Keller Williams co-founder and executive chairman of the board Gary Keller has spent more than four decades in the real estate industry – first as a broker himself, and later as an entrepreneur who built the world’s largest real estate franchise by number of brokers. Gary has seen the company migrate not only from Rolodexes to advanced database technologies, but also through Keller Williams’ proprietary technologies KW Command® platform, he has played a key role in shaping the future of the industry – a future where agents remain at the heart of KW.
In a 2021 livestream, Gary spoke candidly about the ways agents can succeed in the industry. Even with the exponential growth of social media, the fundamentals appear to remain the same. Here are Gary’s six fundamental steps you can follow to build a winning real estate business:
1. Set a big goal and a big planN
Set an important goal, or someday goal, for some time in the future. Maybe it will grow your company into a multi-million dollar company, or maybe it will grow the size of your team. This big goal doesn’t have to be specific. Then, along the way, create smaller, more specific, achievable goals that will ultimately get you to your big goal. Focus every day on what you can do now to reach your goal someday, and do it. The number one reason agents fail, Keller adds, is because their plan to grow their business is too complicated. “They subscribe to the idea of complexity,” he said, “rather than reducing it to something simple.” In reality, top agents find that only a handful of actions or strategies determine success. “Then all the dominoes fall after that.”
2. Block mornings for lead generation*
“Every real estate agent’s sole goal when they wake up should be to generate leads, feed the data and populate the database,” Keller said. That’s because the research is clear: Top agents regularly engage in three to four main lead generation activities, plus three to four smaller lead generation activities. “I initially built my entire organization around lead generation,” Keller added. If your personality isn’t a perfect fit for lead generation, or if you just don’t enjoy it, he says, that’s OK. Make sure you put in the time no matter what so that eventually you’ll get to a place where you don’t have to supervise as much gen. While you’re generating leads, you also need to make sure you’re storing your data properly. That’s where databases come into the picture.
3. View your database as your business
“The foundation of all great companies is the database,” says Keller. Building one, growing and cultivating one is the key to success. Top agents zoom in on their database. They see it as a daily priority that goes beyond just a sale. A sale is something fun that happens along the way. “My goal was to see if I could become your agent of choice,” Keller said, “or your agent for life, and get you into my database.” The business relationship follows.
Additionally, top agents calculate the size of the database they need to achieve their goals and then work toward that number. For example, a database of between 4,000 and 6,000 contacts often eventually translates into a millionaire real estate agent. “The goal is to consistently add people to your database,” says Keller. Then take care of your database by following up on your contacts consistently and carefully. “Knowing who my customers are and knowing who my database is allows me to wake up every day and deliver value to them.”
Make sure you add three new contacts to your database every day (their name, address, phone number and email address) and that will translate into 720 new contacts per year.
4. Focus on referrals
Referrals often pay the highest commission, Keller said, and they, along with previous clients, can be among agents’ most loyal leads. “They’ll often pay you the most money per deal, commission-wise, and they’ll be the most loyal to you,” he said. Agents can help encourage referrals by regularly reaching out to people in their database, Keller says.
When he started his business years ago, Jason Abrams, KWRI’s Head of Industry and Learning, leveraged referral relationships by sharing his mission and value with a fellow agent at Family Reunion – Keller Williams’ largest real estate training event of the year. “Months after we met, long after Family Reunion had come and gone, she called to see if I could help her professional football client who had planned to play in her hometown of Miami but had instead signed with the Detroit Lions,” he said. “I jumped in a limo and showed him some houses. When I got the check for the house he bought three weeks later, it was the most money I had ever seen in one place.”
5. Don’t be afraid to delegate
If you want to spend time generating leads and focusing on building your database, you’ll probably need to delegate tasks to other people on your team, and that’s okay. “Everything else can be delegated,” Keller said. Likewise, once you’ve built your database to the number you need to achieve your goals, you can also delegate the maintenance of your database.
The organizational model of The millionaire real estate agent shows agents exactly how to grow their business exponentially by leveraging the talents of others. Hire people for staff positions to handle administrative, buyer and seller tasks. Your administrative assistant should be your first hire. Then, if you have more customers than you can handle yourself, you can hire sales staff. Finding talented employees allows you to focus on generating leads.
6. Put everything together
Take the following steps as you work to generate leads and build your database:
- Calculate your current database number.
- Set a specific database goal for the future.
- Create a lead generation plan to get there. (Gary recommends at least four days a week for at least two hours, although five days a week for three hours is better.)
Gary said that with KW Command®, Keller Williams provides the tools to help a real estate agent build a database-based business. And when that is in place, “your relationships will come to you – and they will stay with you.”
*WARNING! You must comply with the TCPA and other federal, state, or local laws, including for B2B calls and text messages. Never call or text a number on a Do Not Call list or use autodialer, artificial voice, or prerecorded messages without proper authorization. Contact your attorney to ensure you comply.
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