I am brand-new with ZERO experience and want to join a local broker who is selective about the agents he brings on board. He is very well respected in my area and is also a developer. I will probably be interviewing with him this week and would love any tips you all could give me!! So far, I've interviewed with 2 franchise offices which were hard-core recruiting me -- Which made me feel great ;), but, I want to be prepared for this interview, which I expect will be a little different.
One of my strengths is that I will have a great SOI. I've lived here all my life and know a lot of people.

Most franchise offices recruit hardcore because they know they will make easy money off of you in the beginning usually. This is because your splits are usually lower to start with and they hope on you bringing in your family in friends to sale right away.

Tell your next interviewer that you have a huge SOI and that you are seriously motivated to kick start your career to fast pace. They want to believe that you will be a top producer in the near future. You might even be able to negotiate your commission split a little higher too.

rookie07,

remember it is not that they are interviewing you, it is you that is interviewing them! there are more brokers out there that have an office for you to hang your license than you realize at this point in your career. go in there with confidence and have a list of questions in your head or on paper(whatever works for you) and ask the broker these question. when you interview several you can compare their answers and find which one you like the best. also i encourage you to do as much research online as you can. this is a big one. look at their website, is it well developed and easy to navigate? is it up to date.

to me an up to date website says alot about a person!!!!!!! it says whether they are on top of things or not.

if they have alot of coming soon, and under construction, and you notice that simple things dont get done for a month, i would guess that they probably put alot on the backburner. nothing bothers me more than under construction(if it were a house instead of a website the builder would be bankrupt)

Normally, I would be completely on board with the whole "you are interviewing them" premise.

However, if you are truly hot to join an invitation only brokerage, the equation is a bit different.

There could be a few different reasons for their choice of recruiting method. It probably boils down to only wanting top producers.

The bottom line is that if an agent does not close much business, the broker is not going to make much, regardless of the split. However, if you bring in a top producer, even if your only making 5% per transaction, your going to make way more than the agent who closes one or two deals a year who has a 60/40 split with the brokerage.

R

rebelbroker,

you bring up a good point, i was not really answering for an invitation brokerage only. to be honest, i dont know of any invitation only brokers in my area, i am sure that htey are out htere, but they must be some of the small family run brokers in the area. i could be wrong about them being small. maybee some of the teams could be included in there just like brokers, if a team is what rookie07 is looking for.

i would say that if you come across like 007 said, that you would at least increase your odds. no one wants to turn away a potential moneymaker. so i guess it could be about how convincing you come acrsoss

I work at a small brokerage and was recruited into it (invited). The broker is considering adding another agent, but it would have to be the right person for our team; we have good chemistry and are like-minded as to how to do business and what our core values are. Situations like this do exist- not all brokers want a zillion agents under their license- so I believe the OP... As sick as this may sound, I'd say if you really want to work at that brokerage, AND (this is important) the way they do business meshes well with how you want to do business, then I'd say basically try to figure out what the broker wants to hear, and say it! Don't lie, but make the play for the position.

But just be sure this is what you want. You could have your choice of many brokerages, with many different office "personalities". Do you want to work with hyper-caffieneated go-getters who compete to be first and last at the office? Do you want to be left alone to develop your own style, or do you want to be molded into the image of a broker? Do you do well with someone pushing you (how was your relationship with your high school coach)? Do you WANT to be pushed? Etc.

Personally, I want nothing to do with a pushy broker. I don't work for him; I'm an independant contractor running my own business and doing it my way. I am succeeding, and will continue to succeed, because there are plenty of people who like who *I* am and how *I* work, and it makes me happy to do things my way - so I'd be miserable if someone was trying to "mold" me. YMMV.

Good luck!

-jeff

In the beginning, I plan to be an invitation only brokerage.

I am not sure how that will evolve. From there, maybe I only consider folks who existing agents will vouch for... that kind of thing.

Frankly, I don't care how much money someone can make, a money making jerk is still not welcome in my office. I have seen first hand what can happen when you get a really strong sense of teamwork in an office and in those cases, everyone wins. I have also seen one asshat (see below) completely screw up what was a pretty good working relationship. So in the long run, an asshat may make you money individually, but negatively effects the ovrall office enough that you are at a net loss.

But hey, I find my approach is constantly evolving. I just want to create a place where people feel like they have the tools, backup and support to accomplish just about anything. I want to encourage people to focus on the quality of their job first and foremost and have confidence that their skills will make the business come instead of focusing on self promotion. I realize that is a bit of a contradiction to things I have said in the past about agents not relying on their brokers for their business. If I really do want to create that attitude, I need to take on most of the job of rustling up clients for my agents.

While that may work more in my favor as a broker to keep my agents dependent on me, I cannot say that doing something like this is in the agents best interests. I realize that this is not a law written down anywhere, but as a broker, I feel like part of my duty is making agents better at what they do. That includes giving them the skills they need to not need me.

I suppose the "Right" thing in that case is to work to give them the skills to attract clients while doing things at a more macro business level to bring more attention to the office as a whole.

Okay... sorry... wandered into a bit of a tangent. Thinking out loud I guess.

R