Category: Help-U-Sell

Why the Current Percentage Based Commission Structure in Real Estate is Good for Consumers

Tomorrow, Help-U-Sell Broker, Dan Desmond, will be ‘debating’ the merits of the Set Fee Business Model vs. those of the traditional percentage based model with an industry veteren, Scott Einbinder. Dan will do just fine. He has dozens of comparative gems that illustrate the superiority of the Set Fee model over percentage commissions.

But I keep trying to think like the other guys. I wonder what they’ll say are the consumer benefits of a seller paying, say, 6% to sell their $300,000 home ($18,000) versus a set fee of, say, $4,950? Here’s all I could come up with:

The lofty percentage based commission is better for consumers because there is so much money in the transaction for real estate people that they will crawl all over one another to make the sale! AND it’s good for consumers because there is enough money in the transaction for the brokers to pay their salespeople ridiculously high commission splits and still have enough left over to pay the electric bill!

In fact, there is so much sales commission in real estate transactions that pay by percentage, that the industry has invented all kinds of new ways to ‘get the job done.’ How about this one:

I know of more than one company that has brought ‘Network Marketing’ (Read: MLM) to real estate. They pay bonuses to salespeople on the production of the people they bring into the company and the ones THEY bring into the company and the ones THEY bring into the company and so on. The models I’ve seen have agents earning bonuses SIX GENERATIONS down-line from the person who actually did the transaction. So the transaction agent gets paid . . . and so does the person who brought them in and, of course, the person who brought that person in, and so on and so forth until six people have shared that commission. It’s not only possible, it’s likely that the 4th, 5th and 6th generation winners won’t even know there is a transaction in the works! They may not even know the agent who actually did the deal! But they’ll still get paid because they did the one thing the traditional business holds as all important: they recruited!

What’s wrong with that? I mean, Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki have both endorsed Multi-Level Marketing (oops! I’m sorry, I mean: Network Marketing) as a great way to make a lot of money. What’s wrong with it is this:

If there is enough money in the transaction to pay six (or more) real estate people, most of whom had NOTHING to do with the transaction at all . . . . there’s too much money in the transaction for real estate people.

We have to remember why people get into the real estate business. Very few go to college to study real estate and prepare for a career in it. Most set out to do something else . . . that eventually goes wrong. Maybe, like me, they set out to teach but discovered several years later that teaching wouldn’t pay the bills. Maybe they were climbing someone’s corporate ladder and were suddenly laid off. Maybe they stayed home and raised the kids, who are now grown and independent. The point is this: most people come to real estate as a fall back (fall forward?) from a career shift. Why do they choose real estate? Anyone who’s bought or sold a house or two has a basic familiarity with the industry and how things work. Entry is relatively easy and cheap – you just have to pass a State test and pay a few fees. And there is potential to make big bucks. I mean, just look at the numbers! Sell a $400,000 house paying, say 5% commission . . . that’s $20,000 for just one deal! I know, I know, not all of that goes to the agent, but still, it’s a lot of money for selling one THING. You’d have to be selling industrial pumps or warehouse automation systems to make that much on a single sale anywhere else . . . and those jobs would probably require technical expertise that most don’t have!

So, when our chosen career shits and we need a plan B, we look to real estate because it’s easy to get in, it doesn’t cost a lot, and the money can be really good. In fact, it looks like ‘easy’ money. I assure you it’s not . . . but to a person looking for an income stream, real estate sales can appear relatively easy.

Unfortunately, most who get in quickly discover the truth: that it’s NOT easy, that they work more hours for less per hour than they what they left. It’s frustrating. And now here comes Help-U-Sell trying to charge sellers LESS for our service! Unthinkable!

I don’t want to give the impression that I am anti-real estate agent. I assure I am not. To me, the ones who are good are . . . heroes. I’ve worked with some who tirelessly wrangled angry dragon-like transactions into submission, day after day, deal after deal, and never stopped smiling. What I am ‘anti’ is: consumers bleeding equity to support a real estate business model that’s was out of date 20 years ago and that’s been on life-support ever since.

