I met many people during my 20 years in the industry. There are those who go with the trend and adjust themselves to it, there are those who move too slow and always fall behind, and there are those who create trends and move the industry forward, creating the next waves, I call them the game changers.
A bit of real estate franchises establishment history:
Realty Executives in 1965.
Century 21 in 1972.
ERA in 1972.
Remax in 1975.
Coldwell Banker started back in 1982.
KW started franchising in 1991.
Exit realty in 1999.
Sotheby's 2004
Better Homes & Gardens franchise 2008.
Today there are many other small to medium size franchises in addition to this list. But if you look closely on all, the options for agents today vary between:
50% split going into the mid 70's% with no cost to agents
70% split with low monthly costs and a cap
95% Split with high desk fees, royalty and franchise fees/transaction fees
100% flat fee/per transaction fee
Basically most these companies give agents options for websites (from a basic page to more advanced SEO tools, lead generation sites etc). Some of these companies (the lower split) give agents leads and some marketing budgets, business cards, company signage etc.
But if you think about it, the game changers (Since Remax launched their franchise and then KW with their concept) were not the brokerages. What happened with time was the real estate professionals, the associates became the game changers. What's used to be the big company names, are today names of top producers, individuals and teams that lead the market. I personally know (and coached) individual agents who close 100+ transactions a year and teams who close 500+ transactions a year.
A deeper look at what top producers do reveals that the residential real estate industry belongs to entrepreneurs and no longer to the big corporations (It is different in the commercial real estate industry).
The big changers are the top producers and many of them are "newcomers". One thing is for sure, if you aren't innovating yourself, if you're not growing, if you're not renewing yourself, your business will quickly disappear into the hands of those who do.
A repeated mistake (in my opinion), is done by some newcomers who join the industry from the corporate world. Some of these individuals believe that in order to start growing in the industry they need to join a big name company. They completely miss the point. Its the entrepreneurs who can quickly become top producers because they get it. Entrepreneurs understand that real estate sales is not a job, its a business and they treat it as such. They invest money to train, they hire a coach (who did what they wish to do, someone who achieved already what they wish to achieve and they copy what others are doing).
Another important point to mention: Most real estate fail. The ratios in almost every market are similar to the following:
75% of the agents do on average 1-2 deals a year.
10% of the agents do about 5-10 deals a year.
5-7% of agents do about 20 deals a year.
3-5% of agents do 50+ deals a year.
The top 3% are the Game Changers.
The 5-7% are the upcoming Game changers.
Check out my next post on What is Takes To Become A Game Changer.