Does Your Brokerage Matter?

Real Estate Marketing Dude

Today we are gonna be talking about brokerages. Are they worth it? What's the benefit? Do you really need them? You might be surprised but they just might help you survive this recession.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Does your brokerage really matter?
• How can your brokerage help you through the recession?
• Why teams can be important to helping you grow.

Resources

Real Estate Marketing Dude

The Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)

REMD on YouTube

REMD on Instagram

Transcript:

So how do you track new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them. Let's get started. What's up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing do pa girls? What's up? Ladies Gentlemen, what we're going to be chatting about today is brokerage. Are you at the right brokerage? Does your brokerage even matter? What is the difference between all these different offices? And what does it mean to you? So, I have a lot of experience on this unfortunate, I think, in my career, I've been to like 11 different real estate offices or something like that. And for whatever reason, I used to switch every year to two years, I felt like, and I would go around and chase the next shiny object. And I did this for about 15 years. But in hindsight, when I really realized is that, you know, it doesn't matter what brokerage, you're actually at, at least for me, it didn't, because ultimately, unless they were handing me business, which meant I was just part of a large team, the chances were, that I was still going to be responsible for my business, all my advertising, and all of the above. So what we're gonna be chatting about, on this week's episode is at the end of the year, and a lot of the times in the fourth quarter here, if you don't haven't done this in the past, what I always advise and do a show out of this time of year for over the last four years has been, I'm preparing for next year, and it is ever more important than ever, right now in this particular season. And the reason for that is because of what we're experiencing books, the market is rough. I talked to a couple lenders today. And you know, guy's gone for four months, which is two closings, right, as someone who has to do a lot of business and people are being affected everywhere by this, which is why would I suggest you do during this time is to start working on that business, despite how many closings or clients you're working with right now. Because what you do today will pay off tomorrow. And the reality of the situation is that, you know, this market is going to be slow, guys, I don't see it getting better anytime soon. I wish I had different news for you. But there's opportunity in that. So as a matter of fact, I've seen transactions to be down roughly a third, transactions are down 33%. Across the board, we're seeing I just saw the data a couple of weeks ago. But agents are dropping just as quickly if not even faster. So there will be less transactions. But I say this to you, because the amount of agents that are leaving the business is greater than the lesser transactions from last year. And that alone is the opportunity. But you got to put yourself in the business of running a business folks, for most of you and I have not seen a shift like this before. I'm going to warn you, I've just done my second and a half shift, I know what's going to happen, I have a very good pulse of this stuff. And you have to start adjusting to what the markets doing. You see, most of the agents in today's world this is for your broker owners to anyone who's been in the business in charge of managing agents like you have to share with what happened in the past because we only learned from history. And what i i You guys can refer back to us it is November 10 2022. But I believe we're not seeing the worst of our marquee. And I think in the next six months, it's gonna get a little bit uglier, I may be wrong and may be right. But in either way, regardless of whether I am the most important thing you can be doing with your business right now is adapting to this change adapting to the shift. And part of that is whom you surround yourself with. All right. Real estate can be a lonely business. It really can sometimes just feel like you're on your own raft and you're your own little island out there. And no one's really out looking out for you. Right. And, you know, real estate's been pretty easy. You guys for the past 12 years, we've been in like a bull market for like 12 freakin years, man. It's insane. And things have shifted, which means about 90% of the population out there has never seen a shift, therefore they don't know what to do. And it's going to require shows like this. Other people in the industry stepping up and showing people what to do. And what is going to happen folks is you got to switch up. What you're doing today, the status quo is not going to be no longer acceptable. You have to go to where the transactions are going to be. And one of the best ways you can do that is because I know there's a lot of people at the end of every year making a switch and switching brokerages but I know soar more than now than ever is people are not only switching brokerages because it's the end of the year. People are switching brokerages because they're scared and they're looking for leadership. And