So, here’s to you, Dan Desmond! Put your armor on and speak the truth . . . it may just set them free.

Identity Crisis

(April, 2013 is turning out to be the biggest month we’ve ever had at The Set Fee Blog. With 7 full days left in the month, we have already had more visitors than in any month since our inception – which was September 2010. I think it’s mostly people getting ready for the BIG DEBATE coming up in a couple of days. Along that line, Good Luck, Dan! I know you’ll be great.)

I’ve been chatting with Michael Del Rosario, a real estate broker in Cerritos, CA, about a new agent directory website he is building, Agents For Less. He’s allowing agents and brokers who offer some kind of financial incentive to buyers and sellers – whether commission discounts, flat fee, fee-for-service, limited service, etc. – to be listed in a searchable, consumer friendly database. We were talking about categories today and it was a little un-nerving. I realized we have a bit of an identity crisis in real estate, and it all revolves around ‘Full Service.’

Consumers intuitively know what ‘Full Service’ in real estate means:

  • Expertise/Consultation (preparation for sale, pricing, planning, staging)
  • Marketing (which might include MLS, Internet, Open Houses, advertising, signs, flyers, etc)
  • Representation/Negotiation (weighing offers, avoiding mistakes, anticipating next steps)
  • Transaction Processing/Problem Resolution (making sure everything is done properly, handling problems as they arise)

The problem is that almost everyone in the business – traditional percentage-based brokers, discount brokers, flat fee brokers, fee for service brokers and so on – claims to do all of those things!  The only brokers who might admit to NOT doing some of it would be self-described ‘Limited Service’ brokers or ‘MLS Only’ brokers.  With so many different kinds of brokers laying claim to  ‘Full Service,’ the term becomes meaningless . . . except that consumers don’t realize this.  In the muddled mess of real estate company marketing, they have come to believe that  ‘Full Service’ must also mean ‘Full Commission.’  >>> (and therefore, less than full commission means less than full service)<<<

Let that sink in for a moment.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  If your less-than-full-commission offering is based on a better, more efficient business model that enables you to be profitable while charging people LESS . . . then the debate is not about the level of service, it’s about how much the consumer wants to pay to sell a house.   And here’s a news flash:  s/he wants to pay as little as possible to get the job done quickly, efficiently and effectively.

If you aren’t charging a full percentage-based commission, you have to go the extra mile to make consumers understand that you actually ARE Full Service.  It’s a nagging bit of marketing that has to be undertaken if you are going to do anything different with your fee structure than what your ordinary competitors are doing.

At the same time, ‘Full Service’ will become the imaginary club your competitors will wield to beat you in the marketplace.  They will insist that you don’t provide ‘Full Service’ because you charge less . . . which taps into the consumers’ sub-conscious belief that ‘Full Service’ and ‘Full Commission’ are somehow intrinsically tied to one another.   When Suzy Sixpence from Acme Realty says, ‘Help-U-Sell?  Oh, they’re not Full Service . . . I know they’ll say they are, but they really don’t do anything for their sellers except put the sign in the yard.  Sometimes they won’t even put you in the MLS – and of course, without that, you’re not even on the market!  We all know you get what you pay for, and that’s really true when it comes to Help-U-Sell and the other discounters,’ . . . when she says that, she sometimes gets a head nodding Amen from her audience. But they are not nodding because what she’s saying about Help-U-Sell is true. They are nodding because they know there is a difference between Nordstrom and Wallmart . . . and she successfully uses that knowledge to twist perception in the real estate arena.

