Evaluating Listing agents

[Islam Abdallah]

Up until this point, I've been using flat fee listing agents to list my properties, main reason being cost ($500/ listing vs 3% of sale price). But as time has gone on and i'm listing more properties, my flat fee agent just doesn't have a real marketing plan besides putting it on the MLS, which is beginning to hurt my DOM and overall bottom line. I'd also like to develop a relationship with a solid realtor to 1) sell my houses quicker and help out identifying latest market trends and 2) potentially bring in more deals to me. I've also gotten feedback from other realtors that they typically don't like showing a home listed by a flat fee agent (unless requested by the client) due to them knowing they won't get a regular paycheck once the deal is closed (at least that's what they tell me which i haven't fully understood why since the buyer pays their portion of the closing costs, could use some help here). My question to everyone is how do i quantitatively assess a listing agent based on some critical criteria such as average DOM, how many houses have they sold, expertise in the area, etc? I try to be very cognizant of pricing the property right based on the comps, but every agent I've talked to says they have powerful software and marketing tools, we have a large network, i have worked this area for years, etc, which makes it difficult to solid data. Any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks!