Reasons for Joining KW ….and Reasons to SWITCH to KW.

  Categories: About Keller Williams

This post was written by Jody Cowdrey – Marketing Sales Director of The Brian Duncan Group, Keller Williams Realty Greenbrier, Chesapeake, VA, about his decision to switch to Keller Williams.

Hello Everyone,

I thought this was going to be a short post, but I just added more to it. Oh well…

For starters, 2009 was a hell of a year! Not only did we form a team with an entirely new team structure and see it take off, but we switched brokerages as well. It’s now the new year and we’re firmly planted at KW Greenbrier, and after much preparation, ready for 2010!

I decided to write this not to put a certain company on a pedestal or disparage another company…that’s far from my goal…but to help in dispelling some rumors, and to give whomever wants to know the straight facts as to why I, and we, made our move to Keller Williams. Ultimately it would be great for a real estate agent just finishing their PSI test to get a breakdown of their options at each brokerage, but that doesn’t happen. I would love it if every agent that reads this would at least make sure they have the facts about what’s available to them from every real estate company. And not strictly from someone with a hidden agenda. Go get the info from the horse’s mouth, weigh the facts, and make your decision on your own, for youself.

Let me say first that my outlook has always been that the measure of success is the amount deposited in the bank. But the actual goal is the act of helping people and having something of value to offer them. Essentially, if you give, you get. I firmly believe this. If you take this philosophy and apply it to any brokerage, you begin to see certain issues arise.

We formed The Brian Duncan Group in June of 2009. As the end of the year approached, we began to reevaluate our options as a team. We had decided that we would revisit our current situation once we reached a predetermined sales goal, which we had reached. I started thinking about the reasons that exist for an agent to support the brokerage under which they work. This is basically asking yourself “what’s in it for me”. Aside from the amount of money you’ll bring in from a closing, there should be more to it other than an unrealistic expectation that your company will be loyal to you, which I’m afraid falls short. Sure, there’s always quite a bit of cheerleading, and warm thoughts I guess. …but that’s about as far as it goes. And maybe envelopes and free copies. The above being said, you may have other reasons to choose a certain company over another. Fair enough. “What’s in it for me” may seem in opposition to the “if you give, you get” statement, but read on.

In general, some brokerages are set up so that just about everything is a profit center – the company makes money on everything from Errors and Omissions Insurance, to Home Warranties sold, on agent referrals, and certainly on the flat fee (formerly the admin fee) on every transaction (pure profit), etc. They need this money to support the company as it’s currently structured – the profit supports the company. There’s nothing specifically wrong with this…it’s just one way of doing business.

Other brokerages are franchises. Examples would be Keller Williams, Re/Max, Prudential, Exit, and others. Franchises are basically a proven concept that’s systematized and mass produced, with the aim of developing a blueprint for success. They grow rapidly because they’re franchise-based, plain and simple. Very rarely will you see a company with a traditional structure expand rapidly with the same success. Expenses and business planning are mastered so that there is little chance that an individual franchise will fail.

Either of the above two business structures will need something of value to offer their agents. Money in the form of an agent split, education and training, opportunities to grow, profit share (in Keller Williams’ case), etc…

Just on face value alone, any new agent can go to a traditional brokerage and get a 50/50 split, or they can go to Keller Williams and start off taking home a significantly higher amount of every commission, or even go to a non-REALTOR company and only have to pay a yearly fee. Yes, it would be true that you won’t get free envelopes or printing, or with with other companies any education or training whatsoever. BUT with KW there’s a limit (a CAP) on the amount of your commission you give to the brokerage. Plain and simple, you do not continue to pay the company endlessly. That’s the surface stuff though…for me, it goes well beyond that.

Some people will look at their career as a business, others will not. That’s not to say one way is good, and the other bad….far from it. Everyone has different goals to a certain extent, but similarities exist. I look at my life in general as a business, not just my real estate career. If we were going to make a move, it would need to make sense on a number of levels, professionally and personally. I’ve been through similar moves before, and I understand that 5 years from now we’ll reap the rewards of networking with the people we stay in contact with now or meet in the near future. For me, I wanted to be sure that business opportunities would exist that were not strictly “real estate”. That is, not only representing people that want to buy and sell listings, even though right now traditional real estate is what we’re doing.

