As the Holiday Season is now upon us, and this can oftentimes be the time of year when brokers make the move to change brokerage companies, here’s one recommendation I have for you to incorporate into your new broker-salesperson agreement, when joining your new brokerage company.
Whenever you’re coming on board with a new brokerage company, the last thing you’re thinking about is the day when you might eventually decide to leave this new company, but planning for this in advance could really be a good idea for you. And the reason I’m bringing this up, is because I’ve had coaching clients over the years who want to leave the brokerage company they’re currently working for, but they’re concerned about how they’ll be treated after they leave the company with their commissions for their deals that haven’t closed yet.
This can then cause the broker to greatly delay their departure from the company, if they have one or more major transactions in progress, and they’re afraid that the company may substantially reduce the commission they’ll get paid on these deals after they leave the company.
So with this in mind, when you’re about to join a new brokerage company, consider saying something like this to their managing representative who is the one recruiting you and bringing you on board:
“We both believe that this will never happen, but if sometime down the road we decide to part ways, I want to include the following provision within our broker-salesperson agreement, for how my commissions will be handled for any deals that will currently be in progress at that time.”
Then tell them exactly how you would like those commissions to be handled, and then write this into your new broker-salesperson agreement.
Keeping this in mind, because the feelings are all warm and fuzzy when you’re about to come on board with the new company, you should be able to work something like this out that’s acceptable to them, and if sometime down the road you end up leaving this company for another one, you’ll be very glad that you put this in writing!
I’ve definitely had coaching clients tell me about companies that have seized pretty decent-sized chunks out of their commissions for deals that are currently in progress when they leave, and sometimes they even assign other in-house brokers to work on these deals instead through the closing, and this hasn’t been a pleasant experience for these brokers who are moving on from their current company.
So rather than panicking in the moment when you want to leave a brokerage company, and frantically thumbing through your current broker-salesperson agreement, to get an idea of how you think you may be treated with your commissions for deals in progress in this situation, just spell it out exactly as you want it to be when you come on board with the new company at the very beginning, so that you can feel relaxed and confident, should you ever decide to leave this company in the future.