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IN THIS CHAPTER

❯❯ Weighing the pros and cons of different types of real estate companies

❯❯ Knowing the roles of agency players and the rules of the house

❯❯ Choosing and joining your agency team

Before you sign on with a real estate company, you need to take time to look well beneath the surface and beyond first impressions to determine whether the company is, in fact, the right one for you. Do the company’s core values and culture align with yours? Are its technology platforms and systems cutting edge, standard for the market, or lagging behind? Does its brand help you stand out in the marketplace?

Most agents, whether new or experienced, don’t invest enough time in evaluating and analyzing companies, owners, key managers, and their direct broker manager in their office before they commit to a real estate firm. In this chapter, I help you to do the homework, compare the opportunities, make the choice, and establish a winning partnership.

Real Estate Office of the Future

Real estate offices have evolved from the sprawling buildings where every agent had his own workstation, cubical, or private office. Although some offices are still arranged this way, the vast majority of real estate offices are morphing into a more stop-and-go model. Agents on the go share spaces, tools and resources. Many agents work probably remotely from a home office. Their activities are mobile because of technological advances in access to information and paperless documents and transactions. Even agents who need staff or help for administrative functions are hiring virtual assistants, who can work from any location.

I have a client who has a team of agents and administration staff who all work remotely. They sell over 50 million dollars of real estate a year, but everyone works from a home office. They don’t even have space at the real estate company.

SPACE AGE

Real estate offices today are using a more open-space concept … think Starbucks or your neighborhood cafe. They often contain a bullpen rather than a large number of private offices. A "bullpen" is an area with a large number of cubicles where most agents work. Everyone shares the space in these new offices, which also have private workspaces available. Usually conference rooms are available for client and prospect meetings. Today’s spaces are also more client-centric. They are more comfortable and inviting than the offices of old, where cubicles and private offices were lined up in a rigid row.

In today’s offices, you may notice the absence of a large meeting or training space. Many companies have cut back on their training offerings or switched to online training classes, so they have repurposed that unused space.

These changes can mean fewer laborious meetings and more time to generate business. Many tools and educational offerings are available in real-time, online environments. This office of the future helps you be more mobile and more effective with your time. You don’t need to feel compelled to come in each day or even every week.

Weighing All Your Options

An agent choosing an agency isn’t a whole lot different than a consumer choosing an agent. All the choices look good (often they all look very much the same!), and they all offer a wide variety of opportunities. What’s more, they all tell you that they’re the best. So how do you choose?

Choose by weighing benefits. What advantages can you count on in terms of training, continuing education, lead-generation opportunities, opportunities to host open houses, social-media positioning, lead generation, and market share by joining one company over another company? You should also check the search engine optimization of the company website for your market. Also check common search terms for your area. If you live in Wichita, Kansas, I would look at “Wichita real estate,” “Wichita homes for sale,” and other common search terms. Does your company rank on the first page or even at all? Additionally, check on strategic alliances or marketing partnerships the company may have with third-party lead generators like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.

A larger portion of buyers is going to these third-party sites. What type of relationship does your broker or national brand have with these companies? Do your listings get enhanced positioning? Do your listings get exclusive positioning where you are the only agent who is highlighted for your listings?

Check the technology tools and systems that are provided for free as well as for a fee. The new breed of agents needs to keep up with the technology options and tools coming out each month. Does the broker you’re considering lead the field, or is it running in place? It’s fair to ask the broker you’re interviewing with, “What’s in it for me? Why should I come to your company and your office?” The clearly delivered response will tell you a lot about the company.

As you assess company choices, use the upcoming advice to evaluate how office attributes and company size match with your own interests and priorities.

Choosing residential or commercial

Differences abound in real estate companies. The biggest difference being whether the product the company focuses on is residential or commercial. While real estate sales practitioners can legally sell any type of real estate, whether residential properties or commercial properties or even businesses, frequently a company will either specialize in residential or commercial real estate.

Residential

A residential company will primarily sell homes, town homes, condos, and small-plex properties. Agents are not precluded from other real estate activity in the commercial realm but they often leave that market to specialists.

