We have been talking about planning lately.  Specifically: planning for business growth in 2012.  I am urging you to keep it short and sweet, define your goals with a razor focus, write them down in bullets, not paragraphs.  I’m also urging you to create action plans for a shorter period:  say,  90 days.   Create your annual bullseye but plan your activity only for the next 3 months.  The short term action plan keeps you focused on the NOW and more open to opportunity as it appears.  It also enables you to take new information into account when you create your next set of action plans in 90 days.

The bulleted list of goals and action plans ought to fit on one page and ought to be in front of you every day.  Treat them like affirmations:  those simple one sentence phrases that, when carefully constructed and consistently considered are proven to create positive personal change.  Attacking 2012 with this kind of laser focus will keep you moving forward and doing what we all want to do:  MORE.

I have a slip of paper I keep tucked away in my keep-sake file.  It is about 4 inches wide and 10 inches tall.  It’s just a scrap, really.  But in 1987 I wrote half a dozen bullets on it.  They were things I wanted to achieve, big things.  I put the paper away and didn’t see it again for a couple of years . . . and you know what?   I had achieved every single thing I’d written.  Getting clear on your bullets, then committing them to writing is powerful.

This is also the time of year that we tend to make ‘resolutions.’  These are promises we make to ourselves to be better or happier or healthier or wealthier.   I don’t really see the need for a separation; I mean:  why can’t a good resolution or two be part of your annual business plan/quarterly action plan?  The last thing any of us wants to do is to stop becoming, whether as human beings or as businesses.

Dr. Maya Bailey, a business coach, has an article on Inman News today about resolutions that’s pretty good.  She lays out 5 steps.  Step 1 is to define what you want and be very specific:  what does success mean to you?  It’s different for different people.  Step 2 is to recognize your blocks and obstacles.  Interesting:  here are some of the most common limiting beliefs she finds in her clients:

• ‘I don’t have what it takes to succeed in today’s market’
• ‘I’m not assertive enough to market myself’
• ‘I’m not educated enough to be successful’
• ‘Who am I to have abundance and prosperity?’

My own Rx for that kind of thinking is Toastmasters.  Even if you never plan to speak in public, I know of no better way to build a little brass and to understand how much you have to offer.  It’s also a great way to network and expand your CI list.  Hmmm . . . Maybe Toastmasters ought to be on your resolution/business plan bulleted list?

Step 3 is to zero in on the areas you need to develop, which has a lot to do with being honest about your limitations and weak areas.  For example, consider that first limiting belief:  ’I don’t have what it takes to be successful in today’s market.’  I can’t tell you how many REALTORS I know who feel this way, largely about technology.  They are wonderful salespeople who see the business becoming ever more tech oriented and they feel lost.  Frankly, I don’t get it.  Why would you pine away about your lack of tech understanding when you could hire someone for $15 an hour to handle it for you?  And if that’s too much to pay, why not go to your local college and find an intern, possibly for free?  Oops . . . could this be yet another item on your plan for the year?

4  is to have a timeline and a plan.  We all need to be held accountable and most of us would like to believe we do a good job of that on our own.  That’s where self-imposed deadlines and timelines come in.  Unfortunately many of us discover that we don’t do a good job of holding our own feet to the fire.  This is not awful; it’s not even a failing; it’s just an indication that a good mentor, accountability buddy or coach is needed.  Could that be another resolution/business plan item for 2012?

Step 5 is to visualize the end result.  I’ve urged you to set big, annual, numeric production goals.  But what will your life look like when you achieve them? That’s what you want to visualize.  See yourself behaving as you will behave when you have achieved all the additional production you’ve planned . . . and then start acting as if you’ve already achieved it.

And above all:  find a way to be happy.  It’s a decision, you know.  None of this stuff works at all if you’re not operating from a place of general happiness.  Happiness precedes success.  In fact I’d assert that happiness is a pre-requisite for success.  Plain and simple:  Money loves Happy. Success seeks out happy people.  Get happy and watch all of your plans, your resolutions, your affirmations come to pass.

