I’m trying to decide on a broker and haven’t made up my mind. I was with John L. Scott for less than a year (8 years ago) and before that Better Homes and Gardens. I like Re/Max because it has very high name recognition (and it’s a short word that can be put on any clothing!), they have a convenient office for me (although i’m not crazy about it), I enjoy talking with the broker, he’s both respectful and quick to answer my questions, because Remax has free legal support, because of the high possibility of getting many referrals and referral fees because Remax is so huge, international in fact (I speak German and would love to get clients from Germany and Europe), and lastly because their symbal of the ho air balloon is so cheerful!

But people are telling me to lookat Keller Williams… Is the support and lack of competition such a good thing there? Is there structure with two different principal brokers good? I am also looking a bit at Windermere…. I’ve just met nice people there…

What are the criteria i should be looking for?

Thanks,
Diane

Don’t forget CBB, Windermere, JLScott will give you leads but they cost 35-45%!. Never seemed worth it to me. When I first started in real estate I knew no one in this area and I did alot of floortime and new construction and built up a referral base and over the last 5 years, I’ve been lucky enough to sell and list to my loyal client base.

But that takes years and 80% of the agents quit due to lack of leads and the expense of being in business and it takes about 50 people in a data base to be able to live off just that. They just get discouraged once they’ve worked through their family and friends.

That’s why I decided to open my office on the system much that Robert Gray Smith suggests, though I’ve found you can’t just have an inside sales team.Here, at LTD each agent gets 10-20 leads a month, while they need them, no desk fee, generous split and profit sharing and great systems to develope a referral base new construction opportunities and other marketing pograms, so if you know of any agents looking for leads, here is my shameless ad for new agents! (ps. I’m also a training satellite office for Rockwell!)

I have clients who will not make a move in real estate without calling me first, but that is not because I “keep in touch with them”. It is more about how well you represent them in the transaction at hand, than how many newsletters, birthday cards and post cards you send them in the interim between their need for representation in a real estate transaction.

If they forget you unless you send them postcards every month, you must not have made much of an impression while representing them in the transaction.

I’ve been telling agents for years to “Look In The MIRROR” if you have to keep depending on lead generators and none of your past clients consider you in their next real estate transaction. How many agents get ticked off at the consumer for not “coming back” to them without considering changing the way they do business? That is the crime and shame of it.

This whole thread can be summed up by that statement. Housevalues, & other lead generators then become the ones “marginalized.”

That is what I wanted to say, but feared tomatoes coming at me at a high rate of speed—what does an escrow chief errand boy have to offer.

Stay in touch with your clients. It prevents wierd situations like having escrow close a sale with clients that purchased only two years earlier with a selling agent except that the listing agent stayed in touch with the buyers of their home and listed the house, again. How many business cards do we have that say “your Realtor or loan officer for life.”–some make it true, most don’t.

Lead generators, among other companies/persons, make a mint off of Realtors by betting that they don’t have a strong long-term relationship with their clients–so far it looks like they are prevailing.

Tim

With regard to “dependency” on company generated “leads”, remember that if you do a bang up job of representing these people well, they refer other people to you and come back to you when they move. You build up good past client relationships and the referral fee is only on the initial transaction. If you have 12 referrals from the Company, that should turn into at least 12 additional sales from referrals from those 12 people.

My CB days were during the time when relocating people going out of state had “buyouts” subject to the “Cinderella Clause”, and I was the magic fairy who showed up at the stroke of midnight. I was the CCPS ( Certified Corporate Property Specialist) now shortened to CPS, who listed the vacant inventory homes. Even though I paid a 50% referral fee, I was able to get two to three new clients from every company referral.

It is the desk fee system that is killing the Company’s incentive to generate leads for the agents. Once you pay your cap, they have no vested interest in whether or not you are successful.

I too am going to spin off as my own Broker with a team. Maybe we could compare notes.

As I understand, MostHome has a call center in Vancouver BC that acts as if they were employed by the broker when they speak with prospects. I believe they manage the web inquiry until it actually becomes a “lead” and then it gets passed off to Windermere.

Maybe someone at Windermere can better explain the program and how individual agents are involved.

-Russ

The My Home Planner I think actually is a nice system for passive lead generation from the internet. The crux of the problem is how many people pass through CB Bain’s (or any other major broker’s) site per day and don’t register? Last month I had 872 visitors to one of my sites with 16% as returning visitors yet less than 2% actually registered to contact me. I can’t imagine what the ratio is for a site like CB Bain.

That’s were I love the technology like LivePerson — it presents the possibility to engage those visitors proactively. If you see they are browsing Medina homes than jump in and engage them about that area. It’s the difference of walking into Nordstorms and being asked if they can help you with anything vs going to Target and not being acknowledged until you are ready to make a purchase.

Chief Errand Boy – I agree, anyone coming into this business relying on the broker to generate all thier leads is in trouble. What I have issues with is the brokerages passively letting the HomeValues of the world become the leaders of grabbing those internet sourced customers. Starting my own team to do this is certainly on my list of possibilities I’m considering.

Perhaps it has more to do with where Robert lives. Most relocating buyers seriously interested in buying a home will say Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, even if they end up buying on Lake Sammamish. A relocating buyer would not ask for Sammamish Plateau if they are relocating here from Michigan. They are then assigned to an agent in the area they requested regardless of where they end up buying a house.