How do I choose between two brokers?

[Mike Gunther]

I flipped 1 house so I know a little bit about real estate. I’ve also worked in telemarketing for 1 year so I have experience in cold calling. My marketing plan is to cold call 8am-4pm around appointments. I’m hoping to get 1 listing contract for every 10 appointments. I have talked to 4 brokers and am trying to decide between 2.

BROKER A.

I have one broker who has a brokerage of 20 agents. He seems incredibly busy as he used to do BRRRRs and now does flips. He seems hasty about taking questions and refers agents to videos that they can watch (for instance, learning how to do an Agreement of Sale with verbiage and dates). He is looking to grow to 50 agents by the end of 2024. He has a new agent training program every Friday. They go through what you’re struggling with. He has 10 brand new agents. 

They have a transaction coordinator that you can use and it comes out of your commission. They just hired a full time videographer and they charge the agent $200 for photos.

He had a team until 6 months ago. He decided to dissolve it because it wasn’t helping agents. He believes that the team structure holds you back. He is also spending $12k/mo in leads. They have a lead pond. I probably wouldn’t take advantage of this.

He said that I can cold call for him. I’m confused because he mentioned salary and not commission, but he did mention ramping me up to eventually make $100k. He said that he is the best brokerage for cold calling. He said that I can go with him on appointments that I set.

Seemed like a very nice guy that knew a lot about cold calling.

He said that I would spend 8am-2pm on cold calling and the rest of the day on appointments which is the exact schedule that I’m looking for.

BROKER B.

The other broker doesn’t believe in cold calls and relies mainly on referrals.

He has a new realtor that has done 6 deals in 8 months. He is a former real estate trainer. He knows a ton about real estate and is not new to it. He is an associate broker with a brokerage that is growing, albeit slower than the other brokerage. They went from 200 agents to 300 agents.

He is going to give me more personalized training and will meet with me for an hour every week.

He tells me that he is going to show me all of the tips and tricks of the industry such as how to get listings from divorce attorneys, Sherriff sales, and estates.

He has done all types of deals such as land deals and commercial deals.

He does not have a transaction coordinator.

His SOI is 4,800 and is preaching to use your SOI. I’m not against marketing to an SOI, but I would much prefer building it through cold calling and collecting email addresses for an email list. He is big on email lists. So that’s a plus with his marketing strategy. He is also big with circle prospecting which is going to be my main list source.

His brokerage has a title company and mortgage company that he uses that you can get referral fees from. His title company can close in less than a week.

He said that he would help me talk to divorce attorneys to generate leads. 

MY SITUATION

Also to note. I'm doing this part-time initially. I understand just how difficult it is part-time and this may throw the weekly training from Broker A out the window. I'm currently unemployed, though, and until I find a replacement full-time job, I can do as much training as possible. Broker A said he would start me out as an inside sales rep. The problem is that I need at least $20/hour to survive and I hear that those types of jobs are very low pay, like $15/hour, but I have not discussed this with him yet. Outside of applying to jobs on Sundays and doing an interview or 2 a week, I have 6 full days that I can somehow ramp up my business such as cold calling to put people on lists (although I'm not an agent yet). I have passed the pre-licensing courses and I'm just waiting to take my exam in a week and it takes a whole month for the application to go through the state in my state.