Keller Williams’ profit sharing move shouldn’t come as a surprise

There’s been a fair amount of hand-wringing, fear and trembling following KW President Marc King’s announcement that Keller Williams will no longer offer full freight in its profit-sharing program for agents who have left the brokerage company and not come crawling back with their tails between their legs.

This has been coming down the pike for years, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. People leave. You left Keller Williams. They’re not going to keep giving you money, and why should they?

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People come to brokerages for a variety of different reasons, one of which, for some, is a value proposition related to downlines for recruitment, signing bonuses, marketing budgets or what have you.

If that’s all you as a brokerage have as your value proposition, people will leave.

If that’s all that’s attractive to you as an agent about a brokerage, you’ll end up leaving.

Incentives are designed for both recruitment and retention

The residual income from these types of incentives are designed to keep you on board (retention) just as much as they’re designed to bring you on board in the first place (recruitment). If you’re no longer on board, it’s unrealistic to expect them to stay at the same level forever.

In life, nothing is guaranteed. You’ve got to build longevity in your business. You can brokerage hop in order to take advantage of recruiting incentives — if you have a strong personal brand — but you’ll burn a lot of bridges along the way.

The bigger question is, as an agent, are you choosing your brokerage for the right reasons? As a broker, are you too reliant on incentives and not doing enough to create value that’s more than skin deep?

What’s your long-term financial plan?

If your retirement plan is a downline, that plan is not within your control. The terms of that downline can change depending on the market and the economy and the brokerage’s own financial needs. 

It can also change depending on what happens to other agents who might or might not stay in the industry for the long haul. Many don’t.

What’s your succession plan? What’s your wealth-building strategy? These can’t be based on only one thing. They can’t be based on somebody else’s sense of what’s “fair”.

“This decision emerged from thoughtful deliberations, echoing the collective sentiment of our agents, franchise owners and team members who contribute to our shared prosperity,” King said.

Continuing to pay out profit share to folks who are no longer with the company did not feel good to the people who are in that company, so they stopped doing it. That’s fair, too.

Your job is to prepare to sell your book of business and digital platforms. It’s to build a business that’s not entirely dependent on you so that you can, at some point, walk away from it and continue to reap the rewards.

It’s nobody else’s job to take care of you or your retirement. It’s your job. Get to work.