We’ve all heard of Business Partners, we’ve seen many of these in the real estate business. They can be a great exit strategy for you, IF … !
And there are a whole lot of IFs: IF … your partner is reliable. IF … he/she can keep your business running (too often an unproven theory). IF … they don’t up and quit just before you make the transition – or worse yet, just after! IF … their caring for your clients matches yours. The IFs can go on and on! Basically, there’s a lot of risk involved with a single business partner. However, a good partner is worth the risk. If that’s where you are, go for it! Just keep a “B Plan” in your pocket in case. Stepping Up! can be that B Plan for your emergency bail out, and we can keep both you and your partner from losing credibility. Talk to us early about that, just in case.
So once again, what the heck is a Professional Partnership? A Professional Partnership is not a whole lot different than a Business Partner, except for the BIG word, Professional! This refers to a team which has experience in assisting agents with their exit strategy and managing their business for them in the future. A Professional Partnership has the capacity and experience to care for the excess clients that are created by retiring agents. But the most important aspect of a Professional Partnership is the income generating retirement that is offered to you, the Retiring Agent. That’s what Stepping Up! is all about – we keep your sphere producing for you for years and years to come. We’ve been doing this for over 8 years now with our most senior Referring Agents with still no end in sight!
The “Professional” side of this is creating a model and structure that can handle the excess volume and care required when assimilating another agent’s business with your own. What we don’t want to see is two agents simply joining together, one with a good established business and one wanting to retire or downsize their own business, because it just won’t work. The agent with the good established business should already be close to maxed out volume wise. If so, how in the world are they going to add in your great client base and take care of all of them too? There just isn’t enough time in a day! And, by the way, you do not want to assimilate your business with an agent who does have the time to take care of it. If they were good, they’d already be too busy and not be able to handle your extra transaction load. Something will have to give!
So, what our Professional Partnership has done, what Stepping Up! has done, is built the infrastructure and the systems to handle the excess sales volume that your business should provide. The last thing we would ever want to do is not be able to handle the increased business, because that’s what we’re here for. In fact, we have 10 Referring Agents on some of our teams and we’re still able to handle 100%+ of their businesses. That’s very important to us.
The Professional side of this is the means of marketing along with the means of caring for our Referring Agents and their people, their clients. The means of handling all of the business that comes your way. We have mastered this over the years, and it makes a big difference.
The key in this business is keeping your name alive and in front of your sphere, your clients. That’s all we need is your name, we don’t need anything else. We’re happy to have more if you choose to stay involved with your friends and clients, and that will help generate even more business for you, but we can still make you a good living without your involvement if you so choose.
That’s what Stepping Up! is all about, that’s what a Professional Partnership is. That’s what makes our system work. It’s not rocket science, it’s just putting together a plan. But more important than that, a lot of people can put together good plans, it’s implementing or using that plan to its fullest. Making that plan work for you, and that’s what we do well. We stick to the plan and make it work. That’s the key to any successful venture.
Why did we develop Stepping Up!? Because we agents who are a part of this have a heart for Realtors. We don’t want to see them do a “cold turkey” disconnect from the business and just plain retire. That’s an abrupt end to a long career and a total disconnect from who you’ve been for a long time. That can be traumatic, plus it leaves a lot of money on the table. We want to see you still involved, but only to the point that you want to be. Maybe just by name, or maybe deeper. That’s up to you.
Stepping Up! is all about caring for people. Caring for our Referring Agents and caring for your clients! That’s what a Professional Partnership is. It’s a relatively new concept, but you’re going to see a lot more of it in the years to come as our Realtor force ages. We’re here for you! Talk to us, confidentially of course!