The worst thing a broker has ever heard.

“Can I get a floor agent to pick up the client holding on lines 2, 3 and 5, please.?”

I had an interesting conversation with a broker in San Francisco this morning that first had us laughing, then had him crying.

This broker floats between number 3,4, and 5 in San Francisco – which is a highly competitive market.

We were doing a marketing piece for the brokerage to launch a new program for buyers and sellers and I asked him what phone number I we should use.

“Phone?” he replied.  “We don’t want people to call.  Who would talk to them?”  Hence the laughter.


1700 people read the blog post about Real Estate Culture since February 17th.  It would seem that my blog post was sent around to a lot of people.

Have agents jumped ship?  Do they not understand that brokers invest a lot of money in offices and advertising to drive business to the door?  This broker I am referencing spends more than $1,000,000 every year with the newspaper, countless hundreds of thousands in magazine advertising, postcards, flyers, signage, and so forth.

After all of that investment, agents will not go to the office to talk to customers?

A good friend of mine shared his story with me about how he got into real estate.  He joined the company (which he now owns) as a young agent at a young age.  Every night when everyone left the office at 5, he would stay.  He parked himself at the receptionist’s desk from 5 until 9 or 10 every night, even came in on Sundays.  People were so happy to have someone answer the phone and answer their questions that he quickly became a top producer in his second year.  Not bad for a 20 year old.

In some small way, perhaps this will give you some fodder.

When you bring on a new agent, set your expectations high and demand that they spend at least an hour a day in the office.  Make them part of your culture.

Everyone should be required to work the floor every week.

Everyone is required to attend office meetings.  If they are not valuable enough for all to attend – then don’t have one at all.