Keller Williams Realty ~ Agents Make the Money Decisions

To learn more about Keller Williams Realty, visit ConsiderKW.com.

Watch the video above and meet some of the top-producing agents who decided to join Keller Williams Realty. Listen to them talk about why they value the Agent Leadership Council (ALC).

Agent Leadership Council (ALC):

When I was trying to decide which brokerage offered the best package for me, there was a lot to consider.

Learning about the Agent Leadership Council (ALC) was one of the things that impressed me about the company. To be honest, the existence of the ALC program alone probably would not have been enough to convince me that KW was the right place for me. However, it proved to me that everything else I was being told wasn’t all hype. This company really has put together a system to act on their philosophy that Together, Everyone Achieves More.

At most real estate companies (and most non-real estate businesses) agents and owners are on the opposite sides of a table. The agents & employees want the owners to provide as many resources and benefits as possible, regardless of how it affects profitability. Owners and upper management care only about profitability, and try to give employees and agents as little as they can without having everyone revolt.

At Keller Williams, every agent has the ability to share in the profits by simply helping the company grow. With almost half of the profits divvied up among the agents, it hurts the agents as much as the owners if money is spent foolishly.

Each Keller Williams office has an ALC which is composed of agents in the top 10% of production in their office. In order to serve on the ALC, agents must not only be selling homes, but they must also commit to be leaders in the Market Center to promote the success of all of the agents and to create an atmosphere where the KW Culture thrives.

Every financial decision that affects the agents and profitability is made by the ALC.

In my Market Center, a few of the decisions that the ALC have decided recently are:

• requiring all office listings to be advertised at STLToday.com in order to obtain a substantial discount per listing, but with the office paying a portion of the cost of each ad
• deciding to discount the cost of cubicle work spaces for agents since there was a large vacancy rate
• deciding to provide free productivity coaching to non-capping agents with the coach paid from closed commissions (split equally by the agent being coached and the office (5% from each side))
• deciding which organization would be the recipient of our Red Day charity efforts

Think about it. Keller Williams has created a system in which almost half of the profits are paid out to the agents AND all of the financial decisions affecting profitability are made the by agents. Have you ever heard of company ownership giving up their control? Would you do it if you were starting a company?

The point was really driven home to me a few months ago.

The office was had just completed a major build out with walls being moved and new offices being created. The older section of the office had carpeting that was…a little less than ideal. Let’s just say there is a fair bit of unraveling at the seams.

The carpet had stirred up a bit of conversation in the halls, with a lot of agents (including me) thinking it was short sited to not replace the older carpeting at the same time as the build out. The week after the build out was completed, Dave, our majority owner, stood up in front of the office at our weekly meeting and explained how much everything had cost and that the build out had come from a capital fund and did not affect profit sharing. However, replacing the old carpet DID affect profit sharing. He explained to everyone how it was going to cost $50,000 to replace the old carpet. And while he agreed that it had seen better days, he thought it was more important that the $50,000 ended up in agents wallets through profit sharing than to spruce up the office. The room grew silent as it sunk in that asking the office to replace the carpeting wasn’t just spending THEIR money, it was spending OUR money!

The old carpet is still in place. Someday it will have to be replaced. But it’s fine for now. And no one is complaining anymore.

If you are an agent considering changing brokerages, contact me to learn more about Keller Williams.

   

Tagged as: Career Information, Keller Williams, Video