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Although it may be difficult to comprehend, we are now halfway through the year. For Keller Williams agents, time flies when they are having a good time and creating businesses worth having and lives worth living. The first quarter of 2022 saw agents surpass the sales volume of the prior quarter, forge strategic alliances, and uphold the high cultural standards that the industry has come to expect from the largest real estate technology franchise in the world by agent count.

“We’re proud to report our agents have closed out another successful record-breaking quarter in sales volume,” said Carl Liebert, CEO of kwx, an integrated home experience company. “Outperforming the market, our agents increased sales volume more than 10% over Q1 ’21.”

189,644 agents work with Keller Williams worldwide as of March 31, 2022. There are 173,944 agents in the US and Canada and 15,700 agents that work outside of these two countries. Over its more than 1,100 offices, KW added 1,523 net agents in the first quarter of 2022.

Growth

United States and Canada (production in Q1 ’22)

• Agents closed $108.4 billion in sales volume, up 10.5% from previous Q1.
• Agents closed 258.4 thousand transactions in Q1 ’22.
• Agents took 154.0 thousand new listings (new market inventory) in Q1 ’22.
• Agents wrote 295.8 thousand contracts (projected closings) in Q1 ’22.
• Contracts written volume was $126.2 billion, up 8.2% over Q1 ’21.

“The appreciation of home prices has resulted in agents’ commissions far outpacing the rate of inflation,” said Marc King, president, KW. “We’re continuing to lean into our world-class training, coaching and technology to ensure our agents are poised to face the headwinds of higher mortgage rates and ongoing housing supply constraints.”

“Our homes sold baseline represents our second-highest record for a Q1 across that key metric,” said Jason Abrams, head of industry, kwx. “We are overall pleased with the results of our agents amid hypercompetitive market conditions.”

Keller Williams Worldwide Momentum (production outside the U.S. and Canada in Q1 ’22)

• As of March 31, agent count outside the U.S. and Canada was 15,700, up 21.6% from Q1 ’21.
• Agents closed 16.5 thousand transactions in Q1 ’22, up 25.9% over Q1 ’21.
• Agents closed $3.2 billion in sales volume, up 27.1% from Q1 ’21.
• Agents took 26.3 thousand new listings (new market inventory).
• Agents wrote 19.2 thousand contracts (projected closings), up 18.3% over Q1 ’21.
• Contracts written volume was $2.9 billion, up 25.5% over Q1 ’21.
• In February, KW announced an expansion into Sint Maarten.
• In March, KW announced an expansion into Guyana.

Outside of the U.S. and Canada, KWW’s regions include: Albania; Argentina; Aruba; Belgium; Belize; Bermuda; Cambodia; Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Dominican Republic; Dubai, UAE; France; Greece; Guyana; Honduras; Indonesia; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Jamaica; Japan; Luxembourg; Malaysia; Mexico; Monaco; Mongolia; Morocco; Nicaragua; Northern Cyprus; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Poland; Portugal; Puerto Rico; Romania; São Paulo, Brazil; Saudi Arabia; Serbia; Sint Maarten; Slovenia; Southern Africa; Spain; Suriname; Thailand; Turkey; Turks and Caicos; United Kingdom; Uruguay; and Vietnam.

“The credit for our quarter after quarter of aggressive international growth belongs to our tech-enabled agents, fueled by our powerful training and business models,” said William E. Soteroff, president, KWW. “Our pipeline remains strong for new worldwide regions.”

Culture and Industry Highlights

In Q1 ’22, Keller Williams associates leaned deeply into their culture, gathering industry accolades. In addition, they welcomed new leaders and segments with open arms.

• In January, KW ranked No. 51 on the Best Places to Work 2022 list by Glassdoor.
• In January, Entrepreneur magazine ranked KW No. 92 on its 2022 Franchise 500 ranking.
• In January, KW unveiled KW Sports + Entertainment, a new business community.
• In February, Stacey Onnen was named head of new business operations.
• In February, RISMedia named seven KW leaders to the 2022 Real Estate Newsmakers.
• In February, Forbes featured KW at No. 140 on its list of America’s Best Large Employers 2022.
• In February, kwx acquired CPros, a concierge transaction management services provider.
• In February, Levi Rodgers was named director of KW Military.
• In March, KW was named to Entrepreneur’s 2022 Fastest-Growing Franchises and HousingWire’s 2022 Tech100 Real Estate Honorees lists.
• In March, six young KW professionals were named to REALTOR® Magazine’s “30 Under 30”.
• In March, Swanepoel named KW the No. 1 real estate franchise by agent count, transaction sides, and sales volume.
• In March, KW’s European franchises helped house Ukrainian refugees.
• In March, KW was recognized as “the most prolific franchise network” on RealTrends 500.

“In Q1 ’22, we continued building and revamping our KW business communities and segments,” said Sajag Patel, head of coaching, communities and learning, KW. “We’re enabling our agents to focus on business growth through more connection, empowerment, and impact.”

