Top 5 Tips to Help New Agents Choose the Right Real Estate Broker

You are starting a business. You need to think of yourself as a business owner. So think about, you know, if you go to business school or you go to get your MBA or whatever that looks like, and they've got you putting business plans together, right? And so those business plans may be a five-year plan, a 10-year plan. If you look at some of the tech companies out there, they've put Evernote put a hundred-year plan together. So think about it long term. We have a tendency to get really, really short-sighted with a lot of the people that we see interviewing that are brand new. Now, part of that is obviously because they don't know the difference, right? I get that. There's not much that you can do there because you need to have experienced some things in real estate to really put context to what's going on in your head.

Totally understand that. But what I'm talking about is we see a lot of agents who go cheap. They want to go to the cheapest broker out there because they've just spent a bunch of money on licensing, and they've just spent a bunch of money on education and whatever that looks like. And so they go cheap, and they sacrifice quality for the sake of expense, right? Or they're not thinking about what their business is going to look like five years from now, 10 years from now. And so what I would say is look at some of the bigger agents in your area, some of the bigger, more successful, whether it's an individual agent because that's what you want, or it's a team. Because maybe you're thinking about, in the long term, leveraging the power of teams.

But don't just think about, right now, I've got to have this because I need to make money, or I need to do this, or I need to do that. Think about it from a long-term standpoint, especially if you don't have any clients lined up. If you don't have any clients lined up, or you're new to an area, maybe you don't have a sphere of influence, really, you are playing the long game. Regardless of if you have a client right now, sure, there's some immediate needs that have to be met, and that's fine. There shouldn't be very many brokers who can't do that for you. But think about the things that you're going to need long-term, because ideally, you're going to go to a broker, and you're going to stay there. How long you're going to stay there? Who knows? Some people stay at one broker their entire career. Some move quite often. When we get later into this episode, we'll talk about why that really doesn't terribly matter from a business standpoint, but it does matter from a what you need in the beginning of your career standpoint.

So, first thing out of the gate is, don't think small. Think big, and think long-term. It's a marathon, not a sprint. The second thing is, ask questions that matter to you when you get into your interview. One of the things that we always find funny when we're interviewing new agents, there is a real estate school here in Houston, actually in the state of Texas, that they give agents a series of questions to ask in an interview. And so, you know right out of the gate when it's happening, because they'll sit down in the chair, they open up their notebook, and there is the list, and they just start going one, two, three, four. There are 34 questions on this list. 34. I'm going to let you get through three or four of them, and then I'm going to start asking questions.

They ask questions like, well, how many listings does your brokerage have? It's a good question, but why does it matter? Like, why does it matter to you as an agent how many listings I have? And if you can't answer that question, then you shouldn't be asking it. It matters because maybe you want to work open houses. It matters because maybe you want to go to a brokerage who's got a bunch of organic leads coming through the door, depending on how they structure that. It matters, maybe not at all, to you whatsoever, because you want to be a buyer's agent. But maybe that's important because buyer leads come through on listings. You need to know why the question is important before you ask it. So what I would rather you do is take a look at that list of 34 questions if you get something like that from your real estate school.

Find the ones that matter the most to you. Add the ones that you've been thinking about asking. There's really no right or wrong. And I can guarantee you that a office manager or recruiter or whoever it is that you're going to meet with at a brokerage is going to be impressed by the fact that you take time to ask good questions. And not just go boilerplate, here's the questions that I got off the internet, or here's the question that I got off this list from my real estate school, or whatever that looks like. Ask really good questions that matter to you. And don't be afraid when you're asking the question that matters to you to tell the recruiter why it matters to you. That's going to give insight into who you are. It's going to help them better tailor whatever program they have to your needs.

