So how do we read the market?

The first thing to understand is that the first week to ten days is the "golden hour" for a home. The reason is simple. Anyone who is in the market for the specs of your home will see it come across their email or online housing portal (Zillow, Realtor, Homes, etc)… usually within a day or less. When I say "specs" of your home I am referring to price, location, size, number of bedrooms, etc… basically the search criteria of a buyer. The buyer will look at the pictures, determine whether they like it, contact their agent and arrange for a showing of the home. These showings will almost always occur within that seven to ten days I referred to earlier. After 10 days, you are either waiting on new buyers to come into the market who are looking for your specs, or you are hoping for buyers to broaden their specs to now include yours.

Understanding the importance of when to list a home, how to list a home, the importance of certain aspects within that listing, open houses, reverse prospecting, and marketing are all ingredients for a successful outcome. Equally important is the information an agent receives within the first 24, 48 and 72 hours after going live. Unfortunately, many agents don't even understand the importance of seeking out that information or pay attention to it. If they do, many of them don't bother communicating it to the seller until days later. The information available to an agent in that first 72 hours is critical and can be the difference between a home selling or a home sitting. A great agent has prepped their seller before ever going live to know the type of information they will be provided along with the pros and cons of action or inaction to that data. A great agent will understand what information is viable and what is noise. A great agent will understand the nuances of the area, market conditions, external influences and the importance of feedback. A great agent will solicit that feedback in the form of actual conversations with the agents who walked the home with their clients. Lastly, a great agent will assimilate all those data sources and distill them into digestible information for their seller with the goal of making pivotal changes (sometimes big, sometimes small) in an effort to catch up to that one elusive buyer who becomes the "market" for the sale of the home.

Sometimes luck plays a larger role than agents will admit, but in the right hands luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Understanding how and when to make changes in a timely and effective manner is the difference between good and great.

• Is the training that different vs what you anticipated prior to joining? How so?
• What type of training are you looking for?
• How did you vet the new brokerage you're moving to to insure they DO provide this training?
• How much training did you attend? How much training did you request?
• What kind of accountability did you seek?

Lastly, and this is the big one…Do you really want training or are you mostly looking for an "easy button"? It's unfortunate, but most agents want to be handed a fish rather than learn to fish.

Success in sales is really hard work and Real Estate is sales. Unfortunately, many agents who get into this business don't have sales and/or marketing backgrounds and are shocked to learn that this career is far less about opening doors, showing pretty homes and collecting a paycheck than it is a daily grind. Said another way, they watched way too much DIY, HGTV or Magnolia Network.

Real Estate is about prospecting, picking up the phone, being rejected, making connections and having conversations… a LOT of them. It is 90 "No" responses to every 10 "Yes" responses assuming you are dang good. It's business acumen, negotiation, contracts, frustration and being available almost any time on any day. It's making mistakes (sometimes costly ones), picking yourself off the ground and doing it all over again.

There is a reason 85% of agents leave the business within 2 years and it is NOT training.

How can I make that statement? Simple, there is all kinds of free training catering to any type of learning style on YouTube alone. If an agent really wanted training, it's a smorgasbord of information and most of it is legit. So here is the problem… this knowledge means an individual would need to look in the mirror instead of blame a brokerage for their lack of success.

I offer live training every week to my agents. I've been told it's actually decent training, yet only a third of my agents ever attend. We also offer recorded, online training… of the last month's worth of recorded sessions they have amassed a whopping 2 views amongst all of them. We offer free CE classes, a complete knowledgebase of information and yet the results are still the same… Agents don't typically use them and in time they will fail, leave or both unless they come to understand that success is up to them... I am nothing more than a catalyst, coach, mentor, accountability partner and cheerleader. Thankfully the vast majority of my agents understand this and the dynamic is amazing.

So I ask you… what type of agent are you? Are you a business owner who understands this is 85% you and 15% your brokerage or are you still looking for that Easy Button?

I'm always interested to understand how agents assign value to things their brokerage "provides".  Let's take a look…

• Premium IDX Website and CRM $4,000/yr
• E&O Insurance $600/yr
• Yard and Open House signs $600
• Biz Cards $60
• E-Signature Tool (Ex: Docusign) $360/yr
• Fluff $1,000
• Training $0

These numbers are way high and would be more representative of what you could expect if you went out on your own, yet they still total just under $6,500 for a new to the brokerage agent. I guarantee a brokerage isn't paying these amounts, so I'm curious what you feel you are getting for $12k, $16k, $22k or more?

Let's be real... Since when do you put a brokerage above the needs of your own family? Can you honestly tell me that your broker needs $10,000 more than you do?

I owned my own brokerage a few years ago and I couldn't run it for what I pay my current brokerage. Don't get me wrong, I think brokerages are great when run correctly, but the majority are making money off the backs of agents... many of whom are already struggling. Instead, shouldn't a brokerage be in business to build businesses?

At Key, we are the brokerage for business and business owners. We provide all the necessary infrastructure for you to build a successful business on. We start by helping you create a true business plan, action plan and help you create metrics to measure. We encourage you to build a brand, YOUR brand... not ours. We provide real time input and education to situations as you face them and we provide consistent industry updates which allow you to provide ultimate value to your clients.

Maybe all this sounds great, maybe it doesn't... but none of it matters unless you take the steps to inquire and the effort to execute.

Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 317-969-5959.

Is it something that emanates from the top and is "forced" down and throughout an organization?

Is it whatever the prevailing attitude of the majority within an organization say it is?

Does it change based on opinions? What about when "new blood" is introduced into the group?

Do you bring people on knowing they don't fit the current culture, but will positively impact the bottom line, or do you protect the culture and be more selective in who you onboard?

Is culture exclusive or is it possible that many companies can share very similar cultures?

In real estate I hear a lot about "culture". In many cases it's stated almost as if no other brokerage is capable of having it. What's interesting is that most of those same brokerages have NO issue bringing on any agent who has an active license.

You can't have it both ways... Humans are much too diverse, have far too many motivators, treat people way too differently, share wildly different value systems, etc for an organization to think they can protect some sort of culture yet bring on anyone and everyone.

If you think you are going to "gently persuade" someone to adopt your culture, you probably just desecrated the culture you were trying to maintain.

In my opinion, if you aren't hiring based on talent AND cultural fit equally, you forego the right to mention culture as carrying any value whatsoever. 

I tell agents all the time... we aren't a fit for everyone and everyone isn't a fit for Key Realty. That isn't arrogance, that is real life and I would rather that agent find a perfect place to land, not just a convenient place to land. I'd rather tell someone "no" and help them find the right place then have them come to me 6 months later and tell me they're leaving.