if that's you, I want to share with you on how to look for the right spot for you because I wish someone would have shared this advice for me before I made 11 changes in my career. So here's what I'm going to get into. Ultimately 96% of consumers are going to hire the agent over the flag they hang their license with so people aren't hiring REMAX Coldwell Banker exp real big block whatever the hell it is people aren't hiring, that they're hiring you as an individual. So my first answer to you is, it doesn't matter what brokerage you're at, I believe that you are 100% responsible for your business. Now, the only caveat to that is going to be if you have a broker, or something along those lines that are feeding your business, okay. And if you're in the position right now, where you're struggling, and you're worried about the future, go out and find a team immediately. Like, there's nothing wrong with joining the team, especially if you're less than three years or so in the business. Or if you just don't have any business teams are a great way to leverage transactions, yes, you'll give up some of your commissions for it, but they weren't your deals anyways, and get that experience. Because what you want to do right now is rather the storm, and who you surround yourself with is going to be absolutely essential. Now, if you're looking at an overall office and an overall offering, I just want to give you pros and cons of different things. You're seeing a lot of movement with these 100% offices, and then we'll talk about the recruiting offices and the downlines. So you've seen a lot of movement with 100% brokerage, so is 100% brokerage right for you. In this type of market, I'm at 100% brokerage. And yes and no, just because you get 100% of your commission is nice, but if you don't have the support, that is going to help you get more commission, then it could sort of bite you in the butt. So if you're considering that type of brokerage, my advice, again is to who's running it, it doesn't matter who the flag is, the things I look for in a brokerage, our great culture, right culture is going to be really important in the next market. And the reason for that is you're gonna have to stay motivated in the next six to 12 months, this is no longer going to be just real estate, this is going to be hand to hand combat in the trenches of World War One, you're going to have to do some things that you are not used to doing that are gonna make you uncomfortable, but take peace in that because you only grow when you're in situations that you're uncomfortable, you stop growing when you are comfortable. So I want you to remember that something I heard Jesse Itzler say, once in a mastermind that really stuck and think about it all the time. But you have to always position yourself and put yourself in an uncomfortable situation. If you truly are working on growing. It's when you're in a comfortable situation that you stopped growing and stop building. That's where complacency sets in, which is where a lot of us has gotten into this market. So so look for a brokerage with that culture guys, because the culture is where gives you the motivation and gives you the ideas, brokerages with a good culture, I think always have their eyes on the ball. Some things I would tell you to be looking at for brokerages and questions I would be asking them is, what are you planning on doing on the shift? Do you guys plan on having any active foreclosure accounts? Do you guys plan on implementing any types of new systems? What are you guys doing about the shift to help us sell more houses? Right, because brokerages just as well as you are gonna have to also go out there and work twice as hard. Right, the brokers are gonna work twice as hard to support their agents. But you also have to work twice as hard on your business. So first thing is is look for that culture. Number two, look for niches. The riches are in the niches in this market. There's two rules I have in a real estate marketing when it comes to one is own your database. Your database is recession proof and this is a different podcast. Okay? If you want to learn about that, go visit our new product called referral suite WWW dot referral suite asked W E T like sweet popsicle. And check that out that is a marketing platform and allows you to farm your database and own them. So they stop cheating on you on Facebook with other real estate agents and lenders. But the point is, is that database is always recession proof because a percentage of it is always going to move. The question is whether or not they're going to use or refer you Okay. That's a different podcast. When I'm talking about as I would look for the brokerage that's shifting to the market already had a schedule. And here's what I mean by that. There's there's a lot of things happening in the industry, brokerages that are very forward thinking are already setting up short sale loss mitigation departments and office. Okay, that's a great question to ask a broker, Hey, what are you gonna do in short sales come and if you don't think short sales is going to come. We disagree and where we see the market going, but I think short sellers are gonna come there's an affordability issue out there. And the more layoffs we see, the less people are gonna be able to afford the houses they have, they're no longer worth the price they bought them with. Okay,

