I recently had the opportunity to read the book by Gary Keller (of Keller Williams fame) entitled “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” (see my review on Amazon.com). This book has been out for a while but the lessons to be learned are more timely than ever. As a business strategist and organizational consultant I have seen my share of talented people who have outstanding skills in a certain field and decide that they should run a business doing what they are good at and love. In real estate this skill is usually sales. On the whole successful real estate agents love people, are good at making the deal, are educators and client relationship managers. Normally talented sales people do not possess strong business skills. When deciding to become an agent we enter into our own business. If business skills are not learned and cultivated we are limiting ourselves on how successful we can be. Certainly signing with a good broker is helpful but in the end we are independent agents (business owners) and need to understand all that this entails. “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” touches on many of these issues. As we continue to experience the changing market conditions and the redefinition of how and what an agent contributes to the Real Estate industry it is of vital importance that we run our businesses as professionally and successfully as possible.

My personal answer to this was to join a team. In doing this we could bring in diverse skills and abilities, increase our overall income and provide our clients with an entire organization dedicated to achieving success for them. This is not an easy proposition and has been time consuming (over 2 years). But any successful business takes time and effort to build. Some of the obvious benefits to our team is that we are not the sole contact for our clients. We can go on vacations, attend to our children and avoid burn-out. We attract a more diversified client base because we have team members in place to meet their needs. This includes commercial, investment and subdivision developers. By being involved in so many aspects of Real Estate we can get a big picture outlook on where the future of our business will be.