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I would bet that when you got into real estate, it wasn't because you wanted to miss your kids growing up. You didn't want to miss their soccer games. You didn't want to drift apart from your spouse. You didn't want to lose all the time for having a social life. You did it for freedom, you did it for flexibility. But somewhere along the way, you got lost. And it's usually because agents aren't shown the way. Like, nobody teaches you how to build a business that supports your life. Most brokers, most trainers are teaching you how to build a business. And then hopefully you can build a life around that. And we do it backwards. So if you want to change that and build a life and a business to support it, you need to start making some very specific key changes right now and taking steps forward towards owning your own real estate business rather than letting your business own you. And I luckily have figured out the blueprint to being an agent entrepreneur and to having the lifestyle that you want and the business that supports it. And, and I'm going to share it with you for free. On Thursday, January 30, I'm doing a free training. I'm going to lay out what I call the Freedom Blueprint for Agents. Step by step, I'm going to show you all the different options that you have available. So I'm going to show you some specific things and changes you should make today to start moving towards actually hitting your goals and having the lifestyle you want be there. January 30th. Go to massive agent Webinar. Com Last time we did this, we maxed out. If you were that there were people who could not get in the room. So register now and then show up a few minutes early so you can guarantee you get a spot. Massive agent webinar.com I'll see you on Thursday, January 30th. We are now into 2025 and this is peak brokerage switching season. A lot of agents make moves right around this time every year. So today I'm going to talk about what you should be looking for in a new brokerage. If you're looking, there's certain questions I would ask, certain things. I would look for things that are important, some things you think are important aren't, and vice versa. I'm going to get into what you should really be looking for in a brokerage that you settle with. Let's get started right now. What is up, guys? Welcome to episode 370 of the Massive Agent podcast. I am your host, Dustin Brome here in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I am damn excited now that 2025 is upon us. We are in it. It's freaking go time. And I'm excited about that. Like, I'm just, I'm really, really excited about that. So this time of year, like I said in the intro, this is a time that, that agents make moves, right? Sometimes before the, the end of the year, sometimes right after. But agents who are looking for a better opportunity, a better business opportunity will oftentimes make a brokerage change or, or join a team or leave a team or start a team around, you know, the end or the beginning of the year. So because we're right in the middle of that season, today I'm going to talk about what you should be looking for in a brokerage. Now I'm going to, I'm going to. This is going to be a very brokerage agnostic episode, right? I'm not going to be promoting any one brokerage over another. Like, I'm going to give, I'm going to give factual information. I'm going to give you stuff to think about. I might give my opinion in a couple places here or there, but, but not really. Like, this is not a brokerage bashing or a brokerage promoting episode. This is, this is for you to make a good business decision. Because I believe now it's taken me 14 years, is it 15 years, 14 years in the industry to get to this place where I have enough perspective to realize most agents underappreciate and, and you underappreciate the brokerage and it's because you're not looking at the right ones for the right reasons. Most agents settle and you don't realize what, how that's hurting you and what you're leaving on the table. And so I want to bring some, I just want you to see things in a, in a bigger way. I want to, want to help you zoom out and see what you're not seeing yet. And hopefully now one or two things is going to happen here after hearing this, you're going to realize, you know what, I'm in a pretty damn good spot. I'm happy about it. It's in alignment with what I need. And you're good. And then you, you don't need to be curious anymore. You don't need to stop. You know, you don't need to continue with this grass is greener crap, because the grass is not always greener. It sometimes is, right? So you've got to arrive at that place for yourself. So you're either going to become further bought into where you're at or you're going to realize, you know what, you're, you're leaving a lot on the table. You're not, you're not on the path or you, it's not possible for you to even get on the path, to hit your goals or to have the lifestyle that you want in your current brokerage or team. So all of that is good, all of that is positive. And so let's jump into it right now. So I have a list of 10 different things and then I'm going to wrap it up at the end with what I believe is more important than all ten. Like we're going to put all