Focus on Leverage – the Buyer Side

Published by Gary Keller, Co-founder and Chairman

In The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, we declared you could be just three exceptional hires away from having the organization of a Millionaire Real Estate Agent. That’s still absolutely true. However, our ongoing research for both MREA and SHIFT has given us new insight into how these key positions evolve. Some of you got a sneak peak at Mega Camp 2009. For the rest, here’s a quick look at hiring and compensating a Showing Assistant.


Leverage is ultimately about focus. You hire talent to keep you focused on your most dollar-productive activities and they focus on everything else. After entrusting your admin and marketing chores to another person, you look for help on the buyer sales side of the business. Successfully showing homes can be extremely time intensive and help here should keep you focused on leads and listings. So who do you hire?

In the past, research pointed us to a licensed buyer specialist paid on a 50/50 commission split. Today, some successful agents are first hiring an unlicensed Showing Assistant to keep their costs of sale low and their productivity high.

A Showing Assistant can literally jump into the driver’s seat with your buyers while keeping you in the driver’s seat when it comes to converting buyer leads, getting signed agreements, identifying wants and needs and eventually writing and negotiating contracts. A good one should be able to successfully show homes to around three to four buyers a month while earning bonuses based on 25 percent of each deal. Based on a $5,000 average commission, a good Showing Assistant could earn $60,000 a year. This is a terrific opportunity for someone. Better yet, you get to stay focused and 75 percent of the buy-side income stays on your side of the ledger.

You are still looking for someone who has the ability to grow into your Lead Buyer Specialist. So when you have someone with the ambition and proven ability to succeed with a high volume of buyers over time, your Showing Assistant earns the right to be promoted to a licensed Buyer Specialist. Your Buyer Specialist would then handle buyers from the appointment to closing and now earn 50 percent of the commissions. Again, a good one should be able to handle three to four buyer sales a month without burning out.

Burnout is a key word. Once you have identified a great Buyer Specialist, you don’t want to lose them! When they burn out and walk out, guess who gets their job? You do. And you’ve already got a job.

When your business is generating enough leads on a consistent basis to push a great Buyer Specialist past their ability to successful manage them all, the Showing Assistant concept reenters the picture. Now your Buyer Specialist has the opportunity to hire a Showing Assistant of their own. The Showing Assistant is still paid on a 25 percent bonus; however, that money comes out of the Lead Buyer Specialist’s half of each commission. Effectively, you continue to earn 50 percent of each buyer transaction, while the Buyer Specialist earns 25 percent and the Showing Assistant earns the final 25 percent as a bonus. Any buyer transactions your Buyer Specialist closes without the help of a Showing Assistant would still be on a 50/50 split.

Now your Buyer Specialist might successfully help four buyers on their own and another four with the help of a Showing Assistant. That’s now eight closed buy-side transactions each month. And with an average commission of $5,000, your Buyer Specialist has the ability to gross as much as $180,000 a year while just personally showing three or four buyers a month!

Showing Assistants may come and go—each auditioning for a shot at being your Lead Buyer Specialist. But once you find one, hiring and managing Showing Assistants moves from your plate to theirs. You have found your leader for working with buyers. Any additional help needed to keep your buyer transactions on track becomes their issue and opportunity.

Showing Assistants can save you money on the frontend, reduce turnover on the backend, all the while providing the best possible service to your buyers.

Click here for a video highlighting The Organizational Model and MREA.

5 Steps to Making Google Part of Your Lead Gen Team

Published by Cary Sylvester, Executive Director of Technology

The most common question I’m asked is “Can you fix my website-it’s not working!” Immediately, we run to a computer, pull up their website and voila, there it is…working as expected.


So, what isn’t working? It’s not generating leads – that’s the problem! So, I stop and ask, who are you trying to reach with your website? This is inevitably the time I get the blank stare and hear “well, leads.” If you want to “fix” your Website and reach your clients in 2010 and beyond, here are my five tips to make your Website work for you:

1. Determine who your audience is

Seems simple enough, but why aren’t we doing it. Remember, potential clients need a reason to find your site. Ask yourself, are they looking for foreclosures, their first home, information on the tax credit? Or, do they love the neighborhood by the lake or a certain school? Don’t limit yourself when setting up a Website. It’s very common to jump right in to adding your content or redesigning your site to make it look great. But, before you do this, answer a few questions to help you build out a site that works for you:

What’s in it for them?

What type of information are they looking for?

What questions are they asking you?

What makes them unique?

You’ll notice that all the questions are about your audience, not you. There is only one thing about you – how to provide enough compelling information that they feel comfortable sharing their information with you. Use these audiences to build out the interior pages of your website.

2. Pay Attention to the Long Tail

You’ve just begun setting up your Website or maybe you have done a full-scale redesign and you are so excited to lead generate with it! Suddenly every home buyer looking for homes for sale in your city will Google “Homes for Sale” and magically, you will appear in the list…as result number 12,365. Only 100 pages in! Well, wait, how do you get on the first page? It takes time, a lot of content and money to drive business to your site for the most popular keywords. (i.e. “Homes for sale in Austin”) These broad terms will result in about 20% of your traffic at the most. 80% or more of your traffic from Google will come from less popular, obscure key words, such as “Lakefront homes for sale in Austin”.

3. Pick the Right Keywords

Great, you’ve found and audience you want to attract to your site. Now, speak their language. Let me repeat, speak THEIR language. The biggest mistake I see is using the word “Listings”. Do your clients call and ask to see listings in the area? NO – they ask to see homes for sale, houses for sale, etc. Think about how your clients ask for services to craft the words you choose to use on your site. For example, CMA vs. value of my home; MLS vs. homes in the area, etc.

Another key to using the right keywords is to use them naturally, as if you are in conversation with someone. Adding awkward keywords to your webpage to attract Google will only do two things: give you strikes with Google and annoy your client. Finally, add your keywords to your page title, meta-description and possibly as part of your domain name.

4. Focus on Having a Great Landing Page

You’ve found your target audience, attracted them with compelling content, now you need a relevant landing page with clear calls to action to compel them to share their contact information with you.

Sending that potential client to your home page or other generic page doesn’t tie the program together. Let me give you an analogy – you receive an advertisement for the best SHOES at XYZ store. You drive over to the store and its all clothes and hidden away is that one pair of shoes. Do you think you’ll stick around to find it? Well, your website IS your storefront and if you attract an audience looking for a particular niche, you’d better give them what their looking for quickly.

5. See Your Website as Part of Your Marketing Plan-Not a Technology Plan

This is no longer technology. Let me repeat….this is no longer technology! These strategies are part of your overall marketing plan – only online. Don’t be afraid of mastering this because you’re not a “techie” – you are a marketer and that’s all that matters.