just wanted to throw it out there.


i constantly see people using their brokers name in their website, email or screennames.

remember that you will probably not be at that brokerage until hte day you retire. build your own brand instead of the brokerage brand.

when you leave that shop what do you want your past clients to remember? (your name or the brokerage name)

This AMAZES me. When I do speaking engagements, I collect business cards from the audience and at least 90% of them have their broker's name as their email address. This is crazy. Once an email address gets stored in someone's address book, it's there forever.

I once got a "change of email address" notification from an agent who listed a subdivision. Her new address was sandra@nameofsubdivsion.com (mispelling intentional)! Email addresses should be as permanent as you can possible make them.

If you're on my mailing list, you'll be getting an email about this very topic tomorrow!

^^^good stuff! people need to get that information.

it is a pet pieve of mine! i --hate-- seeing a new agent with name@brokerage.com

I even make my agents put my name on their wedding invitations etc. It's all about me. If they don't like it, i'll send them to feed my pit bulldogs! Using MY NAME is a privilege. BigC

This has become a bigger and bigger topic.

Most fat split brokerages tout "let us take care of you so that we can help you grow your business!"

What they are really saying is "let us incubate you a smuch as possible so that it is really hard to leave us for a better program company and they want it to hurt so you will stay"


Use to you could get away with things more as an agent. For instance on listing signs you would have broker number and info in mice type and your name bigger. Real estate commission redid the rules and said broker info must be on top and be of equal or greater size than agent contact info.

Now they never mentioned anything about websites and people use to put contact info in mice type at the bottom. Now commission is saying all social networking,blogging,websites have to have broker company logo etc. Now they don't police it as much but what most do is put in a hard to find place on the website for compliance.

The commission always wants this in case the consumer needs to contact the brokerage over issues they are having with agents.

Broker/Appraiser,

i figured that you are kidding, but have to ask...are you serious? i like what you post almost all of the time. i know that you joke quite often and am not sure if you really mean what you had just typed or not.

setting up an agent with an individual identity will help in the long term success of the agent.

At my prior brokerage, the broker wanted us all to do our email as myname@brokername.com. As stated above, when you leave a brokerage, what happens to all the emails people send you? Why your former broker gets them, that's what! I discovered that the office manager could access my email....guess that meant I would NEVER write anything that could possibly be considered confidential or controversial via that setup. Now I get my mail through gmail...and better yet to get it at myname@mycompanyname.com.

firstname@firstlast.com

it will never change!

I myself am thinking of joining a larger company. I asked about having my own website. He said that is fine, but they will give me a free one. And my personal website has to get approved. Their free ones are lousy, good for nothing things except ,I'm hoping, backlinks if they allow that. They also give you an e-mail address that is forwarded to an address of your own choosing. I wonder if somewhere in this companies system if they are keeping a copy of every e-mail sent you. But many agents are thrilled to have their own webpage that is provided by their company. In fact I think that is a recruiting point brokers try to use. I don't care much about that myself. Little do they know how useless they are. I agree with all said above about making your own identity.

There is one good thing about changing your email address periodically...it takes the spamsters awhile to catch up with the new addresss...welcome relief!

Of course I'm kidding. My agents sub contractors. All I ask, is to be legal. BigC

lol...that is what i figured, but i was feeling kind of dense today!

What about if you own the company? Can you then use the brokerage's information?

I own my own brokerage, but thinking of closing shop. Now I somewhat regret using my companies name in my e-mail. However I still will get any e-mail sent to me from it since I own the name. I will not just erase that e-mail address. So in anticipation I've started using another e-mail address.

personally i am going to go this route.

my name is john smith. my email is

john@johnsmith.com

my brokerage would either be john smith real estate or smith real estate

so john@smithrealestate.com would be something that works for me. even if i were not a broker, i could or would use something like that.

same with phone numbers. i have an 800 number that i use. it has unlimited extensions. i use it now and if i were to open up my own shop there would be no need for people to get used to calling a different number to get hold of me.

point of this thread is this.

set yourself up for change (like broker says:-) <<<jk...could not resist

things always change. make it so that you can get larger or smaller or leave and start your own shop or change shops and have to change as few things as possible. make your numbers and email as permanent as you can