Producing a high volume of sales and running a brokerage are two separate jobs. The former involves sales, and the latter, managing a business. Put the two together, and the result is freedom — freedom to conduct business in a way that works best for you, in an environment open to possibilities.
Still, balancing high-level sales while running a business begs the question: At what cost does freedom come? It depends on who’s answering. To some, becoming the key decision-maker is worth the sacrifice of taking on the extra work involved in running a business. To others, it’s not even an issue, because the additional administrative duties can be delegated to someone else.
People, not price
The decision to become a broker-owner was easy for top producer Sarah Leonard. In completing between 600 and 700 transactions a year, the Sarah Leonard Team was operating at a level their commercial brokerage could not support. The full-service team worked seven days a week and followed systems they created themselves, independent of the brokerage, Leonard said. So, it made sense to go off on their own.
In May, Leonard founded Legacy Properties, with locations in Algonquin, Schaumburg, St. Charles and Sugar Grove, to help other agents advance in their careers. Whether it’s guiding them on the path to growth or providing support because they do a lot of business, it’s finding that pain point and providing solutions, Leonard said. “It’s the same satisfaction I get going to a seller when they don’t know where to start. The house is cluttered. They need contractors … It’s finding that relief for people. It’s something I enjoy.”
The line between broker-owner and top-producing team leader is clearly defined. Leonard owns the brokerage (other people own it, as well) under which her team operates. But the independent agents who join the brokerage are not on her team. They’re separate.
Independent brokers come to Legacy Properties to apply Leonard’s efficient systems to their own businesses. “It’s getting a strategy, passing the baton and letting somebody else run with it,” Leonard said. While it requires balancing the roles of top-producing team leader and broker-owner, she has systems in place to prevent one area from getting in the way of the other. Plus, everyone helps each other out, she said; nobody ever says, “That’s not my job.”
Leonard has seven employees handling office admin duties and about 11 agents, including herself, on her team. Operationally, they handle all employee- and business-related duties, while Leonard focuses more on productivity, sales and client-related tasks and processes.
The setup allows them to do the same volume as high-price-point brokers on the North Shore but with 10 times the number of transactions, Leonard said. “We’re based on the people side of the business. It’s more about the relationships we build. That is how we define success. We are not driven by price.”
The three transaction coordinators on her team all do relatively the same job but perform it differently, based on their personalities and how they function best, Leonard said. She takes the same approach with clients. “Just because I want to communicate very directly or call, not text, it doesn’t mean it will work for everybody else. Everyone is the center of their own universe. Until you grasp it and apply it to life or work, it’s hard to have others around you happy in that environment.”
Setting the tone
Like Leonard, top producer Jane Lee started her own brokerage to have better control of the business and how she services clients.
“When you have control — when you know what the customer’s expectations are and what they want — you can come up with strategy and marketing policies based on what they’re looking for,” said Lee.
She founded RE/MAX Top Performers, based in Lake Bluff and Northbrook, in 2000 and remains the broker and owner. She balances her dual roles with the help of a very strong team. “I have a broker manager and a sales manager for the office. They help support and manage agent growth. And, of course, I work with agents,” Lee said. “At the same time, I spend 80% of the time on buying and selling real estate.”
Lee has about 30 agents and approximately 18 admin staff on her team. She meets with her team three times a week for briefings to keep the business running smoothly.
Owning the brokerage has an added perk: Lee is a big listing agent and has a lot of buyers from which to choose, thanks to the large number of buyer-agents on board.
“We run very smoothly, like a machine,” she said. “Even when the market is upside-down, we have always been successful with what we do here.”
Choose a role
Owning a brokerage while leading a top-producing team allows Matt Laricy to be his own boss, and that is the whole point.
“Realtors are the boss of their team, but they’re not their own boss,” said Laricy, managing partner of Americorp Ltd. in Chicago and team lead of Laricy, a division of Americorp. “They still have to report to whoever is running the company. I don’t have to report to anybody. I report to myself, and I can do it my way. I don’t have to adhere to anyone else’s way.”
Laricy, a third-generation agent, co-owns the brokerage with his dad.
