Every year, RealTrends chooses GameChangers based on five-year, transaction side percentage data from the RealTrends 500. This year, we chose seven independent brokerage firms and 10 franchises who grew their businesses at astronomical rates.
In analyzing this list of top-growth brokerages, these GameChangers grew their brokers in multiple different ways — from mergers and acquisitions to recruiting and coaching and retention.
As CEO of Realty Executives Associates in Tennessee, Justin Bailey brought about 39% growth between 2017-2021 by transaction side percentage to be named a 2022 RealTrends GameChanger.
RealTrends spoke with Bailey about the growth of his brokerage:
Tracey Velt: What was your biggest aha moment or lessons learned while building your firm?
Justin Bailey: Recruiting cannot be your only focus. Retention and making sure your current agents are cared for should be what’s on the forefront of your firm’s strategic plan. People and culture can make all the difference. Focusing on your current agents and their needs actually creates a culture that makes people want to come to you. Ultimately, retention is recruiting.
Tracey Velt: In the past five years, what percentage of your growth was organic and what percentage was mergers and acquisitions?
Justin Bailey: Our growth has been 100% organic.
Tracey Velt: Moving forward, what is your main focus for growth?
Justin Bailey: Our main focus for growth at Realty Executives is expanding the current services we offer and taking them to the next level. We want to continue to grow in our current market, and our biggest strength in comparison to our competitors is the robustness of our offerings.
We offer daily training opportunities, in-house marketing, transaction coordination, and dynamic compliance review. I would like to ultimately grow our core services even more, and share with agents our story of being “agent-centric.”