John Powell created the Help-U-Sell Service Comparison chart for use in Listing Consultations:Help-U-Sell Service Comparison Chart(Note: this is a generic version of the chart used only as an example in Help-U-Sell training. Don’t try to draw any conclusions from this example – it’s totally fictitious) John has used it effectively for years – in fact, it is the centerpiece of his Listing Consultation.  It graphically illustrates what his office does for sellers and compares it with what his four biggest competitors do.  And, of course, it shows that he does everything they do plus a lot more.  It neutralizes the ‘less than Full Service’ bomb quite effectively.  Trouble is:  you have to get face to face with a seller before you can use it – and if Suzy Sixpence has gotten to them first . . . .well, you may not get the opportunity.

Getting the opportunity is a function of marketing.  We spend major marketing resources getting information about what we do for sellers for a set fee out into the marketplace.  It usually takes a lot of mailbox marketing to install the message and, increasingly, a lot of SEO and Internet marketing.  Your marketing is successful when a consumer, sitting across from Suzy and hearing her spout her nonsense, experiences the natural discomfort that occurs when the crap-meter goes off!  When that happens, Suzy just looks . . . slimy.

Consumers:  when you talk to real estate brokers about level of service and fee structure, use the four bullets above to evaluate what they say.  If they don’t do something, ask why.  (There may be a good reason, i.e. newspaper advertising.  In many markets it does not produce results – defined as leads – and therefore is wasteful and ineffective.)  If the fee seems lower than what others are charging, ask how they are able to do that and still be profitable.  And ask what, if anything, you are giving up for the lower fee.

OR:  just put this all aside.  Remember that the shortest distance between point A and point B is a straight line . . . and call Help-U-Sell.  You’ll get ‘Full Service.’  You really will.  And you’ll pay much less because Help-U-Sell is a different, more efficient business model.  We can charge less and still make more because we don’t run our offices like . . . well, like Suzy runs hers.

**PS: Help-U-Sell Brokers, why not get listed on www.agentsforless.com?  It’s free and is just one more way consumers may be able to find you . . . and getting found is half the battle.

 

The Set Fee vs. Commission Debate

Well, the great debate is just a couple of weeks away! On April 25, Help-U-Sell broker, Dan Desmond, of Forked River, New Jersey will take on Scott Einbinder, an industry veteran and speaker in a verbal joust about which model (set fee or percentage based commission) is best for consumers. The event takes place at the Tom’s River Clarion and the $10 tickets (proceeds will be donated to Habitat for Humanity) have sold out.

Dan, I am so proud of you! You were so persistent, consistent and correct in your pronouncements that you caused this ‘Debate’ to arise. I know you will represent all of us well. The buzz is already in your favor – as it should be. After all, you are defending what most everyone agrees will be the future of real estate. The other side is defending the status quo – which we already know consumers don’t like.

In fact, it’s hardly a fair contest. It’s already over. The decision has already been made. Percentage based commissions in real estate sales are stupid and the public hates and/or doesn’t understand them. Set Fee pricing is logical and accomplishes the same result as percentage based commissions with much less cost to the consumer. If you took 100 potential sellers and lined them up, gave them an overview of each of the two models and asked them to choose, I bet 95 would choose the Set Fee. The debate has already been decided in the court of public opinion.

One of the arguments percentage based guys always use (and one you may hear on the 25th, Dan) is that, with percentage based commissions, the agent has an incentive to get the seller more money because when the sales price is higher, the sales commission is also higher. Let’s debunk that, shall we?

Let’s imagine that we have a $300,000 home listed for sale with a seller who has agreed to pay, say, 6% of the final sales price as commission. Let’s assume a buyer comes along and offers $280,000. If the seller takes the offer, s/he will pay $16,800 in commission. Let’s say the agent, wanting to get as much out of the deal as possible, waves his/her magic real estate stick over the buyer and convinces him to pay $10,000 more: $290,000. Now the seller will pay $17,400 – just $600 more in commission – not that much money. Now consider the likely possibility that the buyer is working with another agent from another office. Now that $600 has to be split in half. The listing office’s portion is just $300. And of course, the agent doesn’t get all of that. Let’s assume s/he’s on a 70% split. That $10,000 more the agent ‘got’ the seller is worth a grand total of $210 to the agent.

