Preparing For Your Managed Real Estate Team

It was a coincidence, actually. I had an opportunity to attend a very popular lunch program dedicated to the purpose and practice of the agent team. It was a classy event with an upscale lunch and a cast of high performance agents all associated with the team movement. Two moments from this event contributed to this article.

The first occurred when one of the women being featured on the program panel arranged to be introduced as the "CEO of the XYZ team." It was just one of those moments in life when reality loses focus and confusion sets in. She was looking in every way like one would expect the CEO of a real company to appear. It's not that I hadn't done my homework for the event by researching a number of sources on the current status of the agent team, for I had. I just wasn't prepared for either the concept of pretending that this is a real "entrepreneurial" activity or for the program that followed. It was 60 minutes of finite detail and collective wisdom on how to "negotiate" various benefits, concessions, and allowances from brokers whose "brokerage" was being blessed by the presence of a team within their business sphere.

The second moment of substance occurred at the curb as we waited for an overworked parking valet to retrieve our vehicles. Standing next to me was a local broker of considerable progressive substance. Like two alumni meeting on a strange campus, I asked what he thought about the program and if it felt familiar. In response he rolled his eyes and in a firm and focused voice said, "This has gone too far."

This article is about agent teams, but not about the agent team movement that is now sweeping the industry. It is about a whole new kind of agent team that will soon mark its arrival and the industry's return to a more common sense approach to profitability. An agent team that will be playing for the brokerage.