Resolution Solution is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Gather the following information about your 2011 production:

• Number of new listings taken
• Number of seller sides closed
• Number of buyer sides closed
• Average gross commission per closed side (all closed sides)
• Average gross commission per closed seller side
• Average gross commission per closed buyer side
• Average listing price
• Average sale price
• Average sale price as a % of average listing price
• Average days on market
• % of sales occurring ‘in-house’

Inquiries generated by category:

• Web
• Signs
• Print
• Mailing
• Referral
• etc.

Set big numeric goals for 2012:

• Increase production by 25% (or whatever % you choose).  Take new listings and closed sides and multiply each by 125%; if you took 100 listings in 2011, your goal for 2012 is 125 new listings, etc.
• Look at the mix of closed seller sides to closed buyer sides in 2011.  Your goal should most likely be a 50/50 mix.  If you see it way off from that – say a 70/30 mix of buyer sides to seller sides, you’ll need to set specific short range goals to tackle the problem.
• Look at your average gross commission per closed side.  How might you increase that?  Go after more expensive property?  Sell more buyer side transactions?  Increase your set fee?

Now, get real.

Truth is, the annual goal is just mile marker set way on down the road.  What’s important is what you’re going to do today, tomorrow and next week.  Think of your annual plan as a road trip across country.  You probably know where you want to end up and may even know some of the places you want to visit on the way, but by and large, you’ll invent your route as you go, responding to current conditions and opportunities in the moment.  As long as you’re moving toward your final destination, you’re on track.  So, for this exercise, consider the first quarter of 2012, January – March.  What are you going to do in the coming 90 days to move you closer to that distant mile marker?

• If you took 24 listings in this period in 2011 and are planning for a 25% increase, what are you going to do to ensure you get 30 by the end of the quarter?
• If you closed 28 sides between January and March of 2011, what are you going to do NOW to ensure you will close 35 by March 31?
• If you are getting, on average, 95% of list price as a sale price, what are you going to do to ensure that you’ll increase that to , say, 97%?
• If your average days on market is 110, what are you going to do to reduce that to,say, 100?
  • (By the way, the previous two items usually have most to do with how you price property at the time of listing)
• Look at your percentage of in-house closed sides.  What can you do to increase that?  Is it time to polish up your seller participation dialogues?  Are you ready to rethink the notion that every listing must go into the MLS?

Compare what you did in 2010 against the MLS

• If your average sale price as a percentage of list price is 95%, what is it for the MLS?  You’ll most likely discover that their number is worse than yours – say, 93% compared to your 95%.  If this is so, how might you use this information in marketing and in seller consultations?
• If your average days on market is 110, but the MLS is 123, do you have something worth crowing about?

And then consider the number of inquiries you generated by category:

• How many ended up as contactable entries in the Buyer Pool Book?
• How many converted to listings or sales?
• What can you do (over and above taking more listings) to increase the number of inquiries?
• What can you do to improve your conversion rates of inquiries to clients?

By the way, the Inquiry category is very important AND many will be unable to examine results and set goals for inquiries because they don’t keep track of them, or do so inadequately.  If this is YOU, make one of your first goals for 2012 to become obsessive about leads tracking, inquiry capture and conversion.  Next year, when you do this exercise, you want to have the numbers at your fingertips.

Please, o please:  do not create a ten page carefully crafted Business Plan for the year unless you want to go to the bank to borrow money.  Other than in that specific instance, those plans usually end up as dead documents in a drawer that are never  seen again.  Instead, put your annual and quarterly goals in a bulleted format – preferably on one page – that you can get to quickly.  Your goals and action plans for the immediate future should function almost as a set of affirmations that you look at every day.  Reminding yourself constantly that you need to have 30 new listings by the end of March is a giant step toward making it happen.

