Business View Magazine September 2018

126 127 RE/MAX ABILITY PLUS with the goals of identifying who we were, what we stood for, and what we believed in, and then performing the same way we had put those state- ments in writing,” Dulin recounts. “So, it wasn’t creating a pretty piece of paper that says: this is our mission, vision, values, this is what we believe, and this is who we are; it was actually acting that way. Our philosophy is that we serve the agents that associate themselves with us.We focus on a specific segment of the market, but it’s not the con- sumer segment–it’s the successful realtor segment. We look to associate ourselves with agents that have a minimum of two years experience and are achieving a minimum of $2 million in sales and/or 15 transactions in the last 24 months. I’m not aware of anybody else in the State of Indiana that sells the amount of real estate that we do and strictly brings on experienced agents.” “We don’t actually consider ourselves a real estate company,” says Vice President of Sales, JimMorgan. “We see ourselves as an agent services company and we provide the support to take obstacles out of their way.We don’t hire agents; agents hire us. We work for our agents, so it really turns the entire model on its ear.We are so different; it takes them time to believe that it’s true.The most common thing we hear when someone joins us is,‘The big- gest mistake I made was waiting so long.’” Dulin stresses that everything the brokerage does is geared to making sure that its productive agents have all the backup they need to contin- ue being successful. “Our agents, on average, are doing 18 transactions a year, versus an industry average of a couple of deals,” he relates. “That puts them in a state of busyness all the time. And it means that successful agents are going to have to be running at the most efficient way they can. So, much of what we’re doing is being driven by the kind of services that our agents need to facil- itate the transaction. In our case, that efficiency will come through scalable services that the bro- kerage can provide to the agent, and ultimately to the consumer. If I have an agent who has a bud- get, let’s say of $40,000, for an admin. As opposed to hiring that admin and spending $40,000, wouldn’t it be better if they could hire the pieces and parts that they need when they need it? We can provide a property manager when they need one.We can provide title, insurance, transaction coordination, or moving, packing, decluttering and staging. All when they need it. So, as opposed to spending all of that budget on one salary, we try to give them the ability to use our resources and spread the costs across the board so that they get what they need, when they need it.” “The unique piece about us is that all the various services that we offer, we offer through the agent,” Dulin continues. “We don’t go around the agent; he or she decides what they need and want. I have agents that have never used any of our ancillary services and they are as much a part of the company as the agent who uses all of them. The relationship is the same.We’re providing tools that we think benefit them and if they want to utilize them, great. If they don’t, we JIMMY DULIN OWNER