Commercial

Commercial real estate companies tend to focus on larger commercial deals. They frequently leave the small-plex properties, such as duplex, triplex, and four-plex properties, to the residential agents and companies because of lower sale prices and lower demand for complex financing options. A buyer can receive conforming financing for up to a four-plex property. This means that the same sources that finance a primary residence can and do provide up to four-plex financing. These loans are easier to obtain than commercial loans on apartments, office buildings, and strip malls. They also require a lower down payment than the typical commercial loan requires. There is an underserved niche in small plexes that might be worthwhile to focus on.

Commercial companies in large and mid-size markets do the majority of the commercial leases of retail, industrial, and office space. They are the ones who handle the listing and sale of apartment complexes, office buildings, retail centers, industrial buildings, and land.

What makes a great office?

When I look at a real estate office, I evaluate how they rank based on the following list of attributes:

❯❯ Energy and enthusiasm: It takes passion to succeed at essential real estate activities like prospecting, lead generation, and lead follow-up. If you surround yourself with agents who lack energy and enthusiasm for the business, it will affect your performance.

When trying to determine whether an office has energy and enthusiasm, find out whether agents are excited to come to work. Also find out whether the office has a public board where agents record their listings and sales for the other agents to see. If the office does have a board like this, look to see if it’s full or empty. Are only a few names covering the entire board, or are all the agents represented? These boards are less common these days because agents don’t come into the office daily, so you may have to ask for a spreadsheet of pending sales activity, which gives you the same information. Also, if you can start with other new agents, it can help with camaraderie and commonality. When the going gets tough, and it will … it’s good to have a buddy.

❯❯ Reputation: Although you can’t count on your company’s reputation to do your work for you, you can bet that your company’s positive reputation will help you open doors.

❯❯ Experienced manager: As a newer agent, you’ll benefit greatly from a manager who knows the ropes and has experience taking agents to higher levels of production. Ask the following questions: What is the manager’s track record in raising agent productivity? How long does it typically take the manager to reach different production thresholds with agents? The right answers can dramatically affect your career arc.

You’re looking for a manager who has a track record of building successful agents from new agents. Effective managers have low failure rates with new agents and see more than 40 percent of their new agents become successful. That percentage may seem low, but according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), fewer than 20 percent of agents last more than two years in the business. A manager who can give you timeframes and statistics on his agents’ success is a serious candidate for your manager. Most of them can’t tell you these stats.

❯❯ Listings inventory: Does the company offer you the opportunity to establish some income over the early months by working someone else’s inventory while you’re creating your own? Can you post the inventory of other agents in marketing, social media, or online to generate interest and calls? What are the company’s online lead-generation strategies with its listing inventory? Do those inquiries go to the agent who listed the property, or does the company spread them around to all agents? As a newer agent, you ideally want a company that spreads the wealth. As an established, successful agent, you want the opposite. An established inventory gives you the opportunity to create buyers and income by working open houses, ad calls, and sign calls.

❯❯ Training focus: Look into how well the company handles the two major areas of training: initial training (so you can earn an income) and ongoing training (so you can build and grow your business). Training options have exploded in the past few years, especially with online classes and programs, videos, webinars, and other opportunities.

Most companies are still behind the curve in online training. Online training can mean either live or recorded sessions. In having personally taught more than 3,000 live online sessions, I can attest that a wonderfully designed live online program can space the learning out so you will be able to build a successful career.

When they’re selecting an agency, most new agents don’t focus enough on the company’s training programs because they get wrapped up in the “what’s my split” game. If, through good training, you’re able to master the skills you need to excel, your income is unlimited. However, if you don’t, you have no chance.

Every company says it offers good training. It’s your job to look under the hood to see for yourself. To do that, ask these three questions:

• What’s the loss ratio for new agents? The loss ratio is the number of agents who fail after completing the training program. This ratio tells you the effectiveness of the company’s new-agent training program. That is the true number of new-agent success.

• What is the per-person production ratio? The average production by the salespeople in the company tells you whom you’re likely to be surrounded by on a day-to-day basis. It clearly illustrates the results of the training programs. You’re looking for results. To have training for the sake of training or to claim you have training is worthless. The question is what results are achieved in terms of income and quality service to clients. A company that claims to have excellent training but has low agent performance is fooling itself and its agents.

• How do the agents segment into income brackets? The answer tells you whether the company’s ongoing training is building the capabilities of all agents or only a few. As an example of a breakdown you want to avoid, check out Table 2-1, which shows how agents in a 200-agent company segment into earning categories.