“We expect to continue aggressively attracting agents across the full spectrum of their real estate careers,” said Patel. “Our training and coaching are second to none, and continue to boost agent production, leveraging the best practices and lessons learned of our top real estate producers.”

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Keller Williams co-founder and KWx executive chairman Gary Keller has spent decades in the real estate industry – first as an agent himself, and later as an entrepreneur building out the world’s largest real estate franchise. Not only has he seen the business migrate from Rolodexes to sophisticated database technologies, but through Keller Williams’ own Command platform release, he’s played a key role in shaping the future of the industry, a future which keeps agents at the center of the transaction. In a recent livestream, Keller spoke frankly about the ways agents can create a winning business in 2021. Here are six points that stood out:

1. Set a big goal and a big plan

Set a major goal, or a someday goal for a time in the future. Maybe it’s growing your business to be a million-dollar business, or perhaps it’s growing the size of your team. This big goal doesn’t have to be specific. Then, create smaller, more specific achievable goals along the way that will eventually get you to your big goal. Every day, focus on what you can be doing right now to achieve your someday goal, and do it. The number one reason agents fail, adds Keller, is because their plan for how to grow their business is too complicated. “They endorse the idea of complexity,” he says, “instead of whittling it down to something simple.” In reality, top agents find that it’s committing to just a handful of actions or strategies that ultimately determines success. “Then, all the dominoes fall after that,” he says.

Related reading: 7 Common Goal-Setting Mistakes to Avoid

2. Block off mornings for lead generation

“Every real estate agent, their only goal when they get up in the morning should be to lead generate, to feed the data, to fill the database,” Keller says. That’s because the research is clear – top agents regularly engage in three to four main lead generation activities plus three to four minor lead gen activities. “I built my entire organization initially around generating the lead,” Keller adds. If your personality isn’t perfectly suited to lead gen, or you just don’t enjoy it, he says, that’s OK. Commit to putting in the time anyway, so that eventually, you’ll get to a place where you don’t have to lead gen as much. As you lead generate, you’ll also need to make sure you’re properly storing your data. That’s where databases come in.

Related reading: Reclaim Your Time Through Time Blocking

3. View your database as your business

“The basis of all great businesses is the database,” Keller says. Building one, growing it and cultivating it is a key to success. Top agents zero in on their database. They see it as a daily priority above and beyond making a sale. A sale is something nice that happens along the way. “My goal was to see if I could become your Realtor of choice,” Keller says, “or your Realtor for life and get you into my database.” The business relationship follows.

Additionally, top agents calculate and know how big a database they need to achieve their goals and then work toward that number. For example, a database of between 4,000 to 6,000 contacts often eventually translates into a Millionaire Real Estate Agent. “The goal is to be adding people consistently into your database,” Keller says. Then nurture it by consistently and thoughtfully following up with your contacts. “By knowing who my customers are, and knowing who my database is, I can wake up every day and provide them value.”

Commit to adding three new contacts to your database each day – their name, address, phone number and email – and that will translate into 720 new contacts a year.

Related reading: Capture 200+ Contacts in One Day With a Reverse BOLD

4. Focus on referrals

Referrals often pay the highest commission, Keller says, and they – along with past clients – can be among agents’ most loyal leads. “They’re going to pay you the most amount of money per deal commission-wise, and they’re going to be the most loyal to you,” he shares. Agents can help encourage referrals by regularly reaching out to people in their database, says Keller.

When he started his business years ago, KWRI’s own VP of industry Jason Abrams leaned into referral relationships by sharing his mission and value with a fellow agent while at Family Reunion – Keller Williams’ biggest real estate training event of the year. “Months after we met, long after Family Reunion had come and gone, she called to see if I could help her professional football client who had planned to play in her hometown of Miami, but was signed with the Detroit Lions instead,” he says. “I jumped into a limo and showed him a selection of homes. When I got the check for the house he bought three weeks later, it was the most money I’d ever seen in one place.”

Related reading: Tammi Juengst: Turn Relationship Into Referrals

5. Don’t be afraid to delegate

To commit time to lead generation and focusing on building your database, you’ll likely need to delegate tasks to other people on your team, and that’s OK. “Everything else can be delegated,” Keller says. Likewise, once you’ve built up your database to the number you need to achieve your goals, you’ll be able to delegate nurturing your database as well.

The Organizational Model of The Millionaire Real Estate Agent shows agents exactly how to exponentially grow their business by leveraging the talents of others. Hire people for staff positions to handle administrative, buyer and seller duties. Your administrative assistant should be your first hire. Then, once you have more clients than you can handle on your own, you can hire sales staff. Finding talented hires lets you focus on lead generation.

Related reading: The Organizational Model: Leverage Your Way to Limitless Success

6. Put it all together

Take the following steps as you work on lead gen and on building your database:

• Calculate your current database number.
• Set a specific database goal for the future.
• Build a lead gen plan to get there. Keller recommends a minimum of four days a week for a minimum of two hours, though five days a week for three hours is better.

