Exit Strategies: How to Buy or Sell a Retiring Agent’s Business (Part 2)

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About This Episode

Taking over a retiring agent’s business can be an instant jolt to your business…if you do it right. In his book, The Golden Handoff, Nick Krautter shares a step-by-step process for buying another agent’s business without losing their clients. This week on The Walkthrough™, Nick returns to explain what should go into the contract between the two agents, and how the financial agreement works. This is part two of a two-part series.

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Links and Show Notes

• GoldenHandoff.com – Nick’s book website with scripts, emails, and other resources
• Nick Krautter – HomeLight agent profile
• City and State Real Estate – Nick’s team site
• Join our Facebook mastermind for The Walkthrough™ listeners
• HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center
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Full Transcript

(SPEAKER: Matt McGee, Host)

Matt: A lot of real estate agents have gone sour on the idea of buying leads. They say the lead quality is low. The buyer or seller has no idea who you are, right? They don’t know, like, or trust you. Buying leads isn’t for everyone. Here’s a crazy idea: What about buying another agent’s client base or adopting those clients, as Nick Krautter likes to call it? Nick acquired another agent’s client base back in 2010, and it made an instant impact on his business.

Nick: Initially, it was huge because when I started doing this, you know, I was what–four years in the business. And we were doing around $8 to $12 million in sales a year. And adopting those clients, I mean, it was–you know, when I teach this, I say it’s a way to, exponentially, grow by referral. And that’s what happened.

Matt: Nick, quickly, learned that all the friction you get when buying leads–they don’t know you, like you, trust you–can be eliminated with a handoff of clients from one agent to the other. So, how does it work? We’re in the middle of a two-part series answering that exact question. Last week was all about the process. This week, Nick’s gonna talk about the contract and financials. How he used The Golden Handoff to, exponentially, grow his repeat and referral business. This is The Walkthrough™.

(INTRO MUSIC)

Matt: Hi, there. How are you? My name’s Matt McGee. I’m the managing editor of HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center. Welcome to The Walkthrough™. This is a weekly podcast.  New episodes come out every Monday. This is the show where you’ll learn what’s working right now from the best real estate agents and industry experts in the country. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. We’re here to explore how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable.

It has to be one of the most unique ways there is to grow your business. Find an agent who’s retiring or winding down their business, come to an agreement to take it over, and tell their clients and the world about the change. It’s something Nick Krautter has done a handful of times now. I mean he, literally, wrote the book on this. It’s called The Golden Handoff. Nick is the team lead for City & State Real Estate. They’re a small team of five based in Portland, Oregon.

He got into real estate in 2006, formed the team in 2007, and then bought his first book of business from another agent in 2010. Now, within the last year, Nick’s team decided to focus on commercial real estate. They sold their residential business to another Portland company called Works Real Estate. So, Nick has now been on both sides of this golden handoff–the buying side and the selling side. The golden handoff is a framework for how to make this a win-win for both the retiring agent and the buying or adopting agent. Last week in Part 1 of this series, Nick and I talked about how the handoff works. Here’s a reminder of what you heard or a bit of what you missed.

Nick: So, there’s a very specific process that we use that works really well. And it’s not complicated, but you wanna do it in order. Once your adopting and retiring agent have met up, they wanna work together, they’ve looked at the database, they’ve looked at their marketing plans, they’ve signed a contract to work together, then the next step is that I ask the retiring agent, “Hey, your top, top people, your A-plus people, I want you to call them and just let them know personally.”

Matt: Last week was all about that process, how to take over someone’s business without losing their clients. And not only that, but also what to say. Nick shared a bunch of scripts and dialogues that you can use along the way. One of the key elements of the handoff is that the retiring agent has to endorse the buying or adopting agent. That endorsement, that referral is what encourages the clients to stick with their new agent.

Today in Part 2, we’re gonna talk about the contract and the financials. Nick’s gonna share what all should be written into the contract, the three possible levels of activity for the retiring agent after the handoff happens, and why he recommends a three-year referral agreement instead of a lump sum purchase. Now, if you missed Part 1, I think you’ll be okay to keep listening now to Part 2. I mean, there might be a reference here or there that may not, immediately, make sense, but I think it’ll be okay. But do go back and listen to Part 1 later if you are listening to this episode first, okay? I think it’ll make a lot of sense that way. With all that said, let’s dive into Part 2 with Nick Krautter. Today, we’re talking all about the contract and financials. And the first step in writing the contract is knowing exactly what you’re buying.