Here’s my advice: If you’re considering a company with a segmentation chart like the one in Table 2-1, run away fast. Opt instead for a company where a reasonable group of agents earns your desired income. If 80 percent of agents are making less than $50,000 a year, the company is likely a poor fit for a success-oriented agent.

CHECK OUT PREMIER ONLINE TRAINING

Online training is convenient because it can be accessed from your home office and can be synchronous or asynchronous. If you want to check out cutting-edge online training, visit my website at www.realestatechampions.com. We are truly the experts in this medium, having developed content for Coldwell Banker, Century 21, ERA Real Estate, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, and many other national and international brands, as well as our own proprietary programs.

TABLE 2-1 Agent Segmentation by Income Bracket

Bending or breaking the rules

Real estate agents follow two basic sets of rules:

❯❯ The regulatory body that governs real estate in your state establishes one set of rules. This group sets regulations regarding how to handle the earnest money you collect from purchasers, what the deadlines are for the paperwork that is involved with each transaction, who is to receive original copies, and what timeline the legal aspects of the transaction are to follow. The regulatory group is generally focused on consumer protection.

❯❯ The second set of rules that most agents follow is the code of ethics established by the NAR. The code of ethics dictates how agents with NAR member companies should conduct business and how they should deal with prospects, clients, and other agents. Obtain a copy of the code of ethics from your broker, your local real estate board, or online at www.realtor.org.

However, individual agencies also have their own sets of rules. The following sections fill you in.

The rules of the house

Most company rules are based on the absolutes presented by state laws and regulations and by the NAR code of ethics, but some rules vary from office to office.

To protect themselves, some companies shorten the legally dictated timeframes to ensure that agents turn in paperwork to brokers with time to spare. When paperwork is submitted to the principal broker, it gets recorded with a date that provides evidence of receipt. The state regulatory body can audit a real estate company’s files at any time and, if paperwork doesn’t conform to regulations, can levy fines or, worse, close the firm down until lapses are corrected.

When you’re interviewing with a company, request a copy of its rules, its operational/procedural manual, or its new-agent handbook to find out how it expects you to work, and then actually read it before you make a commitment to joining the company. If the company can’t produce one, read the lack of response as a clue about its level of organization.

A penny for you, a penny for me: Commission split arrangements

Media reports advise consumers that seller/agent commission fees are negotiable. Likewise, buyer/agent commission fees are negotiable, as well. You’re the one who determines your fees. Some agents charge higher fees because they’re worth more. They can sell to the consumer a higher level of value, so they can increase their fees.

New agents all seek a universal formula for commission splits, but none exists. Each broker establishes a unique formula, usually beginning with a split that apportions 50 percent of the commission to you and 50 percent to your broker, moving gradually upward in your favor over time as you achieve different earning levels.

The following list presents some of the most common commission options you may see in the industry:

❯❯ The graduated split: The graduated split is the most common compensation package. You start at a 50/50 split, which is increased to 60/40 and upward incrementally as you become more productive and your earnings reach company-established levels for graduation.

❯❯ The graduated split capped: Some companies put an annual cap on the revenue the company derives from the graduated split arrangement. After they collect the established amount of company commission income, the rest is yours. A per-transaction fee that doesn’t cap often accompanies this commission type. This is fair, in my view, because although you receive all your income beyond the cap, the company still has costs for each transaction beyond your cap.

❯❯ The graduated split rollback: Under this increasingly popular compensation arrangement, which is structured primarily for the benefit of the company, you receive a graduated split, but at the end of each year you roll back to 50/50 or some other established allocation. With this type of rollback, the company has a better chance of making a decent net profit from all earnings. Too often, company expenses and profits are covered by too small a group of agents. By rolling splits back at the beginning of each year, companies ensure that their costs are covered by commission revenue received early in the year. It also motivates agents to increase productivity in the early months to increase their splits over the rest of the year.

❯❯ 100 percent commission: Colloquially, this is known as the rent-a-desk arrangement. Agents on 100 percent commission pay a flat amount monthly to rent space and purchase a few services from the company. From there, they cover all their own costs and retain 100 percent of all the commissions they generate.

You need to be well established and pretty darned successful to do well under this system, and for that reason I don’t recommend it for new agents. The risk is too great for beginners because of their lack of experience in creating leads and opportunities for income.