Come on. Who are we trying to kid with this kind of logic?

Truth is, an agent in a $300,000 marketplace on a 70% split with an office that charges, say, 6% commission will probably need to sell about 13 homes in a year to make $100,000. That’s assuming their sales are a mixture of one sided and two sided deals, with the bulk being one sided. If this agent works a 40 hour week (and most don’t), that’s about $50 an hour. So getting the seller and additional $10,000 is only worth about 4 hours of the agent’s time, 4 hours that could be spent making a 14th sale for the year.

Unfortunately, consumers take the myth that the agent who has a percentage based interest in their transaction will get them more money to mean: ‘If I pay a lofty percentage based commission, my agent will get me MORE than market value for my home…’ and we all know how ludicrous that is!

So, Dan, when you hear this spin-doctored nonsense about percentage based commissions motivating agents to work harder, meet it head on. Pull out the chalk and do an example. Show everyone how little $10,000 more in sales price means in the agent’s pocket.

And by the way, it’s been my experience that most agents, whether commission or set fee based, will work very hard to help their clients – whether buyer or seller – achieve their objectives regardless of what happens to the commission. That’s certainly one of the characteristics that separates the really good guys from the really bad.

Mistakes Real Estate Agents Make

My last post was all about brokers – Help-U-Sell Brokers in particular. This one is different not just because it’s about agents, but because it’s about ALL real estate agents.

Real estate agents are . . . what? En Mass, they are overpaid, unproductive, ineffective and blah blah blah. But that’s not the whole story. The good ones are really good. They are worth their weight in real estate paperwork. In fact, good real estate agents are heroes. Trouble is, there’s just not that many of them out there. Most are mediocre at best, hoping to make quick and easy money selling a very expensive commodity.

So how do you tell if your agent is good or mediocre? Start with production. The average agent in America today does about 7 deals a year. That’s hideous. Not just for the agent, who on average will make about $34,000 on that kind of production, but also for the consumer who gets stuck with an agent who does so little he/she can’t possibly be as sharp or up to date on the business – and particularly on how to solve transaction problems – as someone doing, say, twice as many deals. So ask your potential agent: ‘How many deals did you do last year?’ You should hear something in double digits and ideally, the first one should probably be a 2 or better. But don’t fool yourself into thinking the one with the largest number of deals done in the previous year must be the best agent. Not always true. In fact, not usually true. You’re looking for the one who not only has decent production, but has clients raving about their buying or selling experience. Ask to see testimonial letters – the good guys have tons of them – or do what you’d do if your were hiring an unfamiliar babysitter: ask for references . . . and then call them.

Ordinary real estate agents make money by securing clients – either buyers or sellers – and working with them to affect transactions. Agents work on behalf of Brokers. In most cases Agents can’t do anything without their Broker’s supervision and approval. When you list your home for sale, you may think you’re listing with Sally Agent, but you’re really listing with Bill Broker. Sally is just there on behalf of Bill. Commissions are paid to the Broker, who then splits the commission with the agent (there are exceptions to this compensation scheme, but they are rare).

Ok, so there are three paragraphs of consumer education about real estate agents. Now let’s get on to the mistakes agents make.

