express the thought that their personal growth will be your personal growth.

So many people resist getting a team. Without a team, you won’t have the growth that you want. You will be stifled. Period.

To find out more about Real Estate Training and Coaching – Contact Rhonda Duffy

Training real estate agents or anyone for that matter is really easy when you follow these tips. I have uncovered these tips over years of running a very successful real estate company. Of course, this stuff did not just come to me. It is tested and tweaked often, but here are my current tips for you. By the way, my idea of success is low maintenance, adult communication and not stupid repetitive questions that waste my time.

1. Videotape every meeting. Use the good meetings to show the new agents what is expected of them. By setting up a library of these taped meeting and training sessions you are educating new agents on their time in your office. This ensures consistency between all agents no matter when they joined the team or when the meeting was conducted. Meetings should only concentrate and focus on good sales material. They should be entertaining, wherein you incorporate music and fun. Meetings should be every 3 weeks, not every week.

2. Transcribe the meeting so that any relevant points can be used in training materials as a reference library for future agents. Also, any agenda that holds merit should be posted in the materials below.

3. Build a Playbook or Agent Bible if you will, of the rules of your company and important laws that you want your agents to be aware of. Charge for the Playbook. The fee should be non-refundable and should be pretty steep. You don’t want more broke losers joining your herd of low maintenance producers.

4. Build a website for the agents that houses company forms. This can be a simple website but is the resource for agents to go first for updated information or procedures.

5. Give written tests often. No announcement is needed. You should have told them from the beginning that this is expected of them. Testing will ensure employee consistency or show you where improvement is needed. This is a vital way for you to know that everyone is trained the same way and that is everyone is competent.

6. Make meetings mandatory with a $25 fine and test if they don’t attend.

7. Give your agents a list of where to get everything that they need to start their business in either the Playbook, the website or in their hiring packet.

8. Put everyone on quota that is monitored every 6 months. Fire anyone that does not make quota. Numbers don’t lie. In other words, the only thing that matters is results. Their commission to meet quota needs to be “in the bank or on the books” at the end of the six months.

9. Have checklists for everything.

10. Don’t allow agents to hang out in your office and don’t allow them to make copies for free. Copies lead to many other things that agents come up with that you should pay for. Agents are independent contractors and should pay their own expenses.

And a bonus tip: Respect your agents if they have accomplished everything above. And if they have, they are equal to you. You are just the leader.

Real estate can be a very lucrative business. Or, it can be the death trap that many an agent experiences as is evident as this present cycle of real estate corrects itself. Learning to be profitable is not that hard, but it does take a different mindset than what other agents before us could comprehend.

For some reason, real estate is perceived to be a service business. Yet, much of the “service” is really emotional counseling. If you look at the counseling business itself, they are not paid when the patient has a “result”. They are paid as the service of counseling is performed, and they are paid right then.

But if you really think about how real estate is set up, or at least how it has been set up in decades before us, real estate the way we know it is really just gambling. Now, how many people do you know make a great living from gambling? A consistent, real living? One that their family is not ready to commit them for, either to a mental institution at worst for being crazy enough to try it or at best to Gambler’s Anonymous for rehab for keeping with it. So, here it is in real estate for years where we have listed sellers, who may or may not sell, and/or work with buyers who may or may not buy. Service or gambling, I think the answer is the latter!

Now, here is where profit comes in. Profit to me means that I am making revenue beyond my expenses. Revenue to me is not based on gambling. Revenue is based on me performing good work for my clients and my clients paying me for that good work at the time that good work is performed. Very few transactions in business are based on gambling. You can think of a few, but even if you got a bad haircut, you are still supposed to pay the barber after the service is performed. Attorneys take retainers but don’t guarantee the result. Your accountant does your tax return, but does not guarantee that you will pay no taxes, and yet, they expect payment after they have performed the work and some expect it before they do the work.

Again, profit is when you make money beyond your expenses on a consistent basis. This means that when you do the work that you promised to perform, you are paid, no matter what. There are no ifs, ands or buts. If someone wants to pull his house off the market, after having it listed for only 3 months you are paid. If a buyer decides not to buy after you have shown them 16 houses, you are paid.

If this makes sense to you, say AMEN! We are in agreement!