Brokerage fees: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you

After compensation arrangements are in place, most brokers add fees to help cover their expenses. Among the most common fees to expect are transaction fees, fees to cover errors and omissions insurance, and franchise fees.

❯❯ Transaction fees: Many brokers charge agents a per-transaction fee of somewhere between $150 and $500 to cover the cost of processing the paperwork that accompanies a real estate sale.

PASSING THE BUCK

I started charging my clients a transaction fee of $150 in 1993. At that time, I was among the first in the country to do so, joined by only a few other high-producing agents. Over the years, I raised the amount to $495. Today, it’s the real estate companies that are charging the transaction fees to the agents. However, with a little advance planning and sales tact, you can pass the transaction fees along to your clients.

The first step in being able to charge a transaction fee is believing that you’re worth the additional money. You can’t charge the fee if you don’t believe in your extra value because you won’t be able to defend why you’re worth more. Everyone is quick to point out that real estate commissions are negotiable. If that’s the case, why not charge more? If your service is better, your skills are better, and the outcome for your clients is achieved with less risk, you’re worth more money.

To show my value, I explain to clients that when I first started real estate sales, agents had three-page agreements, whereas now some agreements are more than 50 pages long with disclosures included. I also note that agents now manage multiple inspections (such as radon testing, pest inspections, and so on) when before only one inspection was performed. Transactions involve more processing than ever before.

❯❯ Errors and omissions (E&O) insurance fees: Many brokers charge an E&O insurance fee on a per-deal basis, which often adds $100 to $250 to each transaction to cover premium costs. E&O insurance protects professionals should they make a mistake in service or representation. In such an event, the insurance company covers legal fees and settlement costs.

❯❯ Franchise fees: If you join a real estate franchise, expect to pay approximately 6 percent of your gross revenue every time you complete a transaction. The percentage is established by the franchise contract. It doesn’t graduate or fluctuate based on your productivity.

What really matters? Looking at size, online presence, training, and market share

Personally, I think size can make up for other deficiencies in real estate companies, and here’s why:

❯❯ Companies with a large number of agents create a large listing inventory. As a newer agent, you’ll find it easier to get other agents to let you post and advertise on their properties, leverage their properties online on your own website, market behind their inventory with direct mail, and work open houses for them if they have 15 rather than 2 listings apiece.

❯❯ Large companies enjoy economies of scale, allowing them to provide a greater degree of service at a lower price per agent. As a result, they can offer more training, more marketing, and more exposure than smaller companies can afford to provide in most cases.

❯❯ Because of their size, large companies can negotiate better rates for online marketing ads; website-development costs; click-through ad banners; SEO costs; third-party online lead generators like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com; and mortgage rates. However, large companies follow no hard-and-fast rule for how they direct their savings. Some companies decide to turn a larger profit margin for the company. Others – the ones you’ll most want to join – pass on the benefits to their clients and agents.

❯❯ Large companies hold a dominant portion of market share in their communities. As a result, they have the most prominent reputations and earn the greatest slice of regional business. They tend to have more inbound business, which can really help a newer agent.

In the end, you should base your choice on the office attributes rather than on the size of the real estate office. However, when two companies have equal attributes, let size tip your decision.

Prioritizing your needs and expectations in a company

Before you can determine whether a company is a good match for you, you have to be clear about your own values and expectations so you can see if they’re shared and supported by the company you choose to work with.

Know your values

Ask yourself: What are your core values? What beliefs and principles guide your life? What would you hold dear even if it proved to be a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace? Even if the marketplace or business climate changed, what aspects of how you work are nonnegotiable?

Here’s an example. In my company, Real Estate Champions, one of our core values is “exceptional execution of the fundamentals.” I believe in and have seen the truly astounding results that occur when people apply the fundamentals of sales and business consistently, without reliance on shortcuts or miracle marketing systems. In truth, our company commitment to the fundamentals means that we attract fewer people. Obviously, it’s easier to sell agents on magic formulas that require no work, energy, discipline, or rigorous activity. But in spite of the competitive disadvantage it presents, our company belief in disciplined fundamentals doesn’t ever change. It’s a core value, and it’s a truth we adhere to.