So just be real open and honest. Don't be nervous. This is your business. They need you more than you need them. Understand that. They want to recruit you more than you need them to recruit you. Make that distinction. Go in there with confidence and ask the questions that you feel are important to help you build your business. Your business. We'll talk about that in a minute. All right. But before we do that, let's get down to what really, really matters when we're talking about questions that we ask, which is point number three in our Top 5 today. What does training and mentorship look like for new licensees? If there is nothing else that you ask, ask that question. What does training and mentorship look like for new licensees?

Because here's the fact of the matter. You may have been around real estate. You may have a parent who's been a Realtor. You may have gone to the greatest real estate school in history. You still know nothing about doing real estate practically. It's not what HGTV makes it look like. It's not what your licensing school makes it look like. Because at the end of the day, the licensing school is chartered by the state to teach what needs to be taught in order to pass a test. Now, I don't know what it's like if you're outside of the state of Texas, but here in the state of Texas, that means almost nothing that you're going to practically use other than the contracts class. I'll give them credit for that. The contracts class is a good one. So what do you need to be successful?

What? You need a good mentor. You need good guidance. You need good education on how to do this. And to me, there's kind of two schools of thought on that. Number one is the art of real estate. And the number two is the science of real estate. So what the heck does that mean? So for lack of a better term, the art of real estate is the theoretical pieces behind how we do our business. It's the classroom training, if you will. It's the, you know, you need to have this many touches with a prospect. You need to have a listing system, a buyer system. It's you, this is how we're going to market to people. It's the theoretical stuff that is based in practical application.

Don't get me wrong, but it's not the actual hands in the dirt going out and doing it. Right? So there's that element. Then there's an element of the science. And to me, the science looks like two big things. It looks like practicing in a safe environment. And it looks like accountability. So let's talk about the practicing in a safe environment. The practicing in a safe environment is you're sitting around a room putting CMAs together on each other's houses. Right? You're writing contracts for each other and then having somebody that's experienced look over them. It's having somebody that's there just to answer a question that is practiced, that is good at real estate, that is there to help you.

Maybe it's a shadowing thing. Some brokerages will have you go shadow an agent on a listing appointment. Some agents don't feel comfortable doing that. It's really neither here nor there. What about just role-playing listing appointments? What about role-playing scripting? What about prospecting together? Things like that. And so is there a structured plan around that? There should be. There should be a structured plan around that. So you're getting the theory, but then you're actually able to go and you're able to put it into action in a safe place where you fail, but you fail forward. Right? You fail and you learn from it and you get better before you actually do it in front of a client. Because the worst thing you want to do is not have support, not have training, not have a mentor, whatever that looks like, and go out and write a contract that ends up getting somebody in trouble, ends up getting somebody sued, whatever that is.

Right? So we want to make sure that we're doing this in a safe environment. Now, the second part of that science piece is accountability. To me, that's the most important part. Listen, if you've never worked for yourself before, if you've never worked from home before, if you've never been in charge of yourself and your activity, it's real easy not to work in this industry. It's real easy to look busy and accomplish nothing. It's real easy to get up in the morning and, you know, you get the kids off to school. Then you kind of pick up the house a little and then you sit down and you get on Facebook or whatever social media that you like and you kind of do a little, I'm going to comment here and like there.

And then all of a sudden somebody calls and you get on the phone with them and you throw some laundry in the washing machine while you're on the phone with them. And the next thing you know, you're going to go to lunch with some friends and then maybe you come home and you do a couple of prospecting calls, check in on some clients or whatever that looks like. And then next thing you know, people are coming home, the day's over. And really you have done almost nothing that's going to be revenue generating. And so the accountability piece is so important to keep you on track for the business part of the business. Getting up, clocking in, going to work, prospecting every single day, making sure that you're doing all the things you need to to be successful in this business.

Whatever that looks like, whatever that looks like, whatever that looks like, whatever that looks like, that's what you need to have. See, that's where the mentor part comes in or that's where a system of accountability comes in or an accountability partner that's inside of a training group with you. Whatever that looks like, those are the key elements, art, that's the theory, science, that looks like accountability and it looks like practical application in a safe environment. Does that make sense? I hope that helps kind of clarify my thoughts on what training and mentorship looks like because I just think that that's super important. I mean, especially the accountability part. If you look at the real estate coaching world, right, you've got all these big coaches that do things. At the end of the day, each one of them has a different system.

