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Almost 5,000 Keller Williams brokers descended on Austin, Texas, this week for the franchisor’s annual Mega Agent Camp, a three-day convention geared toward educating and coaching brokers to navigate the market. Whereas the same old convention fare is on the agenda — social media ideas, purchaser and vendor lead technology methods, and classes on work-life stability — the upcoming deadline for buyer-broker fee modifications underlies each session as brokers brace for an unsure future.
Jason Abrams
Ten minutes earlier than hitting the stage for Gary Keller’s State of Housing Market handle, Keller Williams Head of Trade and Studying Jason Abrams spoke to Inman concerning the “excellent timing” of this yr’s convention and the franchisor’s gameplan for serving to brokers not solely survive however thrive by fee modifications.
Inman: What are you most enthusiastic about for this yr’s Mega Agent Camp? What’s the predominant focus of this yr’s convention, and what’s the principle message you hope brokers will stroll away with after these subsequent few days?
Abrams: I’ve two messages. The primary one we coated yesterday at our CEO occasion. We spent a number of time overlaying this concept of [being] antifragile. This was an concept that was laid out by a well-known economist, and the thought is that there are some issues that they’re not simply robust, however they’re antifragile, that means that when they’re put underneath stress, they really get stronger.
We made the argument that it’s not sufficient to only climate the storm, and it’s not sufficient to only get by it. In the event you actually wished to thrive and be antifragile, you’d be rising and also you’d be stronger [with] the extra stress that you simply cope with. Then we laid out this entire idea of how one can really prepare for it.
The second concept we mentioned is, “Win the morning, win the day.” That is the concept that if you have a look at your life [and] the issues which might be essential to you — your job, your small business, your spirituality, your bodily well being and key relationships — all this stuff find yourself having one factor that you are able to do every day to maneuver them ahead.
So long as that one factor is finished earlier than 12 o’clock daily, you then’re going to win. It doesn’t matter what occurs within the afternoon. Have an amazing day by midday, and should you add up a ton of days like that, you’re going to have a tremendous profession.
We’re going to the touch on that all through the entire week.
Being ‘antifragile’ is such an attention-grabbing concept, and it actually looks like a well timed message because the trade nears the Aug. 17 deadline for procedural modifications listed within the Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors’ buyer-broker fee settlement. How are you tying the thought of being antifragile into serving to brokers navigate these large, upcoming modifications?
Change is inevitable, however participation is elective. We’re asking our brokers to lean in to alter in order that in the long run, they find yourself with stronger companies and higher careers. We’re additionally ensuring they get all of the correct info, versus passing off opinions that they could be seeing on social media as information as a result of that’s very harmful.
We’re additionally ensuring that they perceive precisely what the rule modifications are, they’re 100% in compliance, and perceive how their native boards and a number of itemizing providers are embracing these modifications. That’s crucial factor for us as a result of we imagine that actual property is a neighborhood enterprise pushed by native relationships.
We’re instructing brokers to observe all the principles after which await finest practices to emerge. This concept of working and making wholesale modifications previous to understanding what the perfect practices are doesn’t make any sense to us.
That’s an amazing level. For months, trade leaders have been discussing the myriad of how this might play out, however we really gained’t know the way it will prove till after Aug. 17. That’s when the journey actually begins. Within the meantime, I see that your agenda is admittedly specializing in serving to brokers return to fundamentals and hone these core expertise. With all that’s occurring, what’s the core talent or enterprise technique you need KW brokers to latch onto?
We wrote the category Value² [in March], and I believe we had been the primary actual property firm to sort of come out with a full-blown course that claims, ‘OK, nice. It’s worth {that a} client is all the time keen to pay for’ and understanding what your worth is and the way that worth really results in serving to the client or vendor accomplish is the first purpose.
We will’t do that in a unfastened manner; we now have to have the ability to straight tie to it, so we now have all types of panels that includes purchaser’s brokers and itemizing brokers who’ve designed distinctive worth propositions. They’ve gotten the outcomes they’re on the lookout for, they usually’ve documented it. We’ve all the time been in a database-driven enterprise, and I imagine we nonetheless are, which signifies that these actual property brokers have anyplace from 500 to 300,000 individuals of their databases.
These individuals [in those databases] have to get their actual property information from their actual property agent. So how will we empower our brokers to go and do this? We’re going to be explaining how one can do it finest on social media. We’re going to clarify how one can do it finest with their sphere of affect and highly effective contact packages. We’re going to clarify how one can do it finest at instructional occasions in addition to only a enjoyable social gathering occasion.
We’re going to go methodically, step-by-step, in order that they’ll clarify their worth at scale.
That’s wanted. After I discuss to my family and friends about what’s occurring, there’s nonetheless a number of confusion, they usually’re going to be seeking to brokers for steerage. We’ve talked about the way you’re guiding brokers to deal with change, however how has KW management ready itself for this transformation? How is KW, as an organization, ready to evolve?
On the finish of the day, we’re a individuals improvement firm, and your query is so sage as a result of we requested the identical one. How would a individuals improvement firm go about serving to individuals work by change? The very first thing we did was arrange all-company open homes. We’ve executed two of them the place we clarify what’s really altering and went by the settlement.
The subsequent factor that we did was we began writing programs particular to agent worth as a result of that’s on the forefront of the change, and that course is named Value². We then mentioned, ‘OK, effectively, what are the perfect practices for brokers to point out worth?’ We really printed this week a brand new playbook, the Millionaire Actual Property Agent Playbook Quantity 2, which has over 71 pages of performs that an actual property agent can run all the way in which from: How do I generate extra consumers and sellers to speak to? to “How do I present them extra worth? and How do I scale my enterprise?
After which, lastly, typically we simply get fortunate with timing. Getting all of our high individuals collectively in Austin for Mega Agent Camp this week is ideal, and we’re going to spend the following three days speaking concerning the modifications which might be forward. I couldn’t be extra excited concerning the timing, and I actually suppose our persons are ready.
E-mail Marian McPherson
