Entry by Mary Pope-Handy

Found through ACRE directory & making headway with consulting

  3 Comments

A few days ago I received a call from a gentleman in my marketplace who wanted to hire me to consult on pre-sale preparation of his home so that he could maximize his sale next year.  He didn't want to get tied down to any particular Realtor or real estate agent just yet.

I am at a more "traditional" brokerage but to their credit, the guys who run it have been somewhat open to other business models - cautiously and in small doses.  When I got the call for pre-sale help, I explained to the home owner that I thought I'd be able to assist but needed a clearance from my broker as that hadn't been on my radar since moving companies.

Long story short, I couldn't reach my manager too fast but told the potential client that we could do a one hour free consultation (my usual) and that if they wanted more we could talk about it down the road - after I got the green light.  The green light did come, but it was a new concept for them (my company) to consider: getting paid for the work you do rather than hitching everything to a sale and a commission.

Yesterday I did meet with the future sellers, who are super nice and so is their home.  They were thrilled to have a free 1 hour consultation and I did  explain that in the future if they wanted more help they could pay me (and that I would reimburse them later if they hired me to assist them in selling their house). (My manager thought that my approach was "very very fair" and I agree.)

So it was a huge win on two levels:

  • I got an opportunity because I am on the ACRE website
  • This opportunity allowed me to present a scenario to my brokerage that they were willing to consider and eventually OK'd

It was a breakthrough for me that I can consult and charge for particular services. My manager wants his agents to expand the ways in which they can earn a living in real estate so he views it as a win, which it is.  And it was great to be able to be found because of the ACRE website.

3 Comments

Mary, yours is an important story to the many ACREs that are working in traditional brokerages that are still resisting the changes coming. Two lessons from Mary:

  1. If you can't or don't want to leave a brokerage that isn't keen on embracing consulting, take it in baby steps as Mary did but keep taking steps. Over half of our new ACREs are brokers so know that eventually the industry will come around but in the meantime, take it slow but take it. Pioneers will always get the arrows but they are the ones that stake the land!

  2. If you haven't taken the time to fill out your page for the ACRE Locator, then you're missing out on one of the biggest benefits of being an Exchange Subscriber. As Nike says: "Just Do It!"

Thanks for sharing Mary.

Excellent Mary for being the pioneer of moving your broker into the next generation compensation model.  As a broker myself, I embrace this challenge and hope to recruit more agents that want to be "change agents."

Thanks Mary for the great post.

This page contains a single entry by Mary Pope-Handy published on October 5, 2011 11:13 PM.

Quote of the Day was the previous entry in this blog.

Think Different - The Best Tribute to Steve Jobs is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.