Global Realty Marketing:
Changing The Way Real Estate Professionals Build A Business

During the past five years, interest rates that reached forty-year lows produced record numbers of real estate transactions. Prices soared as the real estate industry bolstered the entire economy. More people obtained their real estate licenses than at any time in history, and agents made more money than ever before. Now, however, the real estate market has cooled considerably. Inventory has expanded, market time has increased, and sales prices are beginning to drop.

For most real estate professionals this is cause for concern. Newer agents with less experience have never worked through a down-turn in the real estate market so they don’t know what to expect. Even seasoned professionals, who know from experience what the next couple of years could be like, have cause for concern. When the markets tumble and sales slow, the income that real estate salespeople earn is greatly affected.

TIME FOR A NEW IDEA

The time seemed right for a new concept, and so Global Realty Marketing was launched. Global Realty Marketing is part of a larger organization — World Leadership Group, founded by businessman and entrepreneur Hubert Humphrey in 2003. Humphrey has taken the system he used to revolutionize some of the largest industries in the world and applied it to the new industries. “I was never an expert in financial services, mortgages or real estate,” says Humphrey, “but I know how to build a business and create opportunities. For the right person, World Leadership Group is the perfect opportunity.”

In addition to Global Realty Marketing, other product providers under the WLG umbrella include a mortgage company, Global Equity Lending, and a professional asset management company, Financial Leadership Advisors.

The rapid growth of the company has allowed them to move into their new world headquarters building — a 100,000 square foot glass building in a suburb of Atlanta shared by all four companies: World Leadership Group, Global Realty Marketing, Global Equity Lending and Financial Leadership Advisors. “The new headquarters building will allow us to support the continued growth and expansion into all three industries,” said Humphrey.

While most agents affiliated with traditional real estate companies are deeply concerned about what the coming months may bring, agents affiliated with Global Realty Marketing (GRM) are excited about the future — regardless of market conditions. Why? Because GRM is a company like no other, offering a totally new concept in the real estate industry.

ANOTHER CHOICE FOR AGENTS

In the past, agents wanting to increase their incomes could do so only by:
1) Increasing the amount of business they produced personally.
2) Building a team of local agents.
3) Transferring to a different company that offered higher commission splits or had lower desk fees.
4) Opening a real estate company of their own.

For many agents none of these choices is appealing. They either lead to more work and less free time, increased liability and management responsibilities or investing a huge amount of capital.

GRM gives agents another choice — an opportunity to build a nationwide business of their own without having to become licensed in multiple states and deal with all of the usual drawbacks of opening and operating a business. The multi-tiered compensation system allows real estate agents to earn commission bonuses — referred to as “overrides” by GRM — on the production of other agents they bring into the GRM system. As a result, most GRM agents are now making more money in less time than they ever have.

“The dynamic structure of Global Realty Marketing allows agents across town or even across the country to work together to provide excellent service to an increasingly demanding and knowledgeable customer base,” says GRM president Dave Wild. “Our GRM agents are not competitors but instead work as ‘teammates’ helping each other build successful businesses while serving the needs of their customers.”

BUILDING A BUSINESS

The main difference between Global Realty Marketing and other real estate companies is that GRM offers agents the opportunity to build a business not just do business. Normally, real estate agents’ income is limited to their own personal production and is subject to fluctuations in the market. As business contracts, so do their commissions. With GRM, that’s not the case. Global Realty Marketing allows its agents to recruit a “team” of other real estate agents (and other professionals) into the company. Agents earn overrides on the production of their entire team. In other words, when an agent on the team earns a commission, the agent who recruited him or her receives an override.

Although this sounds similar to the structure of some other companies that offer their agents “bonuses” on the production of other agents, there are some major differences, according to Wild. “Our agents’ overrides are not based on the profit of the company but on the production of the agents on their team. As a result, they don’t have to worry about how much money it costs to run the business. Also, overrides are earned on the production of their entire team not just on the production of those they recruit directly, and there’s no cap on the amount that can be earned from each agent.”

GRM offers training for every level of real estate professional. Extensive training and carefully laid-out systems are in place to help new associates begin building a business. A step-by-step manual outlines the recruiting and building process, and a Success Guide written specifically for real estate veterans walks them through the process of transitioning from being a personal producer to becoming a team builder. No detail is left untouched.

As John Benham, Chief Marketing Officer, says, “We don’t assume that just because agents know how to list and sell real estate they know how to recruit agents and build teams. We’ve created a system that leaves nothing to chance. If agents work the system, the system will help them successfully recruit other agents and build their businesses.”