When choosing an agency, know what you stand for, what you honor, and what you believe in. After you study yourself, you can then study the values of the company you’re considering to ensure that your belief systems align.

Establish your expectations

What do you expect from yourself over the next 6 to 12 months? What do you expect from your company over the same time period? What will your new company expect from you? What does it consider to be the minimum standard for new-agent production? What does it consider to be average, or good, production? What do you need to earn in income to make this worthwhile for you? What is the most that anyone has ever produced in the company? What is the most anyone has done in your market?

Also, beyond expectations for the next year, I suggest looking a few years down the road. What is the progression of income and units likely to be over the next few years?

Before you choose a company, align your expectations with the company’s by taking these steps:

❯❯ Set your goals and expectations for the upcoming year. Establish your targets for gross income, number of transactions, number of listings taken and sold, and number of buyer sales.

❯❯ Know the expectations and typical production levels that exist within the company you’re considering. If your targets are high, you need to join a company where established inventories and support systems help you jump-start your business for quick success. If your aims are lower, you need to be sure that they match company expectations for new agents.

After you establish your goals, keep them in front of you at all times. Carry them with you. Put them on your screen saver; program them into your smartphone; and write them on index cards and stick them on your sun visor, bathroom mirror, TV set, or anywhere else they’ll catch your eye repeatedly throughout the day.

Creating Your Agency Short List

With all the options for where to “hang your license,” you want to shrink your list down to your top two or three firms quickly so you can really study each one. The upcoming section helps you winnow it down.

Completing your homework

Follow these steps as you research each of your top-choice companies:

1. Rank your top-choice agencies based on your views as a consumer. Before you color your opinion with facts or market statistics, ask yourself: What is each company’s reputation? Based only on information available to the general public, what impression does the company make? I tell you to do this because when you join a firm, you automatically acquire this reputation.

2. Engage the thoughts of your friends and family. You can post a question on your Facebook page about which company your friends would select to represent themselves as sellers and buyers. You will get a host of answers and consumer feedback. Try to get them to focus on companies, not specific agents. Imagine how valuable it would be to know that a large portion of your sphere of influence has had a bad experience with a company you’re considering.

3. Evaluate each company’s market share. Determine the portion of all real estate business that each firm captures in its geographic area. Then figure out what percentage of the market it commands in the specialized area in which you’ll be working. (See the sidebar “Determining market share” for some how-to information.)

Like many real estate agents, I knew I couldn’t cover my whole market area of Portland, Oregon. I knew I needed to specialize in specific bedroom communities and suburbs in order to serve my clients well. In selecting a company, I first evaluated the firm’s overall Portland market share to discover its general market strength, but then I also evaluated the market share it held in the suburban communities I selected.

4. Assess how production is distributed within each company. Ask whether a number of agents contribute to the company’s success or whether a few agents or even just one person carries production.

I have a coaching client who creates 27 percent of the revenue and 42 percent of the listings in her office. Her leaving would be a huge blow to the company and the agents whose income is reliant on her presence and listings. I advise new agents to steer away from this type of situation.

5. Go online to evaluate presence. Use search engines to see the ranking of the company’s website. The higher the ranking, the more the leads. Also search on key real estate sites like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com to figure out the company’s position on sites with listing inventory. You can evaluate the listing quality, as well as price ranges, locations, marketing materials, virtual tours, and so on. Review the online profiles of agents in the company on the third-party sites. Do they have a lot of reviews? Are their profiles complete and well written? By doing your reconnaissance on a few agents in the company, you will be able to see if the company is helping these agents online.

6. Drive around your market area to determine each company’s visibility. In today’s technological world, you can do much of your research online, but if you’re still stumped, count the number of signs you see for each firm you’re considering. Also, evaluate the quality and array of homes presented by each company. You may discover that a firm has a lot of signs, but they’re all concentrated in a small geographic area or a specific price range. Beware of these firms because they could limit your opportunity. For example, if a company’s business is concentrated at the lower end of the marketplace, securing higher-priced listings may be more difficult.

7. Evaluate each company’s marketing. Monitor media exposure for at least a few weeks to gain a good perspective of the scope and nature of a company’s marketing campaign and its exposure. Check out Craigslist postings for frequency, as well as strategy and information. Check out their Facebook page, Instagram accounts, and Twitter feeds. Review what has been tweeted and posted in the last few months and what responses, shares, and retweets they have generated.