#1 – Thinking that their commission split is the most important factor in their decision to affiliate with one broker over another. You know those ‘average’ agents doing 7 deals a year? In many markets around the country they can command 70% of the commission dollars coming into the broker. Sometimes even more. Many agents simply shop and negotiate with brokers until they find one who will pay them the highest split . . . so they can make the most money on the 7 transactions they will do each year. It’s as if the high commission split affirms them as successful and desirable as real estate agents, somehow blotting out the fact they they do only 7 deals a year. What they don’t seem to understand is that a broker who will pay them big splits on lousy production will probably bring NOTHING to the table to help them build and develop their businesses. A broker who gives 7 out of every 10 dollars away before he/she even begins to pay the bills isn’t going to have money for marketing, for support staff, for lead generation . . . for anything except the legal ‘blessing’ of the agent’s transactions.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In truth, the relationship between broker and agent can be very powerful. If the broker is really IN the real estate business, s/he attacks the local market strategically. S/he studies it daily, schemes and plots, builds and pays for a comprehensive marketing program that produces leads, leads, leads. The broker builds an operation so powerful that s/he needs help to handle all of the business it has created! That’s where agents come in. They are the ‘help,’ the ones who take all of the business the broker has created and turn it into sales. Wonderful! But, a broker who is taking responsibility for marketing, for generating leads, for expansion and business development cannot afford to pay huge splits even to good agents. And S/he can’t afford to keep the 7 deal a year crowd around either: they blow many more leads than they close! So the agent who works for such a broker probably has a lower split: 50% – 60%, but has the benefit of a steady stream of business created by the broker. That’s a value for value relationship; everyone wins. The broker keeps enough commission on each deal to make a profit and the agent does far more production and makes much more money, too!

Look. My dad got licensed to sell real estate in 1967. He went to work for Ted Tamminga, a local broker who had placed an ad for ‘Help’ in the newspaper. Ted had been in business for 30 years and was a fixture in the community. His connections and his marketing produced dozens of leads every week, leads he was too busy to handle. He was missing opportunities because he was maxed out. So, my dad went to work for him to handle the overflow. Ted threw him the crumbs, the buyers with problems, the sellers with unrealistic expectations; and he paid my dad 50%. Dad worked for Ted for 4 years, I think; and by that time he had his own client base (all of those leads Ted had fed him), and he opened his own shop. Ted was delighted with the help and wished him well . . . and placed another ad in the newspaper.

Now THAT’s a broker/agent relationship that makes sense, don’t you think? A little like the master/apprentice relationship in the olde days. My dad built a client base on Ted’s lead generation effectiveness and had the benefit of 30 years of experience as he learned how to run a successful real estate company. That’s worth far more than the measly 20 percentage points more he might have made in commission split paid by a broker on life-support in 2013!

Agents, when you shop companies, it’s not about split. Split is almost irrelevant. It’s about the Broker: what business is s/he in? Is s/he in the recruiting business? Constantly chasing and hiring ever more agents (and watching the failures sulk out the back door)? Is s/he in the training business, spending most of his/her time working with the non-productive agents on staff in hopes of magically making them into super stars (and ignoring the truly productive people)? You want a broker in the real estate business, one driven to achieve ever increasing market share in a clearly defined target market (that coincides with your own). One who masters in marketing, studies it, tracks it, plans it, executes it and tweaks it. One who believes job one is lead generation. (Why lead generation? Because it is leads that will serve his listed sellers the best).

If you can find one of those, you don’t even have to ask what the split is. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to make more, do more transactions, and have a heck of a lot of fun in the process!

#2 – Getting caught up in the real estate ‘cycle.’ Many agents wake up and realize they have no business; so they do what they should: prospect, prospect prospect . . . which leads to a few listings . . . which take time energy and effort, especially when the offers come in. The prospecting stops because the agent is too busy with listings and offers. And then s/he is too busy processing the ensuing transactions to prospect for new business, until all the transactions close and then . . . YIKES! they have to start all over. Their production (and their income) looks like a mountain range: peak – valley – peak – valley. The answer is systems. Prospecting is neither mysterious nor magical. It’s just an activity, a routine, repeatable process. It can become a system that runs almost on auto pilot, but for that happen it must be given sacred space: time that is scheduled, set aside and inviolable on the daily calendar. It must continue even when all hell is breaking lose in other aspects of the business. Taking care of listings, presenting offers and shepherding transactions to closing must also continue every day no matter what. And, hopefully, you’re seeing the impossibility of all this ‘continuing.’ Unless the agent is willing to hire and develop help to get it all done, to take on servicing, buyers, transaction processing, etc., s/he will be limited in the number of transactions s/he can do.

