Carla,

As an owner, your goals are very different than the agents, and I understand that. Unless I'm on a Team, I don't really understand the "team" concept. If I have some good ideas or unique concepts to make my production better, why would I share them with others in my immediate market? That's why I like this forum. We can talk and share ideas with people in different areas.

But if I'm the big hitter in my area, why would I share my success with other agents?

REAL ESTATE IS NOT A TEAM SPORT.

Hi. I'm new here and I just have to add my 2 cents. I've been a Realtor (tm) for 10 years and I am opening my own office this month as a franchisee of Realty World.

One point that I wanted to get across is that "You get back what you put out." And the old corny saying that "It is better to give, than receive." Andrew, in my years in the business, I have seen and directly benefitted from Sharing. I have been in several mastermind groups with fellow agents as well as groups where I was the only agent. If you were here in my market, directly competing against me or my agents, I have no fear of you or sharing information with you. I was in a group where an agent simply shared an experience they had with a vendor, and it was not a good experience at all. I had investigated using this same vendor but I had not found any testimonies or previous clients yet to talk to. With this agent sharing her experience, it saved me time and a lot of hardache and I appreciated her for it. Did it take anything away from her to share that information? No. Did it cost her anything to share it? No.

I have a very good friend who works at Remax and we talk to each other nearly daily about our businesses. When she is doing exceedingly well, I'm happy for her and it encourages me to do better, and vice versa. I don't "hate" on her for doing well. When you give off good vibes, you get good vibes back. I often ask her what she has changed about her marketing, sales technique, etc. to elevate her to the next level. She shares it freely (and I do the same for her) because we are not threatened by each other and we want to see each other do well. We cover for each other all the time. I have shown property to her clients for her and she has done the same for me.

Why would you share your success with other agent? Because it's not a one-way street. You would be surprised what you would learn from sharing with others. You might pick up a service, vendor, or marketing idea from another agent that would cause your business to skyrocket if you implemented or tweaked it a little. But you will never get that opportunity by keeping to yourself and not sharing even your insight with other agents.

Wow andrew...hate to start a war here but please keep in mind the following facts to help you get over your bad expreiences with Brokerage owners and attitudes:

#1 This is a forum for Brokers

#2 We say hire...what else can you call it...geez!

#3 I have "hired" (Insert other language for Andrew) only 1 agent out of 12 that have expressed interest. see my site as proof.

#4 The fact is that owners recruit and market for "People" the same way you marketfor houses thus we share ideas if that's ok with you

#5 Go back and re-read my question...I was simply asking if other OWNERS (not agents) had had success "Targetting" (Insert other non-offensive language to Andrew)certain groups of aents that had been more of a profitable "Hire".

That's it my man...not trying to offend...and frankly Carla and I have a very well intended goal to help agents be successful. That's what we're here for...Just like you help people find homes...right?

Ok...I'll go try to calm down now.

Justin,

I completely get the point and agree with you and the others that have chimed in. I do also share ideas and stories with other agents, but I'm also cautious of the lazy agent who takes others ideas and does the same thing. Like the agent who took a postcard/flyer off my desk and started copying it word for word.

I guess my point was (and it's gotten lost in all the other stuff), is that try to keep in mind that were not employees. If I'm not harming anyone, or causing bad vibes in the office, just let me be. I'm a small business owner also (my own business), and I may want to run it the way I want to. And when I make money (which is what were all trying to do), then you'll make money.

I would guess that most agents (at least here in California) left the corporate world for a reason. So when an office treats us like employees, it's what we all left, and if we wanted to go back to that structure, we would.

Anyway, just invite "normal" people into your office, let them hang their license and let them be.

I hope my point makes sense and I'll let you owners get back to figuring out how to hire the best.

Makes sense Andrew

I think you are both right, but I think you are just actually having parallel discussions here. My one point would be that even though brokers are not "hiring", they are "contracting" agents to "represent" their companies and so if I was a broker (which I am not) I would not want to contract agents that I thought might represent me poorly. Brokers do invest some money into an agent (training, insurance, office, etc) and so certainly have the right and responsibility to only retain agents that are not a negative return on their investment or that have a negative impact on their reputation.

Interesting discussion here. The funny thing is that I (and the broker I'm working with - actually "agent" here in Australia but I'll call her a broker so you get my gist) are more convinced than ever that we will be literally hiring employees rather than independent contractors. I've discussed this on other threads but the conclusion we've reached is that, as a brokerage, we can achieve more sales, profits, happier employees (who can earn over 6 figures net without the stress of paying for their own advertising, office expenses, etc) and lower turnover by having our salespeople as employees. I understand that this may sound extremely foreign to you... that it may be "impossible" in the US... and, of course, that this will not appeal to everyone. (We will also be looking for entrepreneurial types to open up franchises) but we are already seeing the positive results of people co-operating with each other rather than competing... and are happy to go down this avenue. Having said that, I am still interested in learning about the sub-contractor model and why that seems to work in the States. This seems like a great forum!