(BEGIN CONVERSATION)

Matt: Are you adopting their entire database, or are you just adopting say, you know, their most active past clients?

Nick: That’s a great question. You know, honestly, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before. So, what I advocate for is yes, adopt the whole thing. Now, if you have a database of, you know, 20,000 people, that’s overwhelming. So, you can’t treat them all the same, right? You can’t love everyone the same way. So, I’ll go back to the contract and then I’ll kind of talk about two scenarios: Kind of, I only want the A-list, or I want everything. And I think that everything is the right decision.

And I know a lot of people don’t agree with me, and not everyone does it that way. And some of them I think are great business people and are very successful that only do the A-list thing. So, the contract is basically a referral agreement. And in the contract, the way it’s done, it’s a three-year agreement where in the first year, there’s a 30% referral fee, in the second year, it’s 20% then 10%, and then year four, the adopting agent keeps all of it. It’s just 100%.

Now, a caveat to that is if the adopting agent is gonna stay engaged and involved and help nurture that database, but they’re just not doing any of the transactions, then, I think, have a longer-term agreement. As long as they’re engaged in helping you, you want them engaged and helping you, keep paying them. But if someone’s really retiring, and they’re gonna head off to the sunset, turn off their email, and change their phone number, then that timeframe works out really well. And I’ve used that on almost all of them.

With the deal I’m doing, I’m really involved in it. I’m still helping. We’re doing social media stuff together, marketing pieces, and I’m helping coach their agents. So, it’s more of a partnership than just like selling it because I’m not really retired. The next thing is that the adopting agent has to keep a license somewhere to get referral fees. So, it doesn’t have to be the same state, it could be anywhere. Like, let’s say they work in two states, they can pick the one that’s the cheaper, easier one to keep a license, doesn’t matter.

Matt: You mean the retiring agent?

Nick: Sorry, the retiring agent. Yeah. For as long as they’re getting referral fees, they need to keep a license somewhere. The other thing is that they agree to let me know when clients contact them and then re-indorse me as needed. So, that’s in there as well. Now, the adopting agent is agreeing that for the life of this contract, they’re gonna keep their business running, the license, they’re gonna keep marketing to those people that…and they’re going to, you know, stay in touch with them and honor the agreement for as long as, you know, whatever. If it’s a three-year deal, then you have to commit for that three years that you’re going to engage with these adopted clients as best as you can.

And the way that I do that is I think you take that marketing plan, and you make that part of the contract. So, you know, it’s one thing to say, “Hey, I promise to stay in touch with your people and market to them,” and it’s a different thing to say, “I will call them twice a year. They’ll be invited to one educational event and one fun client event a year. We will email them market updates, monthly, and we will send them our newsletter monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, once a year,” whatever it is.

So, have that agreement of exactly what they’re doing in there. I think that’s a really good practice to do that. Now, to get back to your question of, do you want the A-list or everything? So, I had it happen once where I took over a database of about, I wanna say 300 or 400 people. And as we started calling through it, I realized that half of those people had no idea who that agent was because they were part of a door-knocking farm.

Now, we did deals from that door-knocking farm, but I had no interest in continuing to door-knock that neighborhood or any neighborhood. I wasn’t doing that. I was too busy at this point to be prospecting in that manner. We, basically, had to sort out who were people that had actually worked with this agent because the other people, the endorsement didn’t mean anything. And that agent had never called these people. She always just showed up with like a little neighborhood, you know, market report newsletter every couple of months. And some of those people remembered her, but a lot of people I called had no idea why I was calling because they didn’t have a relationship. She was just the lady that would leave the marketing flyer on their door.

Now, the other half had a relationship. And so, obviously, we were more successful with that than the others. So, we added the door-knocking farm to our newsletter and email if we had that information, but we didn’t try to call them twice a year. In that same manner, you have your A-list and, maybe, you’ve got your B and C that maybe you’ve got 200 A/B clients and you’ve got 2,000 that are just in there. And you don’t really know what they are. Like, is this someone that was a sign call five years ago? Did they show up at an open house? There’s a lot of people in there that you might have no idea what they’re doing or when they’re gonna do it. But I don’t think it hurts to stay engaged. You just have to manage how you’re staying engaged so that you’re not overcommitting, because no one’s gonna wanna call 2,000 people a year.