Keller says that with its Command technology, Keller Williams is building the tools to allow a real estate agent to build a database-based business. And, with that in place, “your relationships will come to you, and they will stick with you.”

What does it take to create your brand? A beautiful logo, team colors, a strong slogan, and a well designed website aren't enough.

These are important, but creating a brand is more. It’s the comprehensive way your customers see you and the feeling they get after interacting with your business. It’s your promise to your clients, telling them what to expect from working with you. When done properly, it can be one of the priciest investments into your business.

Branding is no longer a pain point

In real estate, Keller Williams is a leader, helping agents craft their own unique brand by means of Command. Agents may craft a brand that reflects their unique identity without the expense of a high-priced agency or the need for a full communication, marketing, or branding team.

Keller Williams agents can achieve this level of thoughtful branding with Command, using business-critical tools that solve pain points like database management, transaction management, team collaboration, and branding solutions. It empowers agents to take branding into their own hands – creating, redefining, and disseminating – so they can stay top of mind with consumers. Best of all, these tech tools are available at no additional cost.

Designs

With Designs in Command, agents have the opportunity to create their own marketing and branding materials, including digital graphics, social assets, print materials, and landing pages. The tool hosts about 1,160 customizable templates created by marketing pros so agents can focus on moving their business forward by easily crafting beautiful brand assets.

Zimmer Real Estate Group, with lead agent Trent Zimmer, has experienced firsthand the convenience of Designs. When the team had a townhome listing they were keen on advertising in a specific neighborhood, they leveraged a pre-existing template in Designs to create a mailer in under five minutes. “Thirty-six hours later, I got a phone call from a homeowner,” he says. By creating the mailer, Zimmer secured a $390K townhome listing. “Let’s just call it a $12K paycheck that cost me $26 in Command,” he says. On a different occasion, the team used Designs to create a flier to share on community bulletin boards. “It took two minutes, and I got two phone calls the next day,” Zimmer says.

Campaigns

Advertising is an essential part of any business’s branding efforts, and Command has a tool for that as well.

With Campaigns, an agent can create a single ad and then syndicate it across several social platforms linked from within Command. Campaigns also give agents the ability to target their digital ads by user behavior, interests, and demographics. The goal is to remove as much of the guesswork as possible, allowing agents to easily and effectively amplify their brand.

A plethora of agents have found success by leveraging Campaigns to create high-converting Facebook ads. For a total cost of $25, the EZ Sales Team advertised a luxury home listing locally in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Los Angeles, California. For a cost-per-lead of 68 cents, they were able to secure a pre-approved buyer in a short amount of time.

Built-in ad spend suggestions let agents better optimize their efforts so they can get the biggest bang for their buck. In Q2 ‘20, the average cost-per-lead for KW agents inside Command was $1.77 in the U.S. and Canada across social media platforms.

The KW App

One aspect of an agent’s brand that’s harder to measure is the breadth and depth of their own local expertise and how that’s imparted to clients.

Clients searching for a home want to work with an agent who not only knows the ins and outs of the purchasing process, but also has a nuanced and intimate knowledge of the areas they’re living. The KW App – which can be personally branded to the agent – allows them to make their expertise accessible, further fine-tuning the way they’d like to present themselves.

Through the KW App, agents are able to collect valuable consumer insights and lay the groundwork for relationships that last a lifetime while staying wrapped up in their unique brand through their personal touch. The customizable Guide tool allows agents to usher clients through every step of the homeownership journey, while the Search functionality allows them to provide their own recommendations for clients, gather insights from their search activity, and ultimately win their loyalty.

Agents can also flex their local expertise through Neighborhoods, which allows clients to view neighborhood stats, see local reviews, and calculate commute times, giving them a deeper understanding of their new location.

SmartPlans

With so many ways to communicate – emails, phone calls, texts, and follow-ups – often, it can be hard to manage client communications, let alone make sure your messaging is consistent and on-brand. We’ve all received a marketing email or text that didn’t speak to who we are or where we are in the buying cycle. And that can leave a lasting, negative impression.

SmartPlans allows agents to create communication workflows so they can respond to a client’s or lead’s needs and actions.

For example, a new contact can be assigned to a SmartPlan an agent specifically designs for new leads. This SmartPlan can include emails, texts, and action items designed to help the contact get to know the agent.

Agents can design SmartPlans to account for any and all types of clients, leads, interests, and behaviors. The application makes it easy to create targeted and intelligent touchpoints instead of mass blanketed emails or texts, strengthening the integrity and meaningfulness of an agent’s brand and letting clients know their agent is truly listening to them.

A Tech-Enabled Brand

With all the options, the noise, and the management that branding involves, agents need a way to streamline, amplify and target their efforts. Through technology, Keller Williams is making it easy – and economical – for agents to share their personality, passions and expertise with clients, and more effectively communicate they’re the best choice among competitors. Eager to learn more about all of Keller Williams’ tech offerings? It goes beyond branding.

Find Out More Here