Planning for 2012 is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

There is a new piece of agent tech out that intrigues me.  It’s call the ABC Tool and it is an online client and transaction management tool.  It puts the agent at the center of the myriad of details that must be coordinated and provides an efficient platform for agents and their clients to communicate and move together toward a successful closing.

The tool is in BETA testing right now and pricing has not been established.  However, you can go to the website and sign up for a 30 day free account.  I’ve asked a couple of Help-U-Sell brokers to take a look and tell me what they think and will report back, but if you’re curious, take a look:

www.TheAbcTool.com

I stumbled on this in an Inman News article and was struck by the comments by ABC’s founder, Michele Serro.  Here’s how she describes the homebuying experience:

• Homebuyers range from wanting low- to high-touch experiences with their agents. Some homebuyers want complete autonomy, choosing to look at listings and homes by themselves; others want an agent to merely function as a sounding board; while yet others expect high-touch service from their agent, seeking accompaniment to showings and someone to run the deal.

• The real estate agent is the sun around which all other planets, and parties, revolve. As a central figure in the homebuying scenario, the agent needs are currently underserved by the market as well — from generating leads, prequalifying homebuyers, managing documents, and managing the expectations of clients.

• The process feels opaque, decentralized and out of control to most homebuyers. Homebuyers are seeking a single, centralized resource and repository to increase transparency around the process and communications between all stakeholders involved.

• Homebuyers seek validation and support throughout the process. Many homebuyers turn to friends and family members to provide both administrative and emotional support throughout the process, or are advised by other trusted service providers in the process.

• Document collection, management and sharing is a serious bottleneck. For all service providers involved in the buying or selling experience, document management is a critical, and often painful, part of the process. Missed milestones (often due to missed deadlines in document filing) can have lasting domino effects, ultimately impacting a homebuyer’s closing date.

• The complexity of buying a home today is exponentially greater than it was a few years ago. The housing market crash has resulted in fewer leads for agents, increased rigor, due diligence and regulation around financials, and extended timelines for those looking to buy.

And here is how she describes the ABC Tool:

Our tools and features coordinate agents and homebuyers seamlessly together, recasting the agents as the indispensable experts they are and supporting them in operating efficiently in an increasingly inefficient business environment and broken system.

(ABC Tool) takes care of much of the administration, so agents can focus on sharing their expertise of a certain area and putting best practices to good use — rather than filling out paperwork.

We also coordinate all the other players, like attorneys, inspectors and even lenders, and clearly spell out their roles and responsibilities along the way.

At first glance, I think this might be something that will improve efficiency, minimize errors and missed items, and above all, build agent value in the transaction process.  Check it out and please, report back!

The ABC Tool is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Tight budgets mean lean operations.

Is that Haiku?  Or something Confucius said?

Hardly; it’s just reality.  In a difficult market, you do lots of cutting.  You cut marketing, you cut facility expense, you cut personnel and you get to work covering as much as you can by yourself.

Now there is light at the end of the tunnel  and we know we have to gear back up to meet the oncoming demand . . . but the dollars are still tight.  How do you start getting done what you used to hire people to do?

Here’s an idea for you:  why not investigate bringing in a college intern to handle a few focused tasks?  You know:  the ones that are keeping you tethered to a desk and not out in the field meeting the people who will drive your business through the upturn.

Many colleges and universities have internship programs where pre and post graduate students, usually in their final semesters before graduation, take on tasks in the real world to apply some of what they’ve learned and gain experience.  Often the cost to an employer is minimal and sometimes free.