But, once again: it doesn’t have to be that way.

There are rare brokers who take the burden of lead generation off the agent’s shoulders, who do the prospecting for listings and who have systems in place for servicing and transaction processing. Agents in these special offices simply take the buyer leads the office has generated and turn them into pending sales – which are handed off to the processing entity. The lucky agent then goes back and gets another office generated buyer lead and repeats the process. It’s a heavenly, non-cyclical real estate existence!

#3 – Believing their office is one big happy family. Uh-huh. In ordinary real estate offices, it’s every man (and/or woman) for himself. With leads in short supply, and everyone competing for the same customer . . . well, don’t leave your new buyer’s phone number laying around on your desk, ok? Let’s reality test that ‘one big happy family’ idea. How many licensed agents are in your local Board of REALTORS? Got the number? Great. Now, how many transactions were done in your local Board/MLS last year? Got it? Ok. Now, divide the number of transactions by the number of licensees. You’ll probably get a number like 5 or 6. That’s how many transactions each agent would do if the leads were distributed equally. WAKE UP! There is not enough business to support all the people trying to make a living in real estate, not in your Board, not in your MLS, and not in your office! Your ‘happy family’ is probably more like ‘Cutthroat Island’ (by the way: that’s a great movie!). Only in offices where the broker takes responsibility for generating the leads and then takes ownership of them (assigning them to capable agents and holding those agents accountable) can this kind of gunslinger ethic be avoided.

#4 – Thinking that if they just keep doing what they did last year and the year before, they’ll do better this year. That’s the definition of insanity, remember? Doing the same thing and expecting a different result! The problem is most agents are stuck in a dead and/or false paradigm. The picture of what their career should look like is in stark contradiction to reality. The only way out is to adopt a new paradigm . . . which is very hard for anyone to do in even the most favorable circumstances. Until the agent is willing to question every assumption they’ve made about their career: the function and value of a Broker, their own value in a transaction, what needs to be done to sell a listing and so on, only then can the old paradigm begin to crumble. And truth is: few are willing to be so bold, so brave.

It almost goes without saying (I mean: consider the source, right?), but the solution to all of this agent angst is Help-U-Sell. That idealized broker referred to above actually exists. S/he runs a Help-U-Sell office. S/he understands that job one is to generate leads, which are assigned to agents. Agents whose job description is focused and manageable. If you’re wondering why your real estate career sucks, why you never can seem to get ahead, why not do something different? Question your own attitudes about commission splits and lead generation and then go see a Help-U-Sell broker. It could be one of those life changing events.

Mistakes Real Estate Brokers Make

I’ve been away from Help-U-Sell for three months now. I am starting to see the forest, not so much the trees. It’s an interesting, uncluttered perspective. I found myself this morning thinking about some of the common mistakes Help-U-Sell Brokers make in their quest to dominate the (real estate) world. Here are a few that jump out at me:

Not adding help when it’s needed. Help-U-Sell brokers are very passionate about what they do. The mission of saving consumers money and changing the way real estate is sold is sometimes so precious that they have difficulty delegating parts of the job to others. But, without that delegation, there is a limit on how many consumers you can actually help. Staffing in a Help-U-Sell office is driven by one metric: overwhelm. That’s the trigger that it’s time for help, and it’s true regardless of whether we’re looking for admin help or sales help. If administrative tasks are keeping you from doing the marketing you need to do or from getting that new listing in a timely fashion, it’s time to hire an admin assistant. If you’re spending all of you time in the office because you’re bogged down processing transactions, it’s time to hire a transaction coordinator. If you’re losing buyer leads, not getting back to inquiries in time and so on, it’s time to look for buyers agents. We never recruit to build our businesses. We recruit to take care of the business we’ve already created. If you are overwhelmed, if you are dropping plates, try to identify the area that’s sapping your current resources and hire someone to free you up to do what you do best: meet the people.