“I am actively selling,” said Laricy. “It is the job of broker-owners who manage the business to make sure the brokerage is the No. 1 company. I care about my sales being No. 1, not the company being No 1. It’s two different paths. I personally don’t think you can do both.”
Laricy believes strongly that there are two types of broker-owners: those who want to sell and those who want to grow the brokerage. He makes balancing the two roles easy by compartmentalizing duties. Each staff member is assigned one role based on their skills. For example, one employee only handles listings, another employee just sets up buy-side appointments, and Laricy’s father does all finance-related tasks and manages the administrative team.
“I focus on my sales and managing sales,” Laricy said. “I still bring in more than 90% of the business.”
The downside is that he cannot easily expand the brokerage to other cities, because the brokerage is not a national brand. He would have to start the business from scratch in other cities, and that takes time, whereas large commercial brokerages like Coldwell Banker already have an out-of-state presence. But he’s OK with that.
“I have my staff and team that I run,” he said. “I’m not trying to grow my company. I’m trying to be the best agent I can be.”
Leonard can relate. “We have a really well-oiled machine on the team side,” she said. “But when you start a brokerage, you’re opening a brand-new business. It has nothing to do with my team. You have to implement policies and procedures. I didn’t know what it entailed. It takes a little time; it’s a commitment.”
Leonard feels good about providing the support to agents that she said was missing before she started the brokerage. She hired an agent advocate to check in on agents and provide a sense of community.
Sense of community
A sense of community was something Jennifer Ames was seeking in her career. Ames won plenty of top-producer awards working for a commercial brokerage, but that wasn’t enough to keep her motivated.
“The company became big and took anybody if they breathed,” she recalled. “I felt like a fish out of water, like I didn’t belong there. My standards were always high. I was increasingly uncomfortable. My husband described it as ‘sandpaper on an open cut.’ I didn’t want to go into the office because I didn’t feel like I was part of that group. Not only that — I actually felt like there were people there whose values didn’t align with mine. We didn’t practice business the same way.”
With about 25 years of experience behind her, she shopped around until she found a brokerage that did align with her values and brought it to the Chicago market five years ago. Ames is a license partner and private office advisor with Engel & Völkers shops in Chicago, the North Shore and Southwest Michigan. She personally ranks among the top 1% of the company worldwide.
The European company offers a lot of structure and guidelines. “You cannot go and do whatever you want,” Ames said. “As an industry of independent contractors, a lot of brokerages have lost control of their brand. In contrast, Engel & Völkers promotes consistently high professional standards and elegant marketing worldwide. That’s why I chose it.”
The boutique offices engage full-time brokers who collaborate often, share ideas via Zoom, network and refer business to one other. Ames’ brokerage has about 90 brokers, a full-time support staff of seven employees and one part-timer. Before she opened Engel & Völkers, her team functioned like a brokerage, because it worked independently, handled its own marketing and didn’t use the staff of its commercial brokerage for support.
“Before I opened the brokerage, it was just my team,” she said. “I had a lot of staff and a lot of headaches … I opened the brokerage, but I’m not a managing broker and I am not involved in the day-to-day operations. I hired people to do that, and staff is supported by the company.” That itself frees up Ames to do what she likes most: travel the country as a brand ambassador, meet referral partners and support the professional development of agents.
Based on her own experience, Leonard’s advice to fellow top producers/broker-owners is to put the right people in the right roles. “We’ve moved around people,” she said. “Just because there’s a need for something to be done doesn’t mean the person doing it is always the best fit.”
Before choosing to become a broker-owner, Laricy suggests asking yourself, “What’s my motivation? Do I want to build sales or build a brokerage? Be a sales broker or managing broker? What’s my long-term ploy, to help grow the business or build it to sell it?”
“Be honest with yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “Then, ultimately, you can be successful.”
EXPERT SOURCES
Jennifer Ames
License Partner, Engel & Völkers
Matt Laricy
Managing Broker, Americorp Ltd.
Jane Lee
President and Broker, RE/MAX Top Performers
Sarah Leonard
Broker, Sarah Leonard Team, Legacy Properties