While building a team offers similar benefits to opening an office or company in terms of income potential, there is far less work involved than in managing a company. Bennie Glenn was a successful North Carolina real estate broker for 30 years — earning $700,000 a year when he joined GRM last year. “I had built a successful business, but I found that each agent I brought into my office created more time management issues, more liability, and more problems. That meant I had less time for my own listing and selling. With GRM I have the opportunity to build a team, but the training, liability and headaches aren’t mine. I can focus on recruiting and team building, and let GRM take care of the rest,” says Glenn. He has found another big advantage to joining GRM that makes him a happy man. “By building a team, I have a source of income that doesn’t require me to work all the time. I was working 70 and 80 hour weeks before — now I have a life.”

Another important distinction is that Global Realty Marketing is not a franchise so there is no franchise to purchase and there are no franchise or marketing fees to pay. The modest fees charged to sign up with the company are a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of opening a real estate office or purchasing a franchise. Additionally, with GRM many of the restrictions imposed by franchisors, such as territorial limitations, don’t exist — so agents can recruit agents and earn production overrides almost anywhere in the country.

VIRTUALLY SEAMLESS

Global Realty Marketing has tapped into the vast gold mine of resources and information that is available through the Internet now and has created a virtual office environment. All of the processes needed to run a successful office can be managed virtually — from signing up a new agent to getting them trained; from tracking appointments and marketing check-lists to ordering marketing tools. With the GRM-Max program, agents can talk to their state broker, get forms and contracts reviewed, and manage their transactions, without ever having to go to an “office.”

UNIQUE COMMISSION SCHEDULE

The beauty of the GRM commission schedule is that there are multiple levels of commissions and multiple ways to earn income. “You have the ability to recruit agents around your area or across the country to build your own team of professionals, all without the liability, expense or trouble of opening your own real estate company,” says Wild. “Once you start building a team, you’ll find that your income will grow — and you won’t be working more hours or listing and selling more homes to earn more money.”

You can also have people on your team who do not actively list and sell real estate. Through Global Equity Lending (GEL), GRM agents have the opportunity to help their customers with a mortgage as well as a home purchase or sale (where allowed by law). A recent industry study revealed that more than 80% of consumers would prefer to do business with an agent who can help them with all of their real estate needs — buying, selling and financing. “That gives us a distinct advantage,” says Wild. “Global Equity Lending is the nation’s fifth largest mortgage broker, and offers a wide range of products to meet the needs of every consumer. It’s a natural one-two, to help someone find their dream house and get the financing for it.”

Global Equity Lending also provides GRM associates with an additional recruiting opportunity. Teams don’t have to be limited to licensed real estate professionals. Recruits can come from the mortgage industry — or anywhere. With the training offered by GEL, they can be part of your team, without ever listing or selling a home. This creates additional streams of income for the broker or agent — either by doing mortgages personally or by earning commission overrides on the mortgages generated by your team.

Granted, building a nationwide team of agents is not something most real estate professionals think about when they get a license, yet it’s an opportunity that cannot be overlooked. CEO Don Martin understands the reluctance. “Most agents are used to thinking only about their local business. We give them the opportunity to build beyond that by using their contacts in other parts of the country as well. Once they start building that kind of team, generating overrides, and adding mortgages and assets under management, they start to understand how a slightly smaller commission split with us is probably much more profitable than a 95% split in a traditional company.”

“Agents like the idea of building a business in which their income is not limited to their own personal production, but they also realize that it takes a little time to successfully transition from personal producer to business builder. That’s why we recently introduced our Personal Producer Plan,” says Wild. “The Personal Producer Plan allows productive agents to receive a contract level up to 80% on their personal production while they’re building their teams. In a short amount of time agents begin to generate overrides from their teams, and eventually their override income will likely exceed the income from their own personal production.”

In addition to the overrides that can be earned, associates can also participate in the company-wide bonus pools when their earnings reach certain benchmarks. The bonus pools are paid in 5 different areas and can be as much as a quarter percent of all company earnings. And, GRM offers an Equity Sharing Plan to its agents. The plan allows qualified GRM agents to participate in the financial benefits that may result from the sale or public stock offering of Global Realty Marketing. The pool share is twenty percent of the net proceeds received from a “cash-out event” of Global Realty Marketing. “I don’t know of another real estate company that offers this type of plan to its agents,” says Wild. “Agents get even more excited about our opportunity when they hear about the Equity Sharing Plan.”

ACCELERATED GROWTH

As more and more agents discover the GRM system, they are finding that it is possible to work smarter — not harder or longer — to earn more money in this business. GRM offers agents the opportunity to be associated with the company that is changing the way real estate professionals build their business.

– Jennifer Carnahan