In most cases, the task(s) must be well defined with a beginning and an end and ‘grunt’ work – things like running errands and photocopying – is frowned upon.  But think about what an intern might be able to do for you:

• Optimize your web presence.  You have a magnificent tool in the Help-U-Sell website.  It blows the pants off anything else that’s out there.  But it requires your attention.  It must be optimized, localized, keyword-ized and continually refreshed to be most effective.  Plus there’s everything else you do to be visible online:  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Zillow, Trulia, blogs and on and on.  Who better to take this task on than a 21 year old marketing major who’s grown up at a computer?
• Do marketplace intelligence.  Our markets are turning rapidly now.  Everything’s shifting.  It’s a great time to do a thorough analysis of your market to determine the opportunities that are emerging.  Where are the high turnover areas?  What properties are most in need of a short sale expert?  Who’s facing foreclosure?  What’s happening to the demographics?  Gathering this valuable information is something none of us have time for, but a motivated business major could handle with ease.
• Competitor research.  Who’s doing what?  What programs are working and which ones are not?  What are the numbers?  Marketshare? Price ranges? Again, a business or marketing major would be ideal for this.

And that’s just three.

So how do you find programs in your area?  The same way you find anything else:  Google.  Try search strings like:  ’Birmingham college university internship’ or ‘internship opportunities in Orlando’ or ‘Boise State intern program’ You’ll be amazed at how many programs you will uncover.  Learn all that you can;  then, before you go through the proper channels, fill out all the paperwork, submit and wait, wait, wait . . .

Call the business/marketing/IT schools directly.  Ask for the person in charge of intern programs for that department.  Pick their brain a bit:  what does a good intern opportunity look like?  How have interns helped small business owners like yourself in the past?  Offer to meet with this key person and present to students.  Becoming involved will not only increase your chances of success with an internship, but will expand you circle of contacts.  Once you’ve put a personal spin on it, then go back and do the paperwork.

We were talking about this on the Roundtable Call yesterday and Ron McCoy mentioned that he frequently teaches real estate pre-licensing classes at his local college.  He said that he – and everyone else who teaches these courses – is always looking for brokers to come in and present their programs to the class.  What a wonderful opportunity for Help-U-Sell!  And, if you’re looking for an intern, maybe someone in that class will help you navigate the academic bureaucracy to get it done quickly.

If you run with this idea, I want to know how you do.  Tell me how you found your program, what you had to do to get it started, what was difficult and what worked well.  Good Luck!

Intern-alization is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Four of our top five Brokers were in attendance at the Summit, Nov 14-16 in Anaheim this year.  I asked Jack Bailey to facilitate a panel discussion around what they’re doing to grow their businesses in this market.  Here are:

• Patrick Wood – Help-U-Sell Prestige Properties – Chino Hills, CA
• Richard Cricchio – Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties – Honolulu, HI
• Karen Detwiler – Help-U-Sell Detwiler Realty – Carlisle, PA
• John Powell – Help-U-Sell Galleria Realty – Tucson, AZ

Because of time limitations on YouTube, there are four videos here, ranging in length from 12 – 14 minutes.  Sound improves about half way through the first segment, when we miked the group.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Top Producers at the Help-U-Sell Success Summit is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Reality:

• There are fewer deals in the market than there were 6 years ago
• Fallout rates have about doubled (today you sell 3 to close 2)
• Prices – and therefore commissions – have fallen
• Transactions, particularly Short Sale and REO Transactions, have become increasingly complex, requiring more time to process

The Bottom Line:

You are working much harder to close fewer transactions for less revenue

The only answer is to do MORE.  But HOW?  How are you going to do more?  You’re already maxed out . . . there are just 24 hours in a day . . . and, believe it or not, your energy level is a finite quantity!

We used to spend more on Marketing to do more.  Ordinary Realtors usually recruit more agents.  But we are in a New Reality, and if recent history is any indication, those methods are flawed at best.

This year, you’ll do more my creating more FACE TIME for yourself.

Face Time is the time you spend eyeball to eyeball with people.  It’s not time at the computer or with your nose in a file.  It’s your arena:  where your business germinates.