Is the company using traditional methods of marketing as well? Print media, such as newspapers and home magazines, aren’t as effective as they used to be, but some sellers still want their homes to appear in them. While monitoring the media, do the following:

• Study the ads carefully. Is the company using classified or display ads? What is the size and exposure? Do the ads feature individual agents? Could you see yourself in these ads?

• Go to the grocery store and pick up copies of real estate magazines. Are the companies you’re considering featured? What do their ads look like? Are they linking it with Call Capture or text-back features?

If you see marketing that is paid for by individual agents of your selected company, each featuring his or her own listings, you have proof that you’ll be working with agents who are willing to invest in themselves and their businesses.

If you see marketing strategies featuring the listings of a number of agents from your selected company, you know that agents who don’t have enough listings to fill a whole page (like you in the early days) can achieve advertising visibility by buying into a company ad on a per-slot basis.

8. Visit the company’s website. More than 90 percent of all consumers now search the web for properties. Is the company’s website easy to use? Are the listings easy to find and navigate? Are agents featured on individual pages within the company site?

Does the site have a forced registration? Forced registration is when someone comes to the site to look at properties but they are forced to register their information to continue. These are effective lead-creation strategies that will help you generate leads.

Act like an online shopper and find out whether the site performs well in online searches. Go to major search engines and directories, such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Bing, and conduct a search for real estate in your market area. How well a company’s site ranks in the search results affects the number and quality of leads you may generate.

DETERMINING MARKET SHARE

Before selecting a real estate company, find out how well it competes in its market area by determining the share of the market it commands. (If the company you’re considering has more than one office, work out the numbers for the office you’re likely to join.)

To assess market share, first get answers to the following questions:

• How many listings did the company you’re considering take last year? How many listings did it sell? How many houses did it fail to sell?

• How many buyer-represented sales did it make?

• How many agents work at the company?

Then obtain similar statistics for the entire market area. By dividing the firm’s performance by the total market area performance, you discover the firm’s market share. For instance, if the market area produced 1,000 listings and 400 came from a single company, that company has a 40 percent market share (400 / 1,000 = .40).

To obtain information, begin by asking each company to provide you with its statistics. Any company with a competitive advantage knows and wants to share its statistics, and many are also willing to provide comparisons between themselves and their competition.

Also check with your local board of real estate agents, where you can access several varieties of information, including the total number of agents in the marketplace and the number of agents per company.

The multiple listing service, or MLS, which compiles information on all homes for sale, shares information on sales, listings, pending transactions, and homes that failed to sell – on a market, company, and individual office basis.

For another good resource, consult your local business journal. Most produce annual lists ranking companies by industry, and nearly all have special sections devoted to the real estate business.

Ask 12 key questions

Your moment in front of a prospective broker is a pivotal one: The broker is sizing you up to determine whether you fit well in the company. Instead of treating the session like a job interview, use it to ask questions and obtain information that enables you to understand the unique attributes of the agency. Ask the following questions:

1. What is your training program for new agents? The old-school approach of “Here’s your desk. Here’s your phone. Go get ’em.” won’t prepare you for success. You’re looking for a legitimate, established, multi-week training program that extends beyond contract writing and gets into the fields of prospecting, lead follow-up, online and offline lead generation, skills and strategies, sales presentations, objection handling, and closing techniques.

2. When was the last time you updated your training program?

Follow this question with: What did you change about the program? Growing companies regularly update training and techniques. If a company is still teaching the philosophies and techniques of the 1970s in today’s dramatically changed environment, that’s about all you need to know.

3. How many new agents do you train annually?

Companies that regularly recruit and train new agents usually have better training programs than those that don’t.

Find out the success rate of the agents who complete the program. Ask what percentage of trained agents continues with the company for at least one year. What percentage lasts two years?

As you evaluate the responses, remember that the North American real estate industry is having a growth period. There are more new agents entering real estate sales than in years past. The market has some influence on the volume of new agents and the success that they achieve.

4. Can I talk with a few of your agents?

Try to get the perspectives of four to five agents, including a fairly new agent, an agent who is struggling to produce, a solid producer, and a top-performing agent. This diverse group provides a wonderful view of the company’s training, education, support, and pathway to success or failure.

5. How will you help me generate business?