of these ten reasons, um, they all matter. But in the end, there's one thing above all of it that matters the most. So number one, how much does that brokerage cost to do business? This matters, right? I spent the first seven and a half years of my, of my career at a flat fee 100% brokerage. And I spent the majority of that time thinking that agents at a brokerage that had a split, like a Coldwell Banker or a Keller or even an Exp or a Real, that had a commission split, I thought they were stupid. Like why would you be giving, you know, 30, 40, 50 or, or even, you know, 15 of your commission to the brokerage every, every time? Because I'm, I'm over here at a flat fee, just paying 499. Well, I wasn't doing the math on, you know, once you sell enough houses and there's no cap on it, you could be paying a hell of a lot more than at one of these, one of these splits with a cap companies. So I didn't really do the math on that. It absolutely matters how much you're spending to do business in the place you're doing it. It's, you are a business. You have overhead, your brokerages, costs, the fees, the splits, all of that stuff matters because if you're paying too much, like I spoke to someone, one of my agents spoke to someone the other day that spent over $200,000. They, they gave $200,000 last year to their brokerage. Now this is a very high producing sales team. They sell a shitload of houses. But $200,000 is what they paid the brokerage last year. And, and once they saw that number at the end of the year, it made them sick. As it should. If you're spending anything like that or if you're just like, I'm not getting what if you Feel like you're spending way too much, brokerage is getting too much and you're not getting enough in return. Revisit that. So the commission splits, the fees absolutely matter. Are you okay paying a monthly fee? Are you okay paying a desk fee just to have your the privilege of holding your license at a certain place? What do you get for that? Do you actually get desk space? Do you actually get an office or a cubicle or whatever? Or is it just like one of these ticky tack fees to extract from agents? You're gonna, you're gonna have to answer those questions for yourself. But, but some brokerages have monthly fees, some do not. Something to weigh. Number two, training and education. Now we're getting to the stuff that matters, I believe more than just the dollars and cents. Of course it matters how much it costs you to do business at the place you're at. But are they going to help you sell more? Are they going to help you do more? Are they going to help you build more? And so with great training and great education, ideally stuff that you don't have to pay extra for unless it's an event that you go to, of course you're going to have to pay for events. But, but like paying for a training course from your brokerage, I think is ridiculous. The brokerage should have a robust training system in place at no added cost, in my opinion. And, and if you choose wisely that brokerage and the training and the education should help you sell more. So like you have to do the math. Okay, maybe to join a certain brokerage it might cost you a little bit more based on how many deals you're closing. However, if they help you double your sales and you make a hell of a lot more, is that worth it? Probably. I mean, again, you're going to have to answer that question. But I'm just bringing some perspective on how to look at this. Training and education is key. And if your brokerage isn't training you, if they don't have great, robust and easily available training every single week, then I would look for, I would look for where you're going to get that. Number three, technology and tools. I think most agents don't realize what great technology can do for you until you actually have it. And then you're like, holy crap, how did I do business without this? How was I so inefficient? Why did I spend so much time? Why was my workflow so complicated, so cumbersome? When there's, there's a couple brokerages that have incredible streamlined technology that saves you time. It's, there's fewer clicks involved, which means you can spend more of your time servicing clients and marketing and actually doing deals rather than managing the transaction and uploading it and just doing all the right. I believe technology, a great brokerage should give you insights into the financials. How much money are you making? How much money are you keeping? How much money will you make? You know, are, are there any wealth planning tools? Does your, does your company help you accumulate stock or revenue share or other streams of income outside of just commission? And I believe a great brokerage, a great brokerage will help you build a great financial footing for yourself and give you the technology tools to be able to do that. So look at the tech and the tools and don't just settle for a, you know, a transaction manager or you know, what a lot of brokerages have. And I'm not even saying this as a negative, I just want you to understand there's a difference in how certain companies operate. Most brokerages just grab a bunch of third party software tools and bolt them together, right? You duct tape them together. So like transaction management, E