Lasting Impact: Introduced the concept of profit sharing for agents, built the largest training program in the industry and the country’s largest real estate organization.
An early experience of the emerging, highly competitive brokerage market caused Gary Keller, founder of Keller Williams Real Estate, to reimagine and redesign the relationship between brokerage firms and their agents to one of interdependence.
Beginning in the late 1980s, Keller focused on building a unique and new profit-sharing program where agents could build their own downline through recruiting and developing other agents. Keller systemized virtually every part of the franchise, including on online technology platform, which put him well ahead of his competitors in being able to measure franchise performance.
Along the way, Keller built an in-house training and education system and wrote several best-selling books still in circulation, including “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” and “The One Thing.”
Today. Keller Williams is the largest seller of homes in the U.S. and a rapidly expanding business overseas.
Keller’s invention of the profit-sharing system has led others to offer financial compensation apart from commission income, including eXp Realty, Fathom Realty, Compass and others. The number of national real estate organizations offering equity to agents has multiplied significantly over the past few years.
In a series of articles, called Lasting Impact, Steve Murray offers his views of those individuals who have driven lasting change in our business. Men and women
This list is not meant to encompass those who have influence but those who truly created something that changed the competitive field permanently in some significant way. Some are from years ago and some are more current.
Steve Murray is a senior advisor for RealTrends and a partner with RTC Consulting.