Not doing a thorough market analysis before spending money on marketing. Our approach to marketing is very different than the one employed by ordinary brokers. We never spend a dime unless there is a reasonable chance for a return, and we never spend unless we can track the results. Predicting a reasonable return by gut or by listening to the salesperson is the way ordinary brokers do this. At Help-U-Sell we massage our neighborhood numbers until they are granular as the sand at the shore. We look at turnover rates, ratios of equity sellers to REOs/Short Sales, date of purchase and so on, and we look at it by Zip, by neighborhood and by carrier route. We target our marketing to the segments that are performing best in those key areas. But before we pull the trigger on marketing, we install a powerful inquiry/intake process that will result in lead capture when the marketing produces. I worked in ordinary real estate for decades before I came to Help-U-Sell, and I can tell you I never saw an ordinary broker approach marketing in this logical manner.

Cutting back on marketing or not marketing at all when cash is tight. Help-U-Sell is a powerful brand with powerful consumer recognition and acceptance. Many people know we sell real estate and save people money. Owning that identity in the minds of consumers is very powerful. It’s an enhancer, and makes every bit of marketing you do more effective. Unfortunately, if you don’t do something to keep your logo in front of consumers in the local marketplace every day, all of that power will evaporate. They’ll want to sell, they’ll want to save, but they won’t know you’re there! Visibility is job one in marketing, and it must be managed even in the leanest of markets.

Not plugging into the network. We are a dispersed group. We’re all over the country, and it’s rare that we have two offices within easy driving distance of one another. Most of our offices are like little islands of sanity in an ocean of real estate lunatics. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes, in moments of weakness, sane Help-U-Sell brokers become overwhelmed by the the babble of their ordinary competitors and (YIKES!) start to question their own program. Sometimes they even begin to tweak or flat out change what they’re doing because some six percenter did a good bashing job on them. There is one great remedy for this and it’s tapping into the network. We meet every Tuesday for tech issues and every Wednesday for general broker issues. The meetings are lively and crisp. I can think of no better way to plug in, stay focused and motivated than to attend theses meetings whenever you can. Hearing Richard Cricchio or Mark Dosik talk about what they are doing is golden. And how cool is it that YOU get to participate in the design of the next great website enhancement just by showing up to an occasional teleconference?

Looking at agents like an ordinary broker. Let me remind you of some differences . . . . The ordinary broker recruits agents to build his/her business. The Help-U-Sell broker builds his/her business through careful marketing and adds agents to help take care of the business that has been created. The ordinary broker expects his/her agents to do a journeyman’s job on every aspect of residential real estate: listing, selling, prospecting, processing, marketing and so on. The Help-U-Sell broker expects his agents to take the buyer leads the marketing program has created and convert them into happy customers. One of the reasons you can charge consumers LESS than ordinary brokers and still make MORE on your transactions than they do is that you don’t have a listing agent to pay. The broker (or his assistant) takes all listings. Listings belong to the office, not to an individual agent. Abundant listings produced by the low set fee offer produce a strong stream of buyer leads – leads created by the office and owned by the office and assigned to agents. It’s a very different perspective!

Back to basics:

1. We go into the market with a superior offer for home sellers: Sell fast, save thousands with our Low Set Fee pricing.

2. We carefully target where we spend resources establishing our message based on where we are most likely to get a return.

3. We are absolutely deadly on buyer inquiries. We practice, practice, perfect, and fine tune how we respond, how we communicate value and competence quickly, and we convert more of our hard earned leads than anyone else.

4. We hire agents to take care of the business we’ve created. It’s a great, focused, fun job, that’s not for most agents. That’s why we monitor our agent’s performance and sometime de-hire or replace those who don’t seem able to convert the leads they are given.

(If you want to know how to go back to basics in greater detail, HERE is a series of 10 posts that will show you how to rule the real estate world)

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