Matt: You talked about putting into the agreement like how many emails and calls and how often it’s gonna happen. In the agreement, do you also spell out, and what is your opinion? Are you getting their website, their domain name, other marketing assets, or is it just the database?

Nick: I mean, it can be a lot. If someone has a team, you might be taking on their staff, you might be buying a building or leasing the space they have, you might be taking over advertisements, including websites. You might be buying phone numbers. I know some people that have been very successful doing that in areas, especially retirement areas. In second home markets, sometimes having the phone number is a huge, huge asset because you’ve got your magnet on, you know, 1,000 fridges in a subdivision. And kind of if you own that subdivision, there’s a lot of value in those things.

So, in the book, The Golden Handoff, there’s a whole chapter on the contract and there’s all those other things other than the database that you need to consider. So, lockboxes, signs–are you buying a brand of a team or a brand of a brokerage? Is it just their client list and their name? This is why it’s really important to know where the business comes from. A lot of times, really good agents will fall in love with their own marketing, but they can’t really prove that it works, right?

So, they’re paying for the half page in the neighborhood newspaper, the full back page. They’re doing all of these Google Adwords, and they’re doing social media stuff. But when you ask them where their business comes from, it’s like, “Oh, we do an annual client party and we get 80% of our referrals from that.” It’s like, okay, well let’s keep doing that, but maybe all this advertising and all this other stuff you’re doing, they get you two deals a year. It’s probably not worth continuing.

So, that’s why I think knowing where your business comes from is so valuable. And yes, I mean, depending on how big it is, there could be a lot more assets you’re buying, and maybe those things you’re not buying those on referral, you’re just writing a check to buy. You know, the obvious one is like lockboxes, signs, stuff like that. Where it gets trickier is, you know, if you’re growing your business, and they’ve got a great team, you might really need that staff to be able to take it on unless you already have the capacity to grow that much. So, there’s definitely more than just the database. It depends on who the retiring agent is and, kind of, how they operate and how big their business is.

Matt: I think one of the most important things, and you, kind of, spell this out in the book as well that should be spelled out in the agreement is exactly what level of involvement the retiring agent will have after the handoff.

Nick: Yeah.

Matt: There’s like what? Three or four different buckets that could fall into?

Nick: Yeah. There’s three levels I define. And the first one is totally done. This is, “I’m moving to Florida. I’m throwing my phone in the ocean. Don’t ever email me.” And that’s okay. You just need to know if I’ve got any questions that I need to clarify as the adopting agent, you need to do it upfront, right? You don’t wanna, like, plan to keep calling and bugging them in the future. The second one is the consultant where they, maybe, do some initial calls, they do some, you know, verifying motivation levels, getting some details, and then hand it off to the adopting agent to actually go do the contract, do the photos, write the offer, show the houses, all that.

And then a delegator, that’s the most involved level where you’re still…I’m kind of at that level with our residential database. I’m still very involved checking in on it, helping out. I’m handing over–there’s still like, you know, hundreds of tasks in my calendar that I’m going through. And as I do that, I’m, then, handing them over to the other team as I, kind of, clean up all the task I had planned for my future that I was gonna do if I was still the one helping.

And I think, that’s another thing, I guess, I don’t talk about in the book because I talk about the database, but like make sure you look at each other’s…the retiring agent’s calendar and task list because the first people you should touch base with are the people they were gonna touch base with, right? That they already had a reminder scheduled for, you know, “Hey, make sure before the end of summer to call so-and-so because they’re gonna buy an investment this year.” Yeah. Make sure you get that information too. That’s in our database, and hopefully, most people, those are integrated. But if not, like make sure you check in with someone on, “Hey, who’s on your shortlist of people you think are gonna do something?” Because that’s who you wanna make sure you prioritize.

Matt: So, you described these three levels. Totally done–the retiring agent is totally done, gone. Then, kind of, in the middle is consultant, and then, the most involved is this delegator concept. Based on your experience buying other agents’ businesses, which scenario do you prefer?

Nick: I mean, as an adopting agent, I love that delegator/consultant level because it means they’re still engaging with the community in some way. And it doesn’t mean that they’re even in town. I mean, they could just be engaging on social media and staying in touch with people. Or if they’re still in town, they’re, you know, still socially engaged with people, and they’re thinking of me and actively referring new people and reminding people they know that, you know, they should call me or even setting appointments, kind of, for me. “Hey, I was at a barbecue in the neighborhood, and my neighbors wanna sell their house. Can you meet Wednesday at 3?” You know, that kind of stuff is so valuable because it just gives you another person to help you grow and take care of people.

