Walter Sanford: Are You Ever Going to EXIT Real Estate Sales?

A commentary by Walter Sanford.  © Sanford Systems and Strategies. Reproduced with permission.

Some say I was the top real estate agent in North America for 30 years, who knows for sure. Here is what I know for sure…selling at mega production or even normal production is work, lots of it. You must generate leads all the time, be great at bringing them to signature, and then leverage that existing business into more.

Over my 40 years in the business I think that I figured out the secrets. I was motivated because I wanted more than personal financial security, I wanted to make changes in other people’s lives. If you have been following my blogs on my retirement, I have been talking about taking your exiting real estate business to the next level with the tools that I have developed and then using some of that commission to start building a real estate cash flow machine with your hyper-local knowledge of your area. Then maybe you can coach, manage, run a team, speak etc… just like I did.

However, I have left out one more thing you can do to make sure big bucks are coming in after you stop grinding hard for those signatures. How about picking your business model more carefully… figure that you are going to get tired one day and want to do more for your church, school, family and community. You bought those cash flow generators and had the tenants pay off the mortgages and you know so much about real estate brokerage that you can train your team, office, etc… without you ever again having to meet with an under motivated seller or an unrealistic buyer. You have planned your career with an end date. Part of that philosophy is picking the correct brokerage to join or start. You can go to “the huge split to the broker office” and get all kinds of services that you probably won’t need after you get experienced. You can go to a “close to a 100% office” and find that your peers in that office are probably giving back that money in aggressive individual promotion or commission rebates. You can pick the office that recruits a down-line by promising a piece of company profits when there are usually only profits in fantastic markets. Or maybe you can pick my favorite business model…. the one that I believe has been derived from the experience of true heavy hitter producers.

The EXIT model has it all for the agent thinking of retiring with as many income flows as possible. In their simple model, you are given incentive to bring in another agent that you have met and like…into your office. You are given 10% of their production for the life of their business career and even some of their production to your spouse after you have gone (when your escrow finally closes). Let me tell you what this prompts you to do.

1. You are nicer to your peers. You write them thank you notes after close and send them coffee cards. You help them. You tell them how your transactions would not have happened without the tools you received from your EXIT office. What does that do? Well you are building a team, an office, meeting a buyer’s agent, an assistant or just building your EXIT 10% recruits.
2. When you have recruits you want to train them. Every additional dollar they make is a dime in your pocket. You do wonderful things like buy my products that pre-retirement were $1500.00 and now as a gift to the industry are $90.00. Go here to see them and go here to watch my video explaining them. When you train on simple items that increase an agent’s net you are forming bonds with these new associates that may move to your own office or team and you will find that the best way to learn is to teach.
3. You are now in a production orientated office. Everything about the office is about obtaining more leads, getting more signatures, increasing speed and leaving a larger footprint in the community. In my opinion it is pure genius and the system rewards you for what you should be doing anyways.

Look up your local EXIT real estate office or better yet, start one. Just one more tool to get you to where I am…..managing my real estate, helping other agents and making the world just a little bit better by giving back.

Since I have retired from the speaking circuit, I have my systems (large books with software) that I was selling from the back of the room at about $1500.00.  These are my newest products and this package includes everything that I have ever done.  As a “pay it forward” opportunity I am now selling these same books and software at my cost, about 94% off.  This is the start of your plan to get to the point where you are living the dream.  This is not anything but selling you the best real estate training materials in the world for 94% less than they were selling for a couple of weeks ago.  You will get 9 books, a whopping 40 pounds of checklists and information that is easy to use.  These volumes have been used by agents in the US and Canada to be the best agent in their market place.  Go here to pick up your foundation for the future.