You’ll create MORE FACE TIME (and more deals) by exploiting efficiencies in your business.  Things like:

• Limiting the distance you will drive to take a listing and drive times in general
• Converting every repeatable event in your business into a step-by-step process
• Honing your scripts and dialogues until they are crisp and effective
• And so on

You’ll also create MORE FACE TIME by getting help.  It may come in the form of:

• A Buyer Agent who enables you to focus on Listings, Marketing and Lead Generation (most likely the highest and best use of your time)
• An Assistant who handles your paperwork, takes your calls and keeps your schedule
• An Intern (quite possibly a FREE Intern) from a local college who optimizes your website and builds your online presence (I’ve used bold italics on purpose)

Recognize that your business grows by personal contact.  The more personal contact you have, the better your business grows.  It is through personal contact that people come to like and trust you and that remains the single most important prerequisite to doing business with you.  Want MORE in 2012?  Minimize desk-time by exploiting efficiencies and getting help,  and Maximize FACE TIME. Meet The People.

* * * * * *

The above is a summary of my opening comments at the Success Summit.  Here are a few minutes of video from that talk:

Doing More in 2012 is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Boy, things sure are different from the last time I wrote up a purchase agreement!  That was almost 30 years ago.  Lenders were killing us with staggering interest rates (rather than foreclosures) but the business itself was fairly straightforward.  A buyer wanted to buy and a seller wanted to sell and most negotiations took place between those two parties via their agents.

Fall-out rates were in the 15% range.  Can you imagine that?  85% of your ratified contracts making it to closing?  Sounds heavenly.

Today, a single complete transaction package is about the size of the old MLS book I used to carry around and there are often lenders, investors, asset managers and more who have a stake in the deal.  In a word, real estate transactions have become very COMPLEX.  And from what I hear, for every six contracts written, just 3 – 4 will close.

I am generally in awe at the job most (good) Realtors do today.  As Donna Summer might chortle, ‘They work hard for the money.’  There are hundreds of details that need handling, dozens of potholes and roadblocks along the way and a multitude of deal killing explosions to navigate.  Picture:  O. J. Simpson running through an airport as he did in those old Hertz commercials, except now the concourse is a mine field!

Add to this the fact that prices and, therefore, percentage based real estate commission have fallen by nearly 50% in most markets and it’s suddenly common to hear brokers and agents say, ‘Well, I think I made about $10 an hour on that deal.’    It’s mathematical:  Falling prices + increased complexity = more hours + less money.

What’s wrong with this picture is that the business has moved on to a new age, but the way we do it is stuck in the last decade.  Today,  you probably can’t afford to do real estate in the intimate, hand-holding way we did it in the 80′s and 90′s.  Doing it all by yourself will wear you out and greatly limit the number of deals you can put together.

The solution seems to be to get help:  an assistant, an admin or someone to take some of the numbing complexity off your shoulders.    But how do you do that when you’re working harder than you’ve ever worked for much less money?

I know brokers who have assistants working on a per-closed-transaction basis, where the assistant receives $X or X% of every closed deal.  In theory, it’s a great way to work because the expectation is that the assistant will free the broker to do MORE, and as the broker does MORE, the assistant makes MORE.

I know brokers who have pressed their high school and college aged children, nieces and nephews into service, helping them evaluate and then install time saving, efficiency producing technology.

I know one broker who hired a new Mom and semi-retired real estate agent who wants the flexibility of working from home – in a way that allows her to keep her new daughter with her – to do all of his BPOs.  The broker can focus on taking listings and doing deals.

The important thing is this:  so many have gone back to being Phase I brokers, working alone, doing it all.  That has been an excellent response to the tightening of the market the last few years.  However, there is a downside:  as activity picks up, your ability to do more transactions is greatly diminished.  If you are maxed out today – and just getting by – how will you do more if you don’t find a way to transition to Phase II (which means getting help)?

This year, in late November – Early December we will begin our annual business planning process, but this year it will be a little different.  It’s going to all about getting to the next level, all about going from Phase I to Phase II, from Phase II to Phase III. To get your brain started around this challenge, check out John Powell’s presentation from last year’s rally swing:

New Age Real Estate is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) San Diego Chapter has asked me to speak to their members next month on how we’re using Coaching to drive the new Help-U-Sell University, Pro-Coach U.  It’s a very prestigious group full of big names from the fields of Instructional Design, Educational Technology, Performance Improvement and Organizational Development.  What we’re doing is a little cutting edge and there is lots of interest in how our point-of-view might make similar programs in other industries more effective.

