How We Can Save Ourselves from Extinction

You may remember phone operators or travel agents; we couldn’t book travel without them. My aunt was a switchboard operator at an orphanage while I was growing up. As things evolve, professions may become obsolete or completely morph into something else. I suspect ours is ready for a transformation.

As I speak to relocation professionals around the country, the consensus is that business is down about 20%-30% from literally everyone I speak to. And that is not just brokers; it is relocation management companies too. Some of you may have made up for part of the loss via higher sales prices, but pretty much everyone is down in units across the board unless you have backfilled the loss with new sources of business.

So you can imagine that if business stays down 20%-30%, broker-owners and leaders are going to want to cut expenses next year, which may mean additional staff or expense reduction. We have already started seeing executive-level layoffs at the big brands whose financial strain is compounded by the uncertainty of the commission lawsuits. We don’t know when or if the business will return to its previous numbers. That means it is time to rethink how we move towards the future so we can secure our place in it.

Don’t go the way of the Dodo bird.

I believe that traditional relocation departments will cease to exist. I know that may sound alarming, but everything is pointing in that direction. A lot of relocation people have been very comfortable waiting for the business to come from other sources without a huge effort to generate it. These departments should focus on changing into business development entities to support their local company in a variety of ways if they aren’t already doing that.

Relocation management companies are going to become less and less relevant as it relates to the real estate side of the process. Because of the commission lawsuits, corporations are going to be forced to understand how the commission and referral fee structure works and how the pay structure has become so lopsided with the RMCs over the last decade. Brokers will need to take the lead in education and compliance issues to ensure the corporations are taking care of their transferees so they have the best chance at a smooth and successful real estate transaction.

Waiting for the RMCs or other brokers to send us business to wholly sustain our department is gone forever. While that business will always be very important, it should not drive our bottom line in the future.

Here are some ideas as to how we can secure our place in the future:

• Build a team of agents who understand homeowners’ assistance programs, down payment assistance programs, and assumable mortgage programs.

• Embrace, understand, and focus on internet leads and stop treating them like relocation leads. Revamp your website to generate more leads organically and build a team that understands how to nurture and convert them.

• Develop a home buyer program that creates an end-to-end service through trusted partnerships that fulfill every need they might have as a buyer.

• Establish programs catering to first-time homebuyers and seniors.

• Establish rental assistance programs that nurture the renters until they can buy.

• Create affinity programs to target local special interest groups, corporations, institutions, organizations, and associations.

• Establish legally compliant revenue-generating partnerships with outside entities to offer services you cannot offer internally.

• Continue to focus on widening and solidifying your broker-to-broker referral reach to ensure you are the recipient in your market.

• Create a functioning license-holding referral company, not just a place to dump licenses.

• Focus on partnering with your leadership to recruit talent who can specifically help generate and service company-generated business.

• Build solid agent teams with diversified backgrounds, a variety of ethnicities and languages spoken to service the above business. We need agents who know how to articulate their value proposition to a variety of audience types. Take DEI seriously.

• Sustainability is a hot button for RMCs and corporations. Do your part to help your company be a better corporate citizen.

• Use social media and digital marketing to more effectively target your potential audience in a more customized and personalized way.

• Become an expert on what is happening with the commission lawsuits and how their outcome might affect how real estate is transacted. We can’t know what will happen, but we can explain to various stakeholders what might happen based on various scenarios and how it might affect agents, brokers, corporations, transferees, and RMCs.

• Find your why. Why are you different, why are your agents different, and why is your company unique? Figure out how to tell your story in a compelling way so people want to work with you above all others.

Changes are coming, and we can either drive the bus or get run over by it. The more we help our leadership control their bottom line, the more value we bring individually and as a department. I can help you with any of the above programs and services. There is nothing I want more than to see our industry and its professionals thrive and grow in new directions.

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” ~ Carl Sagan, American astronomer and scientific communicator