o succeed in any business, you can’t be afraid of change. In the following interview, Gregory Kelly, Joe Vorwerk and Thad Boyd of Sellstate Next Generation Realty talk staying profitable and moving forward.
Region served: Ocala, Fla.
Years in real estate: Gregory, 4; Joe, 20; Thad, 20
Number of offices: 3
Number of agents: 100+
Best tip for getting the right listing price: Do your research.
No. 1 tip for dealing with difficult customers: Manage expectations and be up front with clients in terms of letting them know everything they can expect throughout the process.
Best tip for running a successful meeting: Start and end on time. It’s also important to have an agenda, take notes and follow up on action items.
What is the key to staying profitable in today’s competitive market?
Joe Vorwerk: We tell our agents to be professional, ethical and the best they can be, as this will naturally result in a profitable company.
Gregory Kelly: From an owner’s perspective, staying profitable begins with being aware of all expenses, and prioritizing where you spend your money.
You have a number of the region’s top-producing agents on your team—some that have closed more than 100 contracts in a year. What are your top recruiting strategies?
GK: My passion is talking to top producers, or mega-agents. Since we’re a new company, we can introduce them to something they’ve never seen before. As a result, my closing ratio on recruits is about 80 percent.
JV: It’s also important to be persistent. If you set your sights on a recruit, keep calling. Not only do we have a great value proposition, we have the best technology, the nicest offices and the best compensation model in the business with Sellstate.
One of the more challenging aspects of recruiting top-producing agents is training them in the nuances of a new company. How do you handle this?
JV: If an agent doesn’t do anything different than they did before, they’ll do okay. But if they use our toolkit, there’s potential for them to do so much more.
GK: We also bring agents to Sellstate’s Industry Leaders Conference once a year. They come back infused with new ideas to move their business to a whole new and greater level.
During one three-month period last year, your company closed almost 400 transactions. How did you manage to keep all those plates in the air from an organizational perspective?
GK: We run a paperless office, so it’s not as hard as you think. Everything our team needs is in the cloud, so they can access it from their mobile devices 24/7.
JV: Once the paperwork associated with a transaction is uploaded, we forward the documents to all the necessary parties as needed. We even scan the checks electronically and corporate receives everything they need to dispense funds through Sellstate’s C.P. Technology. We never have to go to the bank. It’s very efficient.