Each one of them has different thoughts on certain things. At the end of the day, we're all doing the same thing. The big key to the coaching element is just like if you have a personal trainer at a gym, it's the accountability. It's holding you accountability to the goals. It's not letting you fail because they're so invested in your success. That's what you want out of a good brokerage training program. All right, now that we've gone through that, the next one, number four, is what tools are provided. Now, let me preface this by saying this. As a broker who provides a lot of tools for his agents, in my opinion, none of them matter if you don't use them. And there are going to be tools that you're not going to use. And so I can sell you on why all the tools in the world are great because they all are.

Because as one of my coaches likes to say, everything works and nothing doesn't. So you use the tools and they'll work. But if they're not the right tool for you, it doesn't really matter. Right? So think about this. People have a very hard time changing their minds. Look at any political argument on Facebook. Let's just talk about that for a second. You see, whatever happens that day in the news, somebody's got something to say. And then people go back and forth. And never in the history of anything on Facebook has anybody ever changed their mind. Right? But I am a firm believer that in your first two years of being a Realtor, you exist for one reason and one reason only.

And that's to change the minds of your audience from what you used to do to what you do now. From if you were a teacher, from being a teacher to being the trusted real estate resource in their life. And that's not easy to do. And it takes time. And it takes consistent, disciplined effort. And so when I look at tools specifically for new agents, the number one tool I'm looking for is a CRM. Does this brokerage provide their agents with a CRM? If you're not familiar with a CRM, it's client relationship management software. It's designed to automate messaging, automate tasks for you to pick up the phone and call.

And just make sure that you're touching everybody in your sphere of influence and in your database on a regular basis. And I cannot tell you how important that is for retraining people's minds to think of you as the trusted real estate resource. When I first started in the industry, my brokerage did not provide a CRM, unfortunately. And I was too cheap to go buy one on my own. Going back to that talking point number one, I was not looking long term. I was not making long term investments in my business. I was thinking I got to pay the rent. Right. And so it took me probably 18 months to start using a CRM because I had some conversations with some existing agents that were doing really, really well in the business.

And all of them pointed to that. And so I bit the bullet and I dropped my 50 bucks a month on a CRM. And wow, what a difference it made in my business. What an immediate almost difference it made in my business. So there was a study done. If you've ever read the book Ninja Selling, which if you're just starting out of your career in real estate, go read the book Ninja Selling. It's a must read if you ask me. But if you read the book Ninja Selling, they talk about a study that was done in Southern California where a marketing research firm went into a neighborhood in Southern California and they told everybody, if you were going to sell your home, who would you use as your agent? And overwhelmingly, there was one person who was kind of using that neighborhood and farming that neighborhood and was kind of the dominant agent in that area.

They then embarked on a campaign where for eight weeks, they sent out a piece of mail to every single person in that community. And on that piece of mail, it was, you know, your typical real estate postcard. But it was a fictitious agent working for a fictitious broker. At the end of eight weeks, they redid their survey of who would you use to sell your home next. And the fictitious agent with the fictitious broker beat the dominant agent who was a real human being. It takes consistent effort, consistent putting your name in front of people on a regular basis to be able to change their hearts and minds. And that's your goal in that first couple of years.

So when we talk about tools, to me, the big one is a CRM. The second one, though, is what do they have in the way of marketing tools? Things are going to help you. And we're going to talk about the number five is to help you build your brand. But what marketing tools do they have to build your brand? What are they going to do to help with that? And for my money, how easy are they to use? How automated are they? Whatever that looks like. So you've got the training and you've got the mentorship, and that's great. And at the same time, you're pushing marketing out to your audience, whatever that audience is made up of. And you're doing it in a way that every three weeks, they're getting some sort of touch from you that's changing their mind from what you used to do to what you do now.

