Why I Recruit Agents to Cloud Based Brokerages

Never told the whole story. But this is why I work at a cloud based model and why I am passionate about bringing agents to it. My life changed in 3 seconds on a golf course in a freak golf cart accident, and I could have avoided the financial downfall that followed.

The Opportunity I Walked Away From

Seven years ago, I joined an up and coming cloud based brokerage. I was between firms at the time. My partner and I were planning to launch Second Line Realty, but we needed a few months to make it happen. Cloud based made sense. It meant I could leave without an awkward conversation with a broker I’d never even met in person.

While I was there, several agents asked me about joining. Some were solid producers. But here’s the thing. I knew I wasn’t staying long term. I referred them to someone else instead of recruiting them. When I left, I sold my stock and moved on. My partner and I went on to open Second Line Realty together. He was the principal owner of the company, and I was the office manager that helped with day to day operations.

Three Seconds That Changed Everything

Fast forward to my last year at Second Line Realty. I got into a golf cart accident. It was bad. I spent months in wound care with a VAC machine attached to me. I couldn’t run appointments. I couldn’t sell homes. I just sat there watching my income dry up and my savings disappear. And here’s what broke my heart: I watched my partner rake in money from the brokerage while I was losing everything. What I thought was a partnership became glaringly obvious. I was just a regular agent.

What if I’d built equity and revenue share instead of chasing commissions? I would’ve had a safety net. I would’ve had income coming in when I couldn’t work.

That’s when I realized something crucial. I’d spent eleven years making money for brokerages. I’d made brokers and broker owners wealthy. None of them ever asked me what are you gonna do toward retirement? How are you gonna make ends meet when something happens to you, your family, or you need to take some time off of work? My spouse doesn’t work. I’m a single income household. Some agents might have dual income households or a spouse that makes money. But nonetheless, why would you want to put that burden on your spouse if something happened to you or you could not get out and work and sell homes?

Agents Are Entrepreneurs. We Just Forgot.

Entrepreneurs need to think differently because that’s exactly what we are. Starbucks doesn’t just sell coffee. They sell cups. They sell coffee at gas stations. They sell licensing agreements. It’s called verticals inside your business. Nike doesn’t sell shoes. They sell T shirts, gym bags, health equipment, apps on phones, licensing agreements. That’s called verticals inside your business. That’s how businesses run.

And far too often, and I’ll put my hand up first as a guilty party, agents don’t think like business owners. They think like transactional agents where you pay a royalty fee or a franchise fee to align with a brokerage and never stop to ask yourself for one second, how is this going to help me long term? Most brokerage models tell you to sell a lot of houses and save your own money. That’s not my problem. I don’t like that philosophy. I think it’s tired. I think agents are fed up, and I think agents want more. And quite frankly, we deserve more.

A Second Chance I Almost Missed

After I healed up from the accident, there were a few things in my personal life I had to get right. That opportunity came back around for me to go cloud based again. I went back to the same company, but this time on salary to recruit, train, and manage agents in a large organization. I still believed in the company and the model. But from a growth standpoint, I realized that the ability to build a substantial organization with that company has come and gone. There are so many agents already there, and so many agents that have already heard of it and decided not to go, or had already gone and left. It’s a difficult model to build a substantial organization in because they’ve been around a long time now. What I needed was something fresh. Something new.

And what a blessing it is to be at the ground floor with two of the people that were at the corporate level with that company when I was there, now as the Louisiana State Broker and VP of Broker Operations. Now we have such a massive opportunity to help grow the company and benefit not only myself, but the company, my family, my kids, and my kids’ kids. My family for generations is going to benefit from the work I’m doing today, and that is the most satisfying thing I could possibly have. Entrepreneur business owner mindset, not the transactional employee mindset I left behind 15 years ago.

That is why I recruit agents to cloud based brokerages. Because I have a very real story of how I almost lost everything by being a transactional agent and lost sight of the fact that I am a self employed entrepreneur. I need to align my business with the proper brokerage that also allows me to be a self employed entrepreneur, meaning there is more than one way for me to help grow the company and grow my own financial circumstances.