Throughout my 181/2 years as a REALTOR, in the Chilliwack areaI have been of two minds and switched game plans a few times. I started doing a lot of new construction homes and had a few builders to work with. In the late 90's builders weren't making much money on homes so every deal I found I was negotiating my commission in order to be properly compensated. Then I would have to wait 4 months to get paid. And at the time and still today the commission rate for new construction is 2% points lower. So I thought to myself...."is it smart to build a business relying on a couple of builders and work for less money?"...so I turned my attention to building my business with lot of used product. I found it easier and more satisfying. I put a team together and we started driving hard for listings...people then thought that we were successful so we got more listings and we sold more homes. I had to add to the team so that I could keep up with the leads. I paid for all the expenses and got a percentage from the team players. After a while those teammates move on because they feel that they can do what you do, so I inadvertently created my own competition. I spent over $60,000 per year on advertising in the newspaper...consistently. At the end of the day I am not certain that I was serving people well. I had team players leave and take some of the business with them as they had to deal with the clients. Some of them I never even met. But while those REALTOR partners were building their businesses, I was paying for everything! Thats ok. You see teams like this all the time. You see "partners" or "junior team members" come and go all the time. The headers on their ads get bigger and then they shrink as the people come and go. Disagreements happen. Greed comes into play. And the REAL ESTATE market changes...Remember 2008? Sheesh. I will never forget. Ever. Just had a little throw up in my mouth and a shiver that went from my little toe to my forehead...ick.
We are family.
I am here to tell you that I have created the best scenario that any REALTOR could every have!!!
The Best TEAM...My teamMATE for life. My wife Nicole. and Nicole's Mom, Donna...yes my mother in law. YES...I work with my wife and my mother-in-law.
But here's the thing. It works. We respect each other. We help each other. We communicate to each other well. We are accountable to each other.
We are always up to speed on anything. We love each other unconditionally.
We are family.
Yes...sometimes we argue. We disagree. We even do that in front of clients sometimes. We talk it out. We get frustrated with each other...but always with a spirit of love, respect and trust. And we do it 6 days a week. We manage to get Connor to football and school basketball games and Landon to Soccer all over the lower mainland and cook family dinners while negotiating offers but that is our life. We would not trade it for anything. Its the life we choose.
We are a high powered real estate team that doesn't have to spend $60,000 per year on ads and have 30 listings to be successful. We just need to pay attention to all of our listings appropriately, tell our clients honest information, and work every day with proper intentions and we manage to help 50 to 60 transactions happen every year. 8 to 10 listings at a time and we can manage that perfectly and give our clients amazing, awesome service and we list homes and we sell the homes and we do it well. We have amazing systems in place to take care of ensuring that we are accountable to everything that we say we will do. That is good enough. We are happy with that.
Through the tough times and challenges and multiple team members I have learned a lot of lessons.
I now feel like we are working with intention every day with out the worry that a team member will take business away from us one day. We stay in touch with our clients in a different way now. They are our friends. We are happy to learn about what is going on in their lives....to be honest, I didn't have time for that before. I had too many listings. Too many phone calls. Too much to pay attention to that was not fruitful. Too many fires to put out. Too many personalities to manage. Too many people to lead and too much money going out every month.
I love how our business is structured now and now that we have joined the Select Real Estate team we are really embracing this business in a truly impactful way. We have other team members that have a job to do. They do it well. Photographers, Graphic Designers, Listing managers etc...
They are paid to do it well. They is no other expectation than that. It is refreshing and honest and extremely satisfying to know that we have arrived at the perfect real estate model to take us into the next wave.....that is flowing through Chilliwack right now.....
Its going to be an awesome ride. YES we are successful. But in the right way. According to our own rules.
Thanks for reading. 
Kelly Johnston
Select Real Estate.