Signature, maybe CRM, website, like, you know, all this stuff and they, they, they duct tape it all together and like, here's our offering for technology. That's fine. Other companies have built their technology from the ground up. Everything's incorporated together. Like you, one login, one click, you get everything. You know, it's more of like a business manager that, that runs and operates everything. Do you need a mobile app? Like, is mobile access to your company's technology important to you? Do you need instant access to be able to do certain things or get information when you're sitting in the driveway before a listing presentation? All these things to take into account, technology and tools matter. Number four, support and culture. This goes along with training and education. If you have support, and I'll define that as people and, or systems, but systems work too. But really, are you connected with people that have a vested financial interest in helping you reach your goals? And it needs to be more, in my opinion, it needs to be more than just your broker who hopefully is a good person. They want to help you. You hopefully have other great people in the office who want to help. But I've learned there's a very big difference between just being around great people who want to help, but they still have their own businesses and everything to attend to versus when you can actually partner with people. And your success is literally how they grow financially as well. I'm talking outside the brokerage the broker agent relationship. When you can partner with agents, there's only a few business models that allow this in the industry. But when you can have business partner agents on top of everything the brokerage provides, you're now, you now have people that you can say, hey, I want to align with this person. I want to be aligned with that person. I want, I want them to be fine. I want them to be rewarded when I win. So then they're financially incentivized to help me do it more. That's a real thing. It's been huge for my career, it's been huge for my growth. It's been huge for my income and my finances. So is your company giving you people that have a vested financial interest in helping you sell houses? Just to put it bluntly, to remove all the sugar coating, are you connected with people who they make more money when you make more money? If not, and I'm not even saying that that's the end all, be all, but there's just a new level of support. When you're trying to build a business, when you're trying to build a team, when you're trying to get out of production or you're trying to double or triple your sales. If you can have people that have already done that, that have the blueprint, that they're literally incentivized to help you do it too, you're that much more likely to actually do it because you have people that will clear their schedule to help you do it right. So support and culture is huge. And is the culture around your, your team or your company, is it, I want cooperative, is it collaborative? What I've seen is when you're with a culture, when you're with a company culture where everyone is willing to help you, people will, will take time out of their schedule to help you, to give you their listing presentation, to give you their scripts, to walk you through how they do a certain thing, even if they're not directly going to financially benefit from it. That's a culture that you should be in, right? So look for cultures like that. There's a few great companies with amazing cultures where if you're with the company, you're part of the family, and you feel like you have thousands of other business partners just by being in that company. Number, number five, brand reputation. Is the reputation of the company helping you to sell more? Is it adding to your credibility or is it hurting it? I'm not going to say a ton more about that, but this was a big part of the decision that I made earlier in 2024 to leave my previous company and come to my current one. The reputation of the brand was a big part of that. And, and, and so if you want to hear that story, if you want to hear me dive deep into what I felt was a reputation that was hurting me and hurting us versus what I believe now is a reputation that is helping and, and aiding in my growth, I tell that story in episode 325 of the podcast from was that March of last year, March of 2024. So you can go back and find that on YouTube or wherever you're listening to podcast episode 325. I tell that whole story. Number six, lead gen opportunities. Is the company going to give you the tools necessary to drive more leads? That's training, that's support, that's the actual software or infrastructure, the actual ability. I don't think you should be looking for places that are just like here. I'm going to give you 50 leads a month. For most agents I talk to, that doesn't happen very often. Most agents I talked to that chose a certain brokerage or a certain team, they were promised to be fed a certain amount of business, it ends up not happening most of the time. Most of not all the time. Most of the time. So I don't think you should even really look for that. If you, if you get business thrown your way, that's great. But I think you should be looking for someone to teach you to