Before unpacking this, I should be clear: I don’t view tension as bad.
Tension is necessary and good.
When channeled properly, it produces positive conversation and valuable change. It allows you to go from one place to another.
It produces transformation.
Like many others, our industry is grappling with all kinds of change - consolidation, hybrid work models, and how to drive culture in a hybrid model (not to mention a small lawsuit.)
We’re all walking a tightrope.
The last thing we need is to walk a line with a bunch of slack. The tighter it’s pulled, the easier it is to balance. It makes traveling from one place to another easier - even if we’re wobbling the whole way.
The real estate version of pulling the line tight is asking agents and brokers to “show their value.” That’s when one key question enters the chat, “Who’s value is this?”
Mine? Yours? Ours?
As agents work to clarify their value proposition, the brokers who grow and lead these agents will sharpen their answers, too.
Forward-thinking brokers will voluntarily pull even more slack out of the line. They pull until they can clearly communicate their original and meaningful value proposition…not features and benefits (tools and tech) but why someone belongs here.
To get to that place, brokers can (and should) struggle with the same questions I’ve asked agents:
Who are you?
Who are you to an agent? Who are you to a consumer? Those answers are not the same, but both should point back to the broker's identity.
What do you do?
Do you grow exceptional agents? Or do you help consumers buy and sell homes? Brokers do both, hopefully. How a brokerage chooses to promote its corporate brand to consumers is one choice. How a brokerage grows exceptional agents is another. Growing agents typically takes two forms. Agent education and agent development - those two are not the same, but that’s a post for another day.
Why should it matter to other people?
Agents and consumers (but especially agents) are privately wondering if they’re looking at a broker who is a conductor or a creator. A conductor teaches systemic product selling (play the music this way as loud as possible.) The other, a creator, teaches solution-based selling (know your instrument, choose music people want to hear and play it so they ask to hear it again.)
My bet? Brokers and agents will make These kinds of choices, consciously or unconsciously. The result will be two kinds of firms. Those that mass produce muzak and those that produce music.1
The best firms of the future? They’ll be the ones who are ok with today's tension. They’ll pull all the slack out of the line, even if it hurts.
Here’s to a year of transformation. Let’s wobble together.
Thanks to Seth Godin and his book, The Song of Significance, which I highly recommend brokers read. One passage on moving towards significance is how I envision the broker of the future. He writes…”No grades, no check marks, no badges. I’m not in charge of you, and I’m not manipulating you. I’m simply establishing the conditions for you to get to where you said you wanted to go. You tell me where you’re going and what you need. You make promises about your commitment and skills development. I’ll show up to illuminate, question, answer, spar with, and challenge you. I’ll work tirelessly to make sure you’re part of a team of people who are ready to care as much as you do. We can get real. Or let’s not play.” Here’s to finding people who want to get real and who want to play in the future of real estate.
2024 has already produced some great conversations. Thanks to those of you keep those conversations so interesting and productive!!
Such a great article Sandy!