What is that point-of-view, you ask?  Well, it’s simply this:  When we train adults in a business setting what we’re usually trying to accomplish is a change in behavior.  We want them to act differently then they normally have in the past.  It’s applicable to all kinds of training, but think for a moment about sales skills.  If you’re like most people, you came to real estate sales thinking you couldn’t sell anything  to anybody.  You went through a learning period where you discovered that you actually DID have sales skills and you worked to polish them.  You began to behave differently than you did before you jumped into the selling pool.  If you’ve ever trained to be a manager of salespeople, you studied and practiced until you became adept at asking the right questions at the right time (rather than impressing your team by telling them everything you know).  These are new behaviors that you learn by first recognizing their importance and effectiveness, then by seeing someone else do it correctly, then by practicing in a safe environment and getting feedback from a knowledgeable Coach.  That’s what we do in Pro-Coach U.

Most sales and management training occurs in a classroom in a compressed period of time with usually just a head nod toward role playing or any kind of meaningful practice.  Even worse are the purely online programs that merely dump the information out of the screen an onto your desk where it rarely gets put into action and is quickly forgotten. With Pro-Coach U, we use the Internet to deliver information.  That’s where the book learning takes place.  It comes in the form of brief video Lessons where the hard core information we are working with is presented in a compelling fashion.  The new Information is then explored in a series of real world Exercises and Activities, supervised by the Coach.  As the participant practices, the Coach provides feedback.  The Coach watches and listens and decides when the new Broker is ready for the next infusion of Information.

Here’s a little secret about training adults:  it’s a selling situation.  The job is to convince people that what you want them to do is going to make them happier, more productive, richer, better looking, healthier, and wiser than they currently are.  If you can accomplish that, the actual learning and behavior change is easy.   It’s awfully hard to do that kind of benefits selling over the phone or over the Internet or even in a classroom.  It usually takes the trusted guidance of someone who’s been there, done that and understands the benefits from a personal standpoint:  a Coach.  And that’s why Pro-Coach U is, from beginning to end, a Coaching driven experience.

Jeanne Strayer and I started working on Coaching back in 1987 when we developed a Coaching driven in-office training program for Century21, the Sales Performance System(SPS).  It was a magnificent program that came with almost three hours of video – used to role model the new behaviors – comprehensive Participant and Coaching Guides.  The Agent went away, did their work and exercises, then came back to see the Coach, who only had to turn to the appropriate page in the guide to know what to ask, what to inspect, and what came next.  The big surprise came to me in 2003 when, new to Help-U-Sell, I came across Science to Sales:  Don Taylor’s way of training high performing Buyers Agents.  It was created several years before SPS and followed the same basic coaching methodology.  I maintain to this day that Science to Sales is the best agent development training program I’ve ever seen – even better than SPS, which was left in the dust as Century 21 was sold and sold again.

Jeanne and I went on to weave Coaching into most every project we touched after Century 21 and even brought it to bear in the last iteration of Help-U-Sell (the pre-2006 version).  Now, in the new Millennium, technology has finally caught up with us and we’re creating Pro-Coach U as a blended learning solution, involving video, the internet, audio, print and Coaching to produce solid Help-U-Sell Citizens.  It makes perfect sense to us . . . but the rest of the world sees it as cutting edge.  That’s ok:  we Help-U-Sell folks always like being first anyway.

Help-U-Sell and Performance Improvement is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Wanted:  Market Segment Specialist
We are expanding our business and are looking for
a few happy folks in specific ‘niche’ marketplaces
to help secure our position there.  Are you in a
unique or specialized neighborhood? Belong to a
large local organization?  Are you active in a local
club, religious or social group?  This might be the
perfect way to earn an extra income working part-
time from home!  A real estate license is necessary
but easily obtained with our help.  Contact . . . . .