fish, not just give you fish every day. You should be looking for a company, a culture, a brand and people that will teach you to be a great fisherman. So are those opportunities available? Are the tools in place? Do they give you lead gen tools, A great CRM, a great website that captures leads and all that stuff? Right. So lead gen opportunity is a big one. Number seven, flexibility and autonomy. It's a non starter to me to even think about going to a brokerage that won't let me do shit the way I want to do it, run my brand my way, say what I want to say, do business the way I want to do it, leave me the hell alone. Let me go into my office, into my zone and get to work. If they, if they require that I go to the office a certain amount of time for me, that's a, that's. I'm not doing it, but that's me. Some, some of you might may want that accountability of being forced to go into the office certain days of the week, certain number of hours per week. That's totally fine. Know yourself But I, for me being autonomous and being left the hell alone to do business my way to brand myself however I want, to market however I want, as long as it's legal, ethical, moral and compliant. It. I wouldn't even look at a place that didn't allow that. That's me personally. Number number eight, Growth opportunities. Is your brokerage going to provide you growth opportunities financially, career wise, with building a business, with accomplishing whatever it is that's important to you? I believe that you as a real estate agent should be defining what kind of life you want to live, defining what your lifestyle looks like and then building a business around it that supports it. Build a business around that that makes the lifestyle possible. Most agents do it backwards. You build your business, you're doing that and you try to live your life around the business that you create. That's a great way to burn out. Great way to be unhappy. Great way to not see your kids grow up. It's a great way to miss your son's first steps or your daughter's first words. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way. So is your company going to give you the growth opportunities to grow into the business person who has the lifestyle that you really want? So growth opportunities comes in like finances, all of that stuff. I believe that because there's brokerages that give you stock in the company when you sell houses and you have the ability to purchase it at a discount and, and a lot of times they just award you a ton of stock for doing what you're going to doing for doing what you're going to do anyways. I personally, like, I don't know why you wouldn't do that. I don't know why it's like you're going to be selling houses anyways. Why not be building a nest egg of stock in a company that you believe in for doing that thing that you're going to do anyways. So like you should grab like be with a company that gives you stock. Like I don't understand. Again, that's my opinion. And is it everything? No, it's not everything. But like if freedom one day is, is your goal, you should probably start building that financial safety net or that nest egg that can grow and that isn't tied to your personal transactions all the time. Are you incentivized to help grow the company and bring other great agents? Will the company share the revenue with you when you bring great agents to the company and they sell houses? A few companies do and I believe that can. Well, I know that can with a ton of work, a ton of time and effort for sure it can grow into a significant full time income in and of itself like as a bonus to commission and stock. So those financial growth opportunities don't exist in most places. There's only some brokerages that have them and to me those are of paramount importance. It's not everything, but those to me must haves revenue share, stock growth opportunities. Being surrounded by people who have already been, they've already done the thing I want to do and they're financially incentivized to help me build it as well. That's for me then. Is the company giving you marketing support? Is there like a. Sometimes you want someone to just like do your marketing for you and create graphics and do all this stuff, that's fine but like you should have some stuff done for you. The ability to quickly grab designs or grab this piece or grab that piece, customize it and send it out rather than having to create everything marketing wise from scratch. I think that is, it's unnecessary. And number 10 company values and vision. Where's the company going? Where's it headed? And is that in alignment with where you want to be headed? I can't answer that for you. In a way, all of these matter and how you, how you weigh them, it depends on where you're at. It depends on, you know, currently where you're at. But when you look at the company values and the vision, I think, how do I, how do I say this? You, you can hang your license anywhere, you can do business anywhere. But is it a company that you will, that you could see yourself a year, two, three, four years from now still excited to be part of that brand? Still excited to be part of that company. So make sure your, your vision is aligned with the company you choose, right? Above all, put those 10 things aside. Above