Growing Your Practice To Sell

"Unless you want to die with a lock box in your hand, planning for retirement has to be one of your top goals," Dan Gooder Richard tells his audience of real estate professionals. Richard, a consultant and frequent speaker at real estate conferences is so adamant about the point, that he has devoted the last section of his recently published book, Real Estate RainmakerÒ, to the subject of "Growing Your Practice to Sell."

Given the average age of real estate agents and brokers is 49, the subject of retirement is at the top of many practioners' minds these days. According to Richard, Real Estate RainmakerÒ shows the way to financial independence through the critical marketing process he calls the 3-Step Rainmaker Lead SystemÒ.

"Rainmakers are those people in an organization who can bring in the best business, time after time," he says. "Real estate rainmakers build a marketing system so successful, they can continue to cash in while working part-time at a business they love. Or they can cash out and sell their thriving practice whenever they want."

"It is interesting to realize that so few Realtors have ever considered their practice to be a marketable commodity," Richard comments. "Yet other fields routinely sell their practices and client lists to colleagues,

assistants and competitors when they wish to retire.  Today a real estate rainmaker can develop a top-producing business that will appeal to a buyer who wants to step into a successful ongoing operation."

"Of, course, there are some goals which have to be accomplished before a practice is demonstrably salable," Richard continues.  "There must be documented records that show a consistent level of business activity, a database of clients and referral sources and a sales history or business log which shows the loyalty of these sources."