Once again, today’s Broker Roundtable call was a hit.  The sharing has been so good lately, there is a move afoot to change the name from ‘Roundtable’ to ‘Mastermind.’  We started out talking about the difference between hiring an agent as a real estate salesperson (charged with the responsibility of expanding your business) or as an assistant (helping you manage the flow of business you have created and freeing you up to create more).  It was an interesting discussion.  But once again, near the end of the call, an exciting new idea bubbled up.

It started with Maurine Grisso describing a Seniors Only neighborhood in her marketplace.  She said she’d love to have someone there to be her advocate.  Ken Kopcho chimed in, saying, ‘a kind of Market Segment Specialist?’  So this idea of bringing someone on to help you gain access to a specific niche market began to take shape.  It might be Seniors in a specific neighborhood or active in a specific club, or Veterans at the VFW, or even well liked and visible teachers.

The MSS job would be to tell the Help-U-Sell story whenever an opportunity arose so that we get the call when it comes time to buy or sell.  Compensation would probably be a referral fee.  You’d probably NOT be offering these people a full bore real estate career – and good candidates probably wouldn’t want one — just a chance to earn some extra money doing something easy and enjoyable.

Jack Bailey talked about a very well liked teacher who is active in his school and with the families of his students.  He has five kids of his own and is always looking for a way to earn a few extra dollars.  This might be perfect for that man.

While the initial vision of this job seemed to be most like a ‘bird-dog’ simply alerting the Broker when activity is imminent, Maurine enhanced it a bit, saying she’d want her Senior Specialist to work any of the buyers who might be appropriate for that specialized neighborhood.

I just cranked out the sample ad above that might be helpful in identifying candidates for this interesting new recruiting target.  Perhaps it would go well in Craig’s List or the Penny Saver.

While I love this idea, it is a little bit of a twist on the Help-U-Sell way.  Ordinary (Traditional) real estate Brokers recruit bodies with almost no selectivity hoping to hire the few who may expand their business.  You see, the Ordinary Broker believes the only way to do more business is to hire more agents.  At Help-U-Sell, we never hire unless we have more business than we can handle.  When we hire, we’re hiring NOT to expand our business but to more efficiently and effectively handle the business we have already created.  When we want to expand our business we do it with Marketing and skill development.

But here, you are hiring a Market Segment Specialist who will enable you to break into markets that are at present unavailable to you.  You are hiring them to help you expand your business. It’s a new wrinkle for us . . . but I like it!

Help Wanted is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog

Imagine an Ordinary (Traditional) Real Estate Office:  Acme Realty . . .

Average Sale Price:  $300,000

Average Commission per closed side:  3% ($9,000)

20 agents averaging 1/2 a closed side per month (some do more most do less — and the ‘average’ is way above what’s typical today)

Average Agent Commission Split:  70%

Expenses:

• Rent:  $5,000
• Utilities: $500
• Office Equipment:  $500
• Supplies:  $500
• Admin:  $4,000
• Management:  $7,000 (Most Brokers do this job 24/7 and never budget for it . . . which is voodoo economics to the max)
• Dues:  $300
• Conventions and Training:  $500
• Insurance:  $300
• Marketing:  $5,000
• Total:  $23,600/ month

Production:

10 closed sides/month X $9,000 GCI per closed side = $90,000 GCI/month

Less 8% Franchise Royalty + Mass Ad Fund:  $7,200 (and you’d be crazy to start a business today without a recognized brand and support)

Less 70% to Agents:  $57,960

Net Operating Income (Company Dollar):  $24,840

Less Expenses: $23,600

Net Profit, Before Taxes:  $1,240 = 1.37% . . . which could easily be wiped out if the copy machine breaks or one of the closings falls through.

Is there any question that the ‘Ordinary’ real estate business is broken???

(Un)Balance Sheet is a post from: The Set Fee Real Estate Blog