Matt: In the agreement, how do you take surprises into account? Say, for example, the retiring agent decides a year later that they don’t like being retired.

Nick: Oh. Yeah. So that’s kind of–there are some wild cards in the chapter. And that happened to me. That happened where someone who had retired was totally done. They moved across the country, and nine months later, someone said, “Oh, I just ran into so-and-so.” And I was like, “What do you mean? They moved to Florida.” “No, no. They moved back. They didn’t like it.” And they were back in real estate at a different brokerage. And so, you know, obviously, that was not the right way to do it, and I didn’t know that. So, in that scenario, they basically–they honored their agreement that they weren’t gonna try to take back all those people because I already spent a year nurturing them and working with them and did a lot of deals with people. But I know that there was a lot of people in the database that just, kind of, migrated back to her because they had more relationships.

So, I think just having an understanding of…it’s not in the contract, if I put it in, it would just be, “Hey, if you decide to come back and get in the business, I’m gonna keep all the stuff that I’ve got scheduled and everything. Obviously, everything in escrow or listed I’ll keep, but everything I’ve got scheduled, I’ll keep, and then we’ll pick a time to transition it back to you.” Because they’re gonna go back anyway if that agent really is good, and they really did a good job.

What I’ll say to the retired agents, though, because I know someone else that’s kind of gotten in and out, in and out. They kind of keep one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. They don’t get much business because the clients don’t trust it. They don’t wanna hear that you’re retired or you’re doing a different job, but you’re also in real estate. They wanna know you’re 100% in. And the people I know that have tried to do two things at once, the clients just don’t work with them. They work with other people.

And so, you’re way better off just letting that be me, and let me do my job and keep it cohesive than coming and going and coming and going. It just dilutes everything, and we’re both gonna lose, I think, most of the time in that state. I’ve seen that happen. And the clients are just like, “Oh, yeah. Well, we love so-and-so, but, you know, they were gone for two years, and now they’re back, but I know they’re part-time and…” It just doesn’t work. I really just don’t think it does.

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Matt: Okay. So, we’ve talked about the agreement. I wanna transition into the financial aspect of this, Nick, because that has to be part of the agreement. And you already hinted at this, you talked about first year, 70% split, second year, 80%, third year, 90%. Is that negotiable? Do those change at all, maybe, depending on the level of involvement of the retiring agent?

Nick: Yeah. So, I mean, everything’s negotiable. I get that question a lot. Most people I’ve worked with were totally okay with that plan because it works well. Because again, someone’s gotta keep a license to like–how long are they gonna wanna keep doing classes and renew their license and all that? So, I’d say for most people, this works great. You don’t need to change it. I would say, generally, just as a rule of thumb, the more engaged and helpful and supportive the retiring agent is in helping you and bringing more value to that client list and adding people to it, keep paying them for that. I mean, my dream scenario is that they’re helping me do more. I would much rather pay 25% forever and have 10 new clients a year that I wasn’t gonna get than get 100% of a database that is limited. I think the more supportive and engaged they are, the more the money could be in the longer term.

Now, I don’t really advocate for going over 30% on a referral for anything forever for anyone because when you’re active in business, you have a lot of expenses. And if that referral fee gets too big, you’re not profitable. And then, now you don’t wanna really help those people because, gosh, I really don’t get much of it in the end of the day. So, it’s gotta be fair for both people. I think 25% is fair. That’s kind of where…it averages out to 20% in this deal. The reason it’s front-loaded is at the beginning, my success as an adopting agent is gonna be based on how good of a job the retiring agent did. But by year three, if those people are working with us, it’s because we’re working with them, right? You know, that we’re engaging, and we’re taking care of them. Most people don’t even remember who their agent was. And so, you know, it’s based on who’s engaging and who’s actually building those relationships.

Matt: You talk in the book, not just about the direct income, but sort of the other types of income that this handoff can create for you.

Nick: Yeah. So, for the adopting agent, it’s pretty dramatic, right? Because every time you get a listing, you’ve got a sign in the yard. You can do circle prospecting, “Just Listed” postcards, open houses, social media stuff, “Look at my new listing,” door-knocking, all this great stuff opens up every time you get a listing to get new clients. And all those new people come to you, those are all yours 100% because that’s based on the work you’re doing as the adopting agent.

