With 14 successful years in the restaurant business, Cassie Hillinger knows how to create an excellent customer experience for the 150 agents at her
At Keller Williams, agents are treated like business partners. They have the opportunity to share in the profits of the company, with no financial investment or managerial responsibility. It is an open-book company where agents have a say in how it is run, and actually have a vested interest in being trained to their highest potential.
Gary Keller built an interdependent model where the company encompasses all the training and support of the dependent model and all the upside GCI (gross commission income) potential of an independent model. We call it a 100% Risk-Free Model.
In addition to GCI, agents have the possibility of multiple streams of income at Keller Williams: your own business as a Realtor, your team, a business where you employ people, as a “partner” to share in the profitability of Keller Williams locally and nationwide, and as a real estate investor. Gary Keller wrote The Millionaire Real Estate Investor to teach his agents how to take advantage of our own occupation – for the agents as well as for their clients.
Most of Keller’s teaching revolves around living on the right-hand side of the Kiyosaki Cash-Flow Quadrant, learning to run businesses and develop passive income. Most real estate practitioners operate as self-employees, lacking the freedom they desire and which they would have if they learned how to run their practice like a “business.” Keller’s book, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, is the blueprint for running successful real estate businesses, and is based on the models and systems of top-producing agents.
As a matter of fact, we just joined forces with one of Illinois top teams, Lewke Partners in Crystal Lake. Tyler Lewke and Kathy Repholz, having employed these models, were attracted to the multiple streams of income generated by all the opportunities Keller Williams has to offer. Tyler and Kathy came aboard as Part Owners and Operating Principals and are excited about the possibility of teaching on a national scale, in addition to keeping their business running.
Like managers, our main role is to train and develop. However, where we differentiate is that a manager focuses on keeping the status quo and has a tendency to react to needs. Whereas a team leader is very proactive and leads his or her people through challenging situations. For example, this past year, I was so grateful that Gary Keller had written Shift: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times. It was our saving grace.
As a leader, Gary sensed what was coming down the pike and prepared his agents for the shifting market. When most agents were crying about how bad the market was, our agents were taught the proper mindset, didn’t buy into the media, and kept prospecting. And it paid off big time! We had our best October, November and December in the history of our office being open. That is leadership!
To be quite honest, this time last year, our agents were like deer in the headlights, stunned that nothing was moving. But leadership shifted into high gear, assessed the situation, brought in the training necessary to deal with what the market was putting forth, (declining home values, short sales, REOs, appraisal challenges, etc.) and we became stronger and better in crisis and have now adjusted to market conditions and are ready to take on the next Shift.
And I don’t know about you, but I got 50 files sitting on our desk from this week alone. I think 2010 is going to be a great year. Just remember, the market doesn’t determine our business … our mindset does! It is a great market of opportunity!
