August/September Business View Magazine

90 91 last five or six.We remodelled most of our offic- es to bring them as current and relevant as we could to attract all ages and types of real estate agents.They have the opportunity to work in the office environment collectively,with state-of-the- art technology, furniture, lighting, you name it.And it’s given us a really good vibe in the offices. “We are very big on consistency. In the first quarter of every year, the three of us conduct an annual review with each sales associate.We have a broker hotline where they can reach us seven days a week from 7AM to midnight, along with a chat line they can access through an app. And we only hire full-time sales associates, that makes a huge difference too. “Our investment in technology has propelled our sales associates above and ahead of the rest in the marketplace. Most real estate companies RE/MAX SELECT REALTY outsource, but we’ve hired three IT people that work strictly for us; creating and building agents’ websites in an individual and unique way.We’ve done the same with our company website and all the internal pieces we use have been done on our own terms, in-house.” Murphy: “The physical office is almost like a coffee-house environment - very open, high-end décor, contemporary.When agents from other companies come in for a closing they are wowed. In general, our real estate company is an agent-cen- tric business model and our competitors in this marketplace are very broker-centric.We tell sales associates,‘You’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself.’We’re here to help. It’s a partnership– when an agent comes to RE/MAX Select, they’re making a big decision; having a lot of faith in our company and succeeding. It’s a scary thing. And it’s our job to make sure they do very well and feel comfortable in our environment.” Culley: “We have monthly telecast meetings that are broadcast to our agents. So, we’re able to do the meeting in one sitting to the entire company, at once. In addition, we have quarterly company meetings, where we bring all the sales associates and employees together in one loca- tion. It really helps generate camaraderie among our agents and adds to our culture. The three of