all, make sure you're at a company where you can have fun, where you enjoy the people, where you are excited. Where it from? For me earlier this year when I changed brokerages, it made real estate fun again. I had this huge wind in my sails, this fire under my ass that for me, a brokerage change was exactly what I had been looking for. I didn't know that it looked like that I'd been praying for something, a breakthrough. I didn't know that it came in the form of leaving a brokerage that I thought was the best thing ever to join a new one. I didn't know it looked like that. But I was open and you know, in hindsight, I'm glad that I was because I've been so excited about it. Make sure you're with a company where you're excited about it. It's fun, like you're proud of it, and, and make sure that you're at a company that will actually help you accomplish your goal. If you have the goal to get out of sales two years from now and have a business and a team that's just selling a bunch of houses on your behalf, is that even possible at the company you're with? At a lot of companies out there? Unfortunately, it's not. It's just not. They want you to be a solo producer and just keep spinning the hamster wheel over and over and over and over. Can your company get you to the finish line first? You need to know what the finish line looks like for yourself. And then are you with people? Are you connected to people who have the same goals? When you're connected with people and partnered with people and the company itself, like, and you're all rowing in the same direction, when you have, when you all have the same goals, magic happens. That's when you get excited and that's when crazy growth happens. I hope that you all find your version of that, whatever that looks like, wherever that is. So before we wrap it up, I must say most agents vastly underestimate the importance of the brokerage. And I see that now. In the beginning, I didn't see it at all. I think you need to be selfish. You deserve to be selfish and pick a brokerage that serves you, that will get underneath you and give you the tools and the resources and the people and the support to help you earn that financial freedom one day. That'll help you build that big company that'll help you get out of sales three years from now so you can, you know, retire and, or be empty nesters. Whatever your goal is, I hope that you find the brokerage that supports it and that your goal is actually possible in that, in that spot, in that seat. So, quick reminder. The big webinar I'm doing next week, showing you how you can go from solo agent to a business owner with leverage, with freedom. I'm going to show you that, like the actual business model that I've used to make more money and work less as an agent, it's absolutely possible, right? Doubling your income does not necessarily mean you have to double the amount of time working. That's a choice. I'm going to show you how to double your income and work even less and have more time to actually live your life and enjoy. But that takes a certain business structure. Certain steps have to be put into place. I'm going to break it all down for you on Thursday. The I'm double checking the calendar so I don't screw this up on Thursday, January 30th. Thursday, January 30th. To register for this, it's totally free, by the way. Go to massive agentsociety.com webinar massiveagentsociety.com webinar totally free. Be there January 30th. It's a Thursday. Clear your damn calendar for that midday and hope to see you there. Because I'm going to give you the full blueprint that I've used to personally get out of sales, to build a business of hundreds of agents that are selling on my behalf and to have the freedom to take the day off, take my kids to the park, go to a movie on a Tuesday afternoon and not worry about it. And know that homes are still being sold, deals are still happening, business is still getting done. You can do that too. You can absolutely do your own version of that. And I'm going to give you the step by step, I'm going to give you the roadmap on exactly how to do it yourself. Next Thursday. Massive agentsociety.com webinar before we wrap it up, be the advisor that your clients trust with keeping current matters. KCM gives you the easy to understand market insights, ready to share graphics scripts, incredible research on what's happening in the market so you can then, you know, train your people and advise your people to keep you looking like a pro. Try it for free over at try kcm.com BAM and level up your business with BAM X courses masterminds, a network of ambitious agents ready to push you higher because you're all rowing in the same direction. Join today over@nowbam.com and use code MASSIVE for a discount. Save yourself some money on joining the BAM X community and check out their BAM in a Box offering. It's freaking awesome. So much done for you. Content to make your life easier. That's what I'm all about. Remember to Register@Massive AgentSociety.com webinar right away. We do have a cap on this, so you know, we don't just have endless seats for the webinar before Zoom caps it. So make sure you grab your spot. I will see you next week at that. I hope this episode helps. Have a great freaking weekend. Appreciate it. Guys, let's go.