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How to Leave Your RE Brokerage

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Hi, I’m Sean, the owner of Summit Properties Northwest and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal and this is kind of a quick recruiting video. It’s on the topic of recruiting, so brokers move around fairly often from one brokerage to another and so you might find yourself in a situation where you found your next brokerage. How do you have that talk with your managing broker of I am leaving you here and I’m going to go to work there. What does that look like? And that’s what this video is going to be about. So the first thing I recommend doing is having a personal conversation if at all possible. Yeah, maybe that’s over the telephone, but preferably go ahead and see your broker. It’s good to have that kind of eye-to-eye contact to end what was hopefully a decent relationship you had with your, your managing broker. And so when you either talk to them or talk to them in person, what I would recommend is just go with brutal honesty.

Hey, these are the things I’m not getting. These are the things I’m looking for. This is the reason I’m making a move. Just be honest with them because that’s the feedback that I like to hear. How can I improve my company so that people don’t leave and then what are other people doing out there that brokers are moving, gravitating towards? So along the lines of the brutal honesty approach, managing brokers have a million things that they do each day. They have emails, they have texts, they have phone calls, just stuff going on, so they don’t have a lot of time for chit-chat and so get right into the fact, hey, I am going to be leaving your firm because of this and they will appreciate that and I know it’s a super hard thing to do because nobody wants to let other people down and you kind of feel like you’re letting somebody down in a situation. But managing brokers are business people and they’re used to having brokers come in and they’re used to have brokers go out.

It happens all the time, it’s part of doing business, but having a quick conversation with them, just let them know why you’re doing what you’re doing and things will be okay, and hopefully they won’t be too upset. Um, they’re going to be disappointed. Nobody likes to lose a broker and you want to know what you can do better, but sometimes there’s an opportunity that you’ve got to go take elsewhere, so go do it, but just be honest with your broker and have that talk. So giving your managing broker enough time to kind of react and come up with a game plan for your exit helps out a lot. So, if you tell them on a Friday: “hey i’m out of here over the weekend”, that’s pretty quick notice to react because your managing broker typically has somebody who goes online and releases you from the MLS and then also releases you from the state roster.

That takes a little bit of effort and coordination. So give your managing broker enough lead time and I would say a handful of days at the minimum of maybe a week to let everybody have enough time for transition. And so a big part of having this talk is that you have kind of made all the preparations to make this move. You’re moving onto a new brokerage. And so a lot of that entails, do you have any transactions going on? Do you have any listings that might get kind of messed up making this move? It’s best to have all your business taken care of and have, kind of wait for that lull downtown where you don’t have anything going on. Maybe you’ve got a listing coming up, but, um, you could do that at next brokerage. But make it at time where you don’t have a ton of things that could go sideways on you for either you, the old brokerage, or the new brokerage. Do it during a quick downtime, and then hustle onto your new broker.

Get a date on your calendar and you’re going to have a talk with your managing broker. So you can line up everything that you need to have done by then. Are all your listings taken care of? Do you have new buyers or you’re going to be working with? Hold off doing any new business until you’ve had that talk. And by putting it on your calendar, you’ll know when you need to have everything done by and then you can have a smooth transition on to the next brokerage. So what can you expect after you’ve had the talk with your existing broker that your license is sitting with now? So, a couple of things will happen. Your soon to be old broker will release you from the state level. That’s in Olympia, so they go online and release you there and then your new brokerage will hook you up online and send you an invitation that you need to accept.

So that all happens electronically at the state level with Olympia. And then the next step is to get you off of your old roster and then hooked up into the new roster of your new brokerage. That also happens electronically, so your old brokerage will need to take you off of their roster and your new brokerage will need to put you on. So you’ve got to kind of have the talk with your broker, but then also know the need to have a few things lined up with your new brokerage. They need to be ready to bring you in and make these transitions happen so that you don’t have a ton of downtime and you can continue operating in your real estate business. You’re managing broker is going to appreciate the fact that number one, you’ve been honest, you’ve prepared and you’ve given everybody enough time to kind of get this all done without dropping a bomb shell on them. Hey, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m out of here. That’s not the way you want to do it. Give them enough time to react and everybody will have just a much smoother and easier transition.

Sean Reynolds

Sean Reynolds

The Owner and Designated Managing Broker of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal.

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