Same thing with a buyer. You do a good job for a buyer, guess what they’re talking about to their friends and family? Buying a house. That’s it. That’s all they’re talking about. Everything’s top of mind for that buyer. So, asking them for referrals along the way, those referrals–100% those go to you, assuming they’re not in the database. You know, you’ve got those clients in the database, maybe they don’t wanna do anything, but they refer you the neighbor. Well, that’s based on the work you’re doing. So, you keep 100% of that. And then, you’ve got future referrals for new people that the retiring agent meets that are being added to the database are being referred to you that are new. You know, they weren’t in the database. There’s someone new the retiring agent met, and they’re connecting you now. And so, there’s all those different ways that as the adopting agent, you can make money.

Matt: Is there also a lump sum payment involved when you are buying someone’s book of business?

Nick: Not in my model. No, there isn’t. I can see it both ways, but I really think it’s much more fair that it’s based on activities in the back end. And I think the reason why people would want it is, well, what if the adopting agent doesn’t do a good job, and they don’t do what they said they’re gonna do? That’s why I wanna a lump sum upfront. I’ll tell you this, it’s way more valuable to the retiring agent to get the right agent who’s actually gonna do the work. My expectation on my partnership is that we’ll make $100,000 to $150,000 a year net on referral fees. I would much rather have that than one check for $100,000 because that can continue to grow and prosper. And as the market gets dynamic, you know, the value of the business goes up and down too, right? So, I mean, we had our best year ever last year, we did $90 million in sales. I don’t know if in 2023 we’re gonna have that much sold. We might. It might be more.

But I think for a lot of people, you know, we’re seeing the market shifting, interest rates are going up. It might be very reasonable to think that a lot of agents are gonna be making less money next year than they made last year. And the flips is true. When I was buying this business, Matt, you said 2010, right? We were in the bottom of a really bad real estate recession. We didn’t even start going back up until 2012. I had a list of sellers that wanted to work with me, that liked me, that agreed with my CMAs, but they couldn’t sell because guess what? They were under water. And so, a lot of the businesses I took over became more valuable over time and, potentially, they could become less valuable. And that’s not based on someone doing a good or bad job, it’s just the market dynamics. We don’t control that. Our job is to interpret it and help people operate within the reality of the market, but we don’t control it. And so, that’s another reason why I think it’s really tough to value an individual agent’s business.

Matt: One last question on the financial aspect. You described this as a, and I love this phrase, “Get rich slow over time scheme, it’s not get rich quick.” What do you mean by that?

Nick: It’s kind of like I mentioned earlier, there’s a–you know, when I was at a bigger firm and there was like–you know, I was in the top one, two, or three, and one of the other guys that was always in the top one, two, or three ran almost a prospecting marketing business, and mine was all referral. Well, the get-rich-quick scheme is okay, I’m gonna spend a boatload of money and I’m gonna call 100 people a day until I get 10 new listings, and I’m gonna make $100,000 this month. The get-rich-slow scheme that I talk about is building relationships over time.

So, in exchange for not having to cold call people that don’t know you and market prospect really hard and try to sell yourself all the time, you can build relationships with people that don’t need you today in the anticipation that, hey, when they need to do something or they have a friend or family member that does, that they’ll refer you. And so, it’s just a different approach to running a business. And you’ve gotta make sure if you do this, or if you’re selling your business that you both have the expectation.

It’s not like if you have a database of 300 people, they’re all gonna move this year, right? And so, if you have a database of 300 people, and 20 of those people move this–or say 30 of them move and your adopting agent is able to help 20 of them, I would say that’s a huge success. But it really comes down to setting expectations that this isn’t a list of clients I need to sell this week, right? This is a list of people that are probably going to do something in the next 10 years. And if you just stay in touch with them and provide value, you’re gonna have a really great experience as a broker getting to help people, getting to do your job and not have to cold call or not have to sell yourself all the time. You can just put on your Realtor® hat, do your Realtor® thing and focus on that as opposed to prospecting, which is a very different thing. I think most people get out of real estate because they realize that you need to, at some level, prospect and market and engage with people. It’s a lot more fun to do with people that you like and that know you and trust you and wanna talk to you.

Matt: How much of your business in a typical year, when you were still in residential, was coming from clients that you adopted or acquired from a retiring agent?

