There’s a mega agent in almost every major market.
You know who I’m talking about; the slick dude (or gal) with the beaming smile plastered all over the billboards and the cheery voice emanating from every radio and TV station. They often have the standard paid celebrity endorsement also: If I need a Realtor in ‘insert city name here,’ I would hire ‘insert agent name here.’
Do they really think people are that gullible? I guess enough of them are.
The mega agent is always the No. 1 agent in town. This is determined by accumulating the total commissions earned from every agent on the mega team (sometimes 50 or more) and then comparing that grand total against each individual agent, partnership or small customer-service-focused team within the specified market area.
Not exactly a fair or meaningful comparison. And yet, they boast about this like they’ve won an Academy Award or something.
Of course, none of this is common knowledge to the general public or the unsuspecting, rosy-faced newbie agent. Not knowing any better, the newbie gets sucked in by a powerful recruiting message from the famous mega agent, enticing them to quit the struggle and join the biggest, most successful team in town, where life is always sugar plums and Lambo-Guzzis.
The lure of team camaraderie and the opportunity to learn at the feet of the famous mega agent is a compelling message. Unfortunately, it turns out that the training provided by the mega team is mostly limited to two things:
- How to recite scripts like a robot and
- How to chase after leads generated by the mega agent’s internet lead-generating machine.
If you’re willing to do this type of work, you’re hired!
Actual real estate and customer service skills? Bah! Who needs those?
Make no mistake; lead generation – not real estate – is the mega agent’s business, and they’re damn good at it. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on advertising (in some cases, millions), generating tens of thousands of internet leads.
Then, they try to convince the public that they’re spending all that money “marketing your home.”
Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Yeah, it’s not very funny.
We all know the money is being spent on marketing themselves and creating leads for the team members to chase. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Just please don’t insult my intelligence and try to convince me, as a potential seller, that you’re spending that marketing money for my benefit.
This type of misleading advertising is one of the biggest reasons why the public perceives Realtors as a bunch of bungling sleaze-bag amateurs, which is a real shame. And honestly, I feel terrible for those rosy-cheeked newbies who join the local mega team and end up with a completely false sense of what it takes to be a successful agent.
For more ranting and raving on this topic, check out my article In Defense of the Individual Agent.
If you want to achieve massive success in real estate, stop accepting that good enough is good enough. It’s not. And here’s a message to you rosy-faced newbies: Forget about joining the mega team. That’s a highly stressful dead-end job. And make no mistake, it’s a job, not a career. There’s only one person who truly benefits from your hard work: the boss.
Why not learn the skills it takes to build your own rewarding career?
“The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself… The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.” — Warren Buffett
After Ted Greenhough’s first year as a Realtor, he earned between $590,000-$865,000 every year for 12 consecutive years, all as an individual agent, without ever once making a cold call, reciting a canned script or doing any other “salesy” stuff. Now he runs Agent Skills, an online learning program for agents across North America.
