Today’s RealTrending podcast features an exclusive interview with Bob Corcoran of Bob Corcoran & Associates in Florida. Bob’s been coaching high performance real estate teams for over 30 years and has helped multiple team leaders sell their businesses. Bob discusses how real estate teams and independent agents can build viable exit strategies when they are ready to move on.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Bob. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: Steve Murray, senior advisor to RealTrends and a partner with RTC Consulting does a lot of consulting and he sees a record number of teams coming to him for business valuations. The problem is he has to turn away a lot of them because, the way they’ve organized the business, they don’t have the value that they think they do. So let’s talk about some common mistakes team leaders make when structuring their businesses.
Bob Corcoran: I love what Steve does. He does a lot with selling companies, and I focus more on selling and teams. I think a mistake that a lot of people make is that we have to remember that saleability is the perceived ease in which the transfer of ownership can occur. And that, in turn, will drive a higher value.
We’ve got a lot of people out there who use their own name for the team name and that definitely affects value and saleability. I always encourage the people who I coach to change the name.
Now that has to be done depending on how long the person’s been in business. It’s got to be done gradually and over time. Otherwise, you’ll lose traction on the millions of dollars you probably spend branding your name right now.
Another thing that will grossly affect value is how much business the rainmaker does. If a team is selling 100 homes and the rainmaker’s selling 60 of that 100, that doesn’t add value. Because if the team leader is gone when you buy my team, the buyer will lose 60% of the sales. So it’s about teaching team leaders how to leverage their time by putting other people in place so that the rainmaker does less and less business. The less business the rainmaker does, the more saleability and higher the value the team has.
RealTrending features the brightest minds in real estate. Weekly, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.