A real estate agent argues that free property data sites like Zillow have made clients skeptical of agents and raised what they expect. Instead of the traditional team model, he says agents should run their business like a company with systems and repeatable processes, not rely on one person doing everything.
So let's, let's get into some of the sort of how the consumer sees agents and the implications for that. You know, increasingly savvy customers are skeptical of real estate agents in general demanding higher standards of expertise and customer service, while discount brokers compete on price rather than value. You definitely can't argue with this, that there's a lot of information available to consumers. And early on in my real estate career, I realized that I was amongst. I was in an industry where there wasn't a lot of respect for what we did. I didn't see it as frustrating. I saw it as a huge opportunity to differentiate myself. So I just knew that people didn't want a real estate agent. It seemed weird to me because I'm like, how could you not want me as your real estate agent? But your ability to get them to take action really relies on your ability to let go of your ego with regards to what consumers might think of you. Today's consumer has more real estate information at their fingertips than all of the real estate combined. Pre1995. Increasing consumer knowledge has changed consumer expectations of the role and competence of Realtors. You know, with Zillow and Trulia and just all the different portals, even now everyone can see how long a home's been on the market, all the price changes. They can pull up tax records in a click. They can pull up Zestimates. I mean, it's ridiculous. There's no greater motivation than the person that is buying or selling. So armed with greater motivation than the agent and a seemingly endless supply of data, clients these days are involved with all aspects of a transaction. Not only does the public get shortchanged, but even highly skilled real estate professionals operating either as a solo agent or a traditional team leader cannot overcome the inherent flaws in the traditional models, even if they attempt to consistently deliver superior consumer value. So the next few slides here are. I coached with a guy. I don't think he does coaching anymore, but his name was Harold Ware, and in my opinion, just an awesome visionary. At the time, his coaching company was called Max Avenue. And I don't even think he does coaching anymore because I think it sort of absolved when I was, when I was with him. But we had long conversations about where he thought the industry was going and why this shift from traditional solo agent or even a traditional team to a corporate model. And so a lot of what I'll talk about here is based on conversations I had with Harold. And I don't even know what he's doing today, but really really cool visionary in the real estate industry. So the question you have to ask is, knowing that, what will your response be? So traditional team leaders can generate more income and gain time leverage by distributing leads to their agents. However, these benefits are gained at the expense of losing control of delivering the value proposition as well as handing over the lifetime value of the client. So a traditional team leader will give away a lead. It's sort of a glorified brokerage. They'll take higher splits away from the agents, but they won't maintain or manage the client experience on top of that. To make matters worse, commission based top performing agents in the traditional team model typically leave the team to compete with you after they demand a commission split that exceeds your budget. This one sentence I see Even in big dominant teams that don't provide, that don't manage the client experience, this is huge. So the ability for your agents to come back at you and demand a higher commission split and for you not to be able to show that you really don't need them. I mean, I love you, Mr. Or Mrs. Agent or Mr. Buyer Agent or Listing Agent, but my business isn't dependent on you because I manage the client experience and I manage the lifetime value of the client. It's really, really important to make that distinction there between a traditional team model and the model that I'm teaching and the model that I run. Clearly, running your business like a business requires the CEO, that's you, to implement systems, policies and repeated processes to meet or exceed your net profit goals while maintaining control of your mission as consumer champion and the lifetime value of your clients. Too many agents get caught in the trap of trying to be Superman or Superwoman. If you try to do everything in your business, you are destined to limit your income and burn out your lifestyle. Remember, if you don't have a business, you have a job.
