What’s your real estate business worth—and how can you make it worth a whole lot more? In this special webinar event,  we’re joined by Steve Murray – Owner & President of REALTrends, and an industry veteran with real estate experience dating back to 1977. Steve is widely recognized as an authority on residential real estate, with four books on the valuation of residential real estate brokerage firms, including co-authorship of the 2011 book “Game Plan” and the 2014 book, “Game Changers: The Unfounded Fears and Future Prosperity of the Residential Real Estate Business.”

Steve has also served dozens of state and local Realtor® associations and MLS organizations in a consulting capacity and has consulted with several large technology firms over the years. All of this has helped him develop the expertise required to accurately value real estate businesses and provide in-depth and highly informative information that you can use to optimize your business.

Want a sneak peek at what we’re talking about? Here are a few juicy tidbits from our webinar, but make sure you watch the video above for the details and much more!

Keeping your brokerage alive in the shifting market :

Steve says that you won’t be in business much longer if you don’t recruit talent, develop that talent to increase productivity, and spend less money than what you have coming in.

If you are operating a team your priorities should be:

• Expanding your database and building a leads system.
• Have the right people and systems to convert those leads.
• Spend Less Money than what you have coming in—in this declining or flat market. If all you’re doing is treading water, then you are losing ground. The best operators take market share to avoid shrinking business, but it’s never going to happen unless you focus on the basics. So do not get distracted by what’s going on around you and focus on your business.

What systems should you have in place for successful recruitment:

• Know who you are as a company.
• Truly define who you are. What are your culture, commission plans, and model?
• Use MLS data and other key sources to find “good fit” people for your team.
• Focus intently on working your database.
• Do it in person, and quit hiding behind your computer.

Develop Talent for your brokerage:

Developing the talent, you recruit is a commitment to taking each of your team members’ strengths and allowing them to evolve those strengths for success. This also means having the right systems, tools, and support to give your team the best avenues possible to be productive within your business.

On Valuating your brokerage:

The bottom line is: the value of a brokerage business is how much profit it produces. Your “business name” means nothing—the business is not valued by its name but on net profits or EBITDA—Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation & Amortization. It’s all about the cash flow, not your brand.

On Hiring an assistant:

Steve hired his first assistant five years ago—and within 3 years, he doubled his company’s size because he wasn’t doing $20/hour stuff anymore. Do not focus on the fact that you are increasing overhead expenses; rather, focus on the time you will be getting back to focus on revenue-producing activities within your company. Keep 3 priorities for your business. If you have more than 3, then you have no priorities at all. It would help if you focused on what is important to growing your business and leave the rest to other people.