In The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, we declared you could be just three exceptional hires away from having the organization of a Millionaire Real Estate Agent. That’s still absolutely true. However, our ongoing research for both MREA and SHIFT has given us new insight into how these key positions evolve.
Leverage is ultimately about focus. You hire talent to keep you focused on your most dollar-productive activities and they focus on everything else. After entrusting your admin and marketing chores to another person, you look for help on the buyer sales side of the business. Successfully showing homes can be extremely time intensive and help here should keep you focused on leads and listings. So who do you hire?
Research has pointed us to a licensed buyer specialist paid on a 50/50 commission split. Though hiring an unlicensed Showing Assistant may keep costs of sale low and productivity high, the majority of agents work in MLS that require licenses. A licensed Showing Assistant can literally jump into the driver’s seat with your buyers while keeping you in the driver’s seat when it comes to converting buyer leads, getting signed agreements, identifying wants and needs and eventually writing and negotiating contracts. A good one should be able to successfully show homes to around three to four buyers a month.
Keep in mind you are still looking for someone who has the ability to grow into your Lead Buyer Specialist. So when you have someone with the ambition and proven ability to succeed with a high volume of buyers over time, your licensed Showing Assistant earns the right to be promoted to a licensed Buyer Specialist--handling buyers from appointment to closing.
Burnout is a key word. Once you have identified a great Buyer Specialist, you don’t want to lose them! When they burn out and walk out, guess who gets their job? You do. And you’ve already got a job.
When your business is generating enough leads on a consistent basis to push a great Buyer Specialist past their ability to successfully manage them all, the Showing Assistant concept reenters the picture. Now your Buyer Specialist has the opportunity to hire a Showing Assistant of their own. The Showing Assistant is still paid on a 25 percent bonus; however, that money comes out of the Lead Buyer Specialist’s half of each commission. Effectively, you continue to earn 50 percent of each buyer transaction, while the Buyer Specialist earns 25 percent and the Showing Assistant earns the final 25 percent as a bonus. Any buyer transactions your Buyer Specialist closes without the help of a Showing Assistant would still be on a 50/50 split.
Now your Buyer Specialist might successfully help four buyers on their own and another four with the help of a Showing Assistant. That’s now eight closed buy-side transactions each month. And with an average commission of $5,000, your Buyer Specialist has the ability to gross as much as $180,000 a year while just personally showing three or four buyers a month!
Showing Assistants may come and go—each auditioning for a shot at being your Lead Buyer Specialist. But once you find one, hiring and managing Showing Assistants moves from your plate to theirs. You have found your leader for working with buyers. Any additional help needed to keep your buyer transactions on track becomes their issue and opportunity.
Showing Assistants can save you money on the frontend, reduce turnover on the backend, all the while providing the best possible service to your buyers.
*When originally posted on the KW Blog, we included unlicensed Showing Assistants, but as the industry has changed, we now recommend using only licensed showing assistants .