So important. Outside of that, for brand-new licensees, I don't care what the tools are. Like, you may, and that's perfectly fine. That's perfectly fine. If you think that a client concierge is awesome, hey, I'm down with it. Go. That's great. If you think that having a super fancy website is important, great. Fantastic. As long as you're using it right, that's what matters. Having a fancy website and not doing anything with it means nothing. Having a fancy website and pushing people back to it, that's important. That's where the training part comes in, right? But the tools that matter are the ones that are going to help you change people's minds through marketing and through constant reinforcement of your message in a CRM.

Last but not least, tying into the tools, tying into the training, tying into the long-term view that we've already talked about, can you build your own brand? Now, I will admittedly tell you that I was mistaken when I first saw how things were going in this way. I was mistaken. I thought back in, shoot, 10, 12 years ago now, that in the early 2010s, that when Keller Williams started really pushing agents to brand themselves and brand their teams and get away from sort of the KW brand and make the brand their own, I was like, why would anybody who has spent as much time and done such a good job at brand building go and just say, nah, don't need it anymore, forget it.

I thought it was crazy. I was wrong. I was 100% wrong. So, what we know through statistics provided by the National Association of Realtors is that very few people, the last survey I saw was 3% of people actually care about your brand, actually care that you work at XYZ company or ABC company. They just don't care because at the end of the day, they're buying you. This is a relationship business and they are purchasing you and your service. You're the trusted one, not the brand. They don't know who else is at your brand. They don't know who else works with you. They know you and that's what they're buying. They're trusting you to make their home sell for the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time or help them find the perfect home for them or help them invest or help them find tenants.

Whatever that is, it's a relationship between you and that principle. So, are you allowed to build your own brand? Can you have your own domain? Can you have your own email? Can you brand on signs and brand on marketing pieces that you're setting up your business? And in today's world, with very few exceptions, there are exceptions. With very few exceptions, every broker should be behind that idea. Every broker should be invested in you building your own brand and them being your partner in business. And that's what you're looking for. At the end of the day, if you're a brand new licensee, you are looking for the best partner to help develop you initially and support you long term in your business.

And look, if you enter that with a short term mindset, what's going to happen is either you're going to fail because you're going to get what you pay for if you go cheap, or you're going to go hang your license under a friend who doesn't really do anything, but it has a broker's license and doesn't have stuff set up to help you. Whatever that looks like, whatever that looks like, you're going to fail, you've got to look at that long term, you've got to tell them what matters to you and ask the questions surrounding that. You've got to look at what their training program looks like. And is it right for you? Is it going to force you to make cold calls and you're not a cold caller, so you don't want to have to do that. Is it going to just be online and you're not disciplined enough to do that, you need to go somewhere.

All of those things are okay, you just need to make sure that it's right for you. And you've got to make sure that the tools that they're providing you are going to help you build your brand and help you do it in a way that's automated and designed to change people's minds right out of the gate. That first two years is so important. And then keeping that long term look, are you able to build that brand that people are going to recognize and automatically associate with you. So those are the Top 5 for new licensees choosing the right broker. I hope that that gives you a little bit of guidance. Like I said before, there are a ton of different things that you can add to that list of Top 5. There are a ton of different things that you could mix in there, depending on what your goals are, where you are, and what you're looking to do in real estate.

But these are five things that we run into a lot here in our brokerage. And so I just wanted to kind of throw some light on those. And I hope that you found value in it. This is a topic that's constantly evolving as the market changes, as people change, as technology changes. So this episode may not age well, but I feel like looking at the long term is always going to be there. I feel like asking the right questions is always going to be there. I feel like the need for great training is going to be there. Tools that help you build your brand are going to be there. And then you being the centerpiece of that is always going to be there. So I hope that that helps you out. Good luck in your career. Thank you for taking time to watch this episode of Top 5 with Chance Brown. We'll be back with another episode still on the same topic, but for experienced agents soon.

Hope you have a great day. Talk to you soon.