In looking at it from this angle, the only question that really mattered was “what opportunity exists that would open up the most doors for us/me in the short and long term?” I remember telling a few others on our team that when we compared Keller Williams to Long and Foster, there was almost a feeling of claustrophobia at L and F. I’m not saying this lightly either – I had been with Long and Foster since 2005, and it’s a good company with a good reputation. The simple fact, for me, is that the flaws that I noticed cannot simply be fixed or ignored by throwing more money our way or giving us a higher split. I really felt that we would be limiting ourselves by not making the move now. I had been reading up on Keller Williams since early 2007, and the company just flat out made sense. There had been quite a bit of chatter about profit share and recruiting, but since that was essentially a concept that for me was not a guarantee, it didn’t weigh heavily in my decision-making process, although I can’t speak for the rest of our team – it certainly has definite value in it’s own right. What DID weigh heavily is the fact that there are ownership opportunities for new franchises…. and that we would have more freedom to make our own business decisions – for example, if an agent decides to charge an additional fee for their services (at other companies this is a “flat fee”), which could amount to a significant amount of income…over $10,000 or more in some cases…the agent can keep that income instead of it going to the company by default…and that OUR telephone number is on all of our signs…not the office’s phone number….and that there’s no company or relocation department taking a portion of our referral money – we generate a referral, we keep the money and manage our own referral fees subject to our normal split, etc. On their own these are not huge issues, but the sum points to a very different way of doing business, with particular regard to one of the routes our team could have chosen. One company is simply not agent-centric, the other company is. Period.

The brokerage we chose, Keller Williams, is international. Not local or regional. Right now, a world of opportunities exists for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, and not simply opportunities showing buyers around and making listing presentations. Keeping that in mind, managing, delegating, and doing what you love to do and what you’re good at is the gateway to the real money in traditional real estate practice. …and who wrote the book (literally) on piecing it all together? Gary Keller…in “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent”. The spirit of any company begins at the very top and works it’s way down, so understanding that Keller is still a driving force in this company and has designed it specifically to be a winning avenue for the individual agent, you pretty much know the mindset of the people involved.

The owner of Keller Williams Greenbrier, the office we chose, is also the owner of the 19th most profitable office in all of Keller Williams (Richmond, 2008). The Team Leader at Keller Williams Greenbrier is the best recruiter and motivational leader in the Real Estate business. Keller Williams market share in Hampton Roads is at a “ground floor” state right now, and is growing very rapidly. Did we take all of these things into account? Sure did.

A quick side note about the KW profit share – if you own a company, wouldn’t you be concerned with it’s success? This is the idea behind profit share…to give your agents ownership. Agents get a share of the company profit for any other agent that joins because of them. So not only do you have a company that’s innovative, fast and efficient, you now have the agents that make up the company becoming an integral part of the success of the whole. For the benefit of your entire team. That’s very smart business, and it gives the agents a real reason to be involved, productive and concerned.

Here are some short notes to think about:

• People are saying that the life-blood of Keller Williams revolves around recruiting. Here’s the fact – The success of any brokerage revolves around recruiting. ESPECIALLY with a traditional brokerage like Long and Foster where they make the most off of new agents (50/50 split).
• Profit share was not a part of my decision to move to Keller Williams, as I said before. And for most of the other agents who made the switch, it’s looked at almost as a bonus if you know someone who is considering a career move, or if you decide to concentrate on it. Since I’ve been here, I’m seeing more and more of the value behind it.
• We took a long time to analyze our different options. I’ve been looking at Keller since late 2007, early 2008. Keller made the most sense for our team, and they had the most opportunities for success for us in the short and long term as well.
• For an individual agent, in my opinion, it’s even more clear-cut. In addition to a higher split, if you sell a certain amount, you no longer pay a commission to the company (your CAP).
• The systems here for training and agent development are unbelievable, especially for a new agent. The website that they give to new agents is phenomenal. We were thinking about sinking $3,000+ into a new website/IDX solution, but now we won’t have to.
• Even if you’re a new agent and reading this, you should know all of your options. After you have all of the information, do what you need to do…stay…go…whatever.

As I said in the beginning, if an agent knew all of their options when they first passed their PSI test, we all would have been better informed. I would just hope everyone reading this, especially the new agents, understands that there may be other options that you might want to consider. At least get the facts. Keller Williams is reaping the benefits of giving back to it’s agents. More importantly, the agents are reaping the benefits as well.

Cheers to a successful 2010! I love working with friends, and it would be great for us to work together here again, if it makes sense for you. And if you’re reading this and we’ve not worked together, maybe Keller Williams would be a good choice. The resources here are incredible. Just be sure you make best decision for your situation, even if that means staying where you are. Call or email me whenever you want with questions!

Have a great year!
Jody

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Jody Cowdrey
Marketing Sales Director

B R I A N D U N C A N G R O U P
Keller Williams Realty – Greenbrier Office
Jody@BrianDuncanGroup.com
Office: 757-802-3004
Direct: 757-515-0594
Virginia Beach/Chesapeake, VA