Nick: Oh, man. Well, so I’ll say this. Initially, it was huge because when I started doing this, you know, I was what? Four years in the business and we were doing around $8 million to $12 million in sales a year. And adopting those clients, I mean, it was…you know, when I teach this, I say it’s a way to exponentially grow by referral. And that’s what happened. Because back then, I didn’t have 22,000 people in a database. I mean, I had 150, right? And so, for me to call my client list wasn’t that big of a deal. You know, I would just start at the top and work my way to the bottom. And, you know, two weeks in, you know, I talk to everyone. But then all of a sudden, so that first database, that was 300 people. So, I would bet that by the time we adopted Renee’s database, which was 2010, I bet it doubled our business.

Matt: That’s fantastic.

Nick: And I think we went from probably doing $8 million to $12 million to over $20 million in sales.  Because, you know, we were, consistently, working with those people. And here’s the other thing, it’s really cool to see this now. There’s a woman named Darby Britton at Works, she’s kind of the lead agent for all of our clients that they’re caring for. And I asked her–because this has been my experience when I’ve been the agent that now is in charge–is that when I reach out to those adopted clients, and I’m setting appointments with them, I am almost never competing with another agent. I mean, let that sink in. You’re not, like, showing up at a listing appointment and there’s like, you know, two BMWs and two Mercedes parked out front, and they’re all like doing their pitch and, you know? Almost all of the time it’s like, “Hey, if so-and-so said you’re great, and you can show up on time, and I believe that you’re gonna do a good job, we’re good. We’ll just work with you.”

(SHORT MUSIC TRANSITION)

Matt: That’s gotta be a great feeling if you adopt a retiring agent’s clients, and that handoff is like so strong that the clients totally trust you as their new agent right from day one. Great, great stuff, Nick. Thank you so much. Hey, reminder here. You have heard a lot of scripts and dialogues, emails, and such over these two episodes. We also talked a lot about the contracts and those things. A lot of that comes from Nick’s book, of course, The Golden Handoff, but there’s even more he tells me on The Golden Handoff website. And you can access all of that when you register there. Go to goldenhandoff.com. Just combine the two words, no hyphens or anything, goldenhandoff.com. I’ll link to the site in today’s show notes.

Let’s do our takeaway segment for episode 92. This was Part 2 with Nick Krautter on how to buy or sell a retiring agent’s business. And again, just like last week, I’m gonna mainly come at this from the angle that you are the buying or adopting agent. All right? All right.

Takeaway number one. Nick’s framework calls for a three-year agreement between you and the retiring agent. It’s basically a referral agreement with a 70/30 split in year one. You get 70%, the retiring agent gets 30%. Then 80/20 in year two, and 90/10 in the third year.

Takeaway number two. Nick recommends you stick with that referral arrangement in lieu of a lump sum purchase for a couple of reasons. Number one, in a dynamic real estate market, it can be very difficult to put a value on another agent’s business. And number two, on the retiring agent’s side, three years of referrals could be more valuable than a single payment.

Takeaway number three. The contract should be very specific about the retiring agent’s activity after the handoff happens. Nick says there are three common levels. The first is–he called “totally done”, where the retiring agent, basically, disappears, right? They throw their phone away. They’re gone. You’re never gonna hear from them again. Then there’s a “consultant” level where the retiring agent continues to do things like take initial calls with important clients before they pass over to the adopting agent. And then the third level is “delegator”, where the retiring agent remains more involved in servicing clients. Nick told me his preference is either “consultant” or “delegator” because that extra person can really help keep a transaction moving along.

Takeaway number four. The contract should also be specific about exactly what you’re buying or adopting. Nick recommends you adopt the entire database of the retiring agent. He says some folks prefer to only adopt the A-list clients. Either way, spell that out in the contract. He also says spell out exactly what your marketing will look like. As the adopting agent, you have to commit to servicing the retiring agent’s clients. And then, the contract might also include things like websites, phone numbers, lock boxes. Nick says those things are best handled with a flat-price payment.

And those are my takeaways this week. If you have any questions or feedback about what you’ve heard in this episode or even last week in Part 1, please do get in touch. You can text me or leave a voicemail. The number to use is 415-322-3328. Again, that’s 415-322-3328. You can send an email to walkthrough[at]homelight.com, or just find me in our Facebook mastermind group. Go to Facebook, do a search for HomeLight Walkthrough™, and the group should be the first thing that you see.

All right. That’s all for this week. Thanks again to Nick Krautter for joining me, and thank you for listening. My name is Matt McGee, and you’ve been listening to The Walkthrough™. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. We’re here to explore how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable. Go out and sell some homes. I’ll talk to you again next week. Bye-bye.

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