I'm gonna say we're gonna crash and go into 2007 But I'm saying you will see distressed and the brokerage that is thinking forward is going to already have those plans. We have loss mitigation plan for when it's ready. Our agents are going to have short sale negotiators ready to rock and roll so that we don't skip a beat and they're going to adapt to the market that they're In today, all right. Another question you could ask your brokerage that I believe is extremely important is Do you allow me to build my own brand? Or do I have to like ask you for every bit of advertising or marketing I do. If you've been listening to the show for a while, I'm a huge advocate for brand advocacy for individuals. And I believe that you're an independent contractor. And if I believe that your brokerage won't let you have your own brand, your own brand logo, if your brokerage won't let you market your own brand logo, if your brokerage doesn't allow you to put your phone number on your damn signs, I believe you're at the wrong brokerage. All of those things are abilities to allow you to build your own brand. And I believe that a brokerages job because 96% of consumers hire the agent, not the brand they're affiliated with, is to become the client of their agents. It's a model that we follow here at a big block and it works well. But I believe that you should have your own brand, because that's what this business is based on. 80% of people hire the first agent they meet with, of which 74% are either referred they used in the past or you personally met or run into him in Open House walking down the street or even on your Facebook feed. So the brand has always been you. And the second question I would ask that brokerage is hey, how can I can I you care about me doing my own brand? Do you have any recommendations? Like do you care if I wear my underwear on social media, all of that stuff because you have to be you, especially in this market? So that would be the next question you have any brand restrictions. Third question I would say is look at the brokerage and see how they're marketing themselves. It is 2022. If I have a brokerage that's not even creating content on video, like this is the brokerage creating content and video, they're a little bit behind the times nowadays, if you see someone out there creating content, handling a bunch of shorts, reels, always multipurpose and if you see him just creating a bunch of stuff, they have a lot of videos, a big video channel, you know that they're more than like little bit more forward thinking than others. If you see a brokerage that doesn't even have one video up and their website still looks like a das Microsoft System. Well, you're sort of behind on the times. And these things matter folks like you know, it's getting more expensive to operate as an individual, independent contractor regardless of where you're at. You have video costs if you're doing video, you have an added in costs, you have to pay your MLS dues, you have all these other fees, brokerages today have the ability to subsidize services on behalf of their agents or their agents could take advantage of services for lesser cost. I look for brokerages like that. There's a they're actually clients, but friends too. They have a first class Realty franchise in Kansas City. If you're in Kansas City, look them up, they do a fantastic job. But they give their agents all these different options. And what I love about their business model is they have 100% option, they have a split option that has a lot more support, but they give them a split. And then they have every type of vendor or service provider around them that like it's just like a it's like a storefront for real estate agents. And I believe that's what a brokerage should be. Like, if your brokerage is not serving you in earning their split, then what the hell are you doing there? Right? You want to look at all of this stuff, because I'm telling you guys like you have to be in the right. You have to be in the right state of mind, for the market like this, you have to have the right leadership, you have to read the right culture to create the energy that you're gonna need to get through it. And I'm not trying to scare you guys, I'm just this is serious stuff, though. You have to be in the culture and the community that's going to allow you to grow because markets like this are where you grow. markets like this are what build brands because those who make it out of here, you guys will have a brand and a team and you'll be in business for the next 1020 years. This is what happened in the last downturn. See the opportunity in markets like these is that you're gonna see brokerages go out of business, we're already seeing lenders go out of business. We're seeing lender shops closed up, we're seeing mergers and acquisitions across the fraud. If not, you're gonna see many more. But why is that it's because people are consolidating right now. And I think if you're in that position with your business to you know, go out there and find a better tools, a better value proposition a better environment, by all means you should because whoever you're with come January you want to stick because it's gonna be time to grind and grind for you might be a little bit different than grind for me but whatever that might be, whether you're gonna be creating videos, whether you're prospecting, cold calling, get ready to go but my point of this whole show today was just to share with you guys a couple of things to look for when entertaining a different brokerage because I do believe that who you're with during this next market will be extremely important to the success or non success. So if you're not getting that support, you need to go out and find it before that New Year hits. We have that Thanksgiving Christmas timeframe and the rest of the stuff you should be doing during this time. It's just working on building that business. sharpening re modernizing your listing strategy, modernizing your consumer experience working on little systems that are going to help you market your database more, cutting out all the fat of subscriptions things you purchased last year that you've never used or never logged into books. Button it up, Button up your business. Work on your business promise you spend two to three weeks just looking at your business and treat it like a business because the salesperson chasing a check will be out of business but the real estate agent or lender running a business as an entrepreneur will not only last through this market, but they're going to excel far and few are fired wide directly after it. So hope you guys got something out of the show today. If you have any additional questions, or if you need help with anything real estate related marketing like video services, where you'd like to check out our brand new software, I encourage you to go ahead and do it referral suite.com That's W S W et sweet like a popsicle referral suite.com Thanks for listening guys, and we'll see you on next week's episode. Thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing dude.com We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We'll see you next time.