Comments on: REALTORS by Choice – Trainers by Circumstance

By: Missy Caulk

Missy Caulk — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:26:42 +0000

Part of our Code is to not practice in an area you are not familiar with. In saying that we come across it all the time in dealing with agents who don’t have a clue how to do a short sale, so we coach them through it. Hope they are following the process.

We should not be doing this, their broker should not let them list a short sale if they don’t know how to get er done.

By: Ines Hegedus-Garcia

Ines Hegedus-Garcia — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:53:38 +0000

Without a doubt will be a laughable post there are soooo many stories

By: Joe Loomer

Joe Loomer — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:04:44 +0000

Also meant to add that I recommended to Gwen Banta that she write her next hilarious post about examples of actual agent-to-agent exchanges – the things the agents you describe actually have the stupidity or gall to mutter to the agent on the other side of their transactions. Hope she does it – it’ll make us all pee our pants!

Navy Chief, Navy Pride

By: Louise Scoggins

Louise Scoggins — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:02:18 +0000

Ines, I think you stated the real problem in your second to last post. I also touched on it in my first post The problem is, why does this agent NOT want to learn what this business is all about? Why wouldn’t she want to be somewhere that offers her SOME sort of training? Bless her heart, she is reaching out to you, but you are not her broker and in no way responsible for making her a better agent. Where is the motivation here? Doesn’t she feel like a fish out of water? I would be mortified if I was so blindly guiding my clients through something…where’s the fiduciary duty? Isn’t she afraid of a lawsuit?? There’s so many questions here but no real answer. You can lead a horse to water…

By: Joe Loomer

Joe Loomer — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:01:26 +0000

Ines,

Completely agree – our own office was mired in the situation you describe until the new OP bought out the old guard and changed the culture to the true model Gary Keller and Mo Anderson envision. I don’t know when you and Rick where with a KW firm, but perhaps they’ve changed with the times too.

This all happened before my wife and I switched to KW, so our experience has been positive. I met several agents at Family Reunion who spoke of similar experiences to your own, but for the most part the culture transcended borders. DANG IT – I am not the PR guy for KW – I’ll shut up about that.

Your post was about the stupid, the dishonest, the untrainable, and the other agents who have no business in this business. I’ve met them too, and abhor the phone calls when they come to show my listings or God forbid – bring me a contract I then have to fix for them. I’ve taken to just making the corrections, and returning the contract to the other agent with my client’s appropriate concerns, initials, and signatures. It’s then their job to have to go back to their own clients and explain how they did not include the proper forms, exhibits, or other sundry items required to consumate the transaction. I’ve found that over time the majority of these agents actually fix themselves when required to do so.

Navy Chief, Navy Pride

By: Ines Hegedus-Garcia

Ines Hegedus-Garcia — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:46:12 +0000

Joe,
It’s all about the individual culture of the office, whether KW or not. I did a bit of squirming when I read your comment because Rick and I started at a KW office and none of what you describe or the business model we read so much about was evident there. The atmosphere was thick with uncomfortable competition and the trainings offered were always very superficial and dissenting.

I’ve talked to many KW agents across the nation and some offices are amazing, and others not so much. Even offices in close proximity may not have the business culture one is looking for. So please drink the kool aid, but realize it may not be so easily accessible as you think and watered down quite a bit in many places.

By: Joe Loomer

Joe Loomer — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:24:13 +0000

Ines,

I cut my teeth at a small local brokerage – albeit a national franchise, then joined a Keller Williams firm. Night and day.

The focus is on positive, engaged, training. We have a comprehensive mentorship program and discuss real-life issues with contracts (in a non-atributional fashion) at training sessions and weekly team meetings. We train, train, train, and then train some more. Our Associated Leadership Council members – myself included – are available almost 24-7 to guide newer agents through contract negotiations (especially those done with those long-in-the-tooth know-it-all local firms with questionable ethics). We take our Fiduciary Duty as a sacred vow, and our Operating Principal – who owns over 40 KW offices – holds us accountable to ourselves.

I’ll get off my soap box here, but I stated the above to let you know that I believe that there may be the real estate edict of “underneath all is the land” – but “above all is the client.”

Since every agent is worth pretty much exactly the same amount to the broker and OP due to the unique business model of KW, this obviates the need to cater to the top producers, and the gains in income end up motivating the leaders of the market center to devote what would normally be perceived as an inordinate amount of time to mentoring and teaching. We focus on getting to the closing table – even if it involves taking on the added responsibilities you mention due to the other side of the transaction’s intransigence or flat out stupidity.

Yes, I’m obviously “drinking the kool aid,” but I see our model – and others like it – as the future of real estate and the vessel through which the layman’s opinion of the average agent will gradually increase from it’s current “about a mole hair above used car dealers” to “they rock and roll.”

No, you can’t fix stupid, but you can sure train it sometimes.

Navy Chief, Navy Pride