Bingo Randy... you just hit the nail on the head !!!.

""Most of us know from experience that the "mega" agents give poor service and are impossible to work with since they seldom return phone calls. You have to do all the work if you sell one of their listings. Tell me I am not right!"""   (your right) :)

Vance

What I don't understand is why the agents stick around and watch their team leader take all the credit for their work.  ???

I am my staff right now so whatever I do on my own is all mine. I learned years ago I don't care what others do as long as they are legal and upright in their dealings. I am happy for those who can make the big claims honestly.

I have enough on my plate on a daily basis to deal with and applaud those that get the "deals done" whether they have staff or not.

Actually, the thought of having staff right now sounds just like something else I have to keep up with so for now, it is all good. My happy clients are my reward, and the check at closing is nice too.

Why should you care if somebody gets or takes credit for multi-millions of dollars of sales?  What should matter to each person is their own net income after taxes and how they earned it.  Every person puts a different emphasis on the important things in their life.  Some are driven, working 85 hour weeks, to amass huge totals, others spend lots of time with family and are happy to have a much smaller income.  Some people crave awards, others don't care what other people think.  Basically as long as an agent's production is legal, ethical, and moral, I don't care about how they are rewarded or awarded.

Randy you are correct but I believe Mark really hits the nail square! Everyone should gauge their success and failure on something more personal than production or earnings. If it were solely earnings and production, the happiest people would be the biggest producers. I may be wrong but that is more often untrue than true! The need to be noticed is also a road to unhappiness. The more you try the less it will happen in a way that will be positive. Perhaps everyone would be happier if they chose something between notoriety, fame and being the best in the industry and settled for being the best they can be in their family and life. It is a wide difference and something that most will find much more rewarding. All good things are not made of gold.

The mega agents are not always difficult to work with and don't always provide poor service. Such generalizations serve no purpose and all we can do is strive to provide the very best service and results for our clients. Whether as part of a team or as individuals, our goals should include becoming the very best real estate agents our desire and capability will allow.

Now, Now, Now, not all "mega agents" are hard to work with. I was the office manager/transaction coordinator for a so called mega agent. (Bob also worked for him for a short while) After the initial face time with the leader of our pack I took over and everyone was treated to superior service and returned phone calls. The joke was that if "HE" had to call you; you or your buyer or seller did something to jeopardize the deal. Other than that it was smooth sailing.

The only draw back was; was he looked better than he really was.

We are now very happy to be on our own striving to make a name for ourselves.

They are the Rainmaker.  They are the reason the team has so many deals.  

Actually, Randy, Prudential had (and I believe it still has) a pretty good awards system that did recognize individual agents for their production. When I started, I really really really wanted to reach to the closest award level ... I did the second year in the business ... and that's when I realized that these awards and levels of production in reality mean very little ... great, I had an award ... great, a lot of agents in my office told me how great it was because they either didn't have one or did but didn't think I would get there so soon ... but what I didn't see was money in my checking account ... we all know what our expenses can amount to so it was a reality check for me ... I looked into it a little more and what I found out was that a lot of TOP agents aren't really that well off ... I did my own math and research and realized that a lot of them have assistants, team members  ... not a lot of them are true TOP PRODUCERS.

so, I no longer let it worry me. I just don't care. I have a whole bunch of TOP producing agents in my area, listing right in my neighborhood ... but a lot of them have a reputation I would not want and I doubt that their clients ever even see them because they are hiding behind their buyer's agents and listing agents. They aren't really agents ... they are managers.

In our area it is seperated by teams and individuals.

I am one who realy does not care about stats, like that, but more about , can I make   the type of living I want, and how well I am meeting my goals and my clients goals.

It would be great to get all those awards, if it happens great, if not thats okay. My reward comes every time a referal comes in that we helped. that is the real bread and butter in this business.

Mega agents are like everything else in this business. Some good , some bad, & some okay. Just like any other  agent, you have good ones, bad ones and some okay ones.  

One of our favorite things to do, is turn a clients previous bad experince into a good one.

I love hearing at closing thank you so much , you did a great job!!!

OR

The home has not yet sold and the listing time is up and they relist because they have gotten excellent service and appreciate everything you had done to get their home sold!  

Who cares about a placque to hang on the wall, when you get that directly from the people that you work for.  

My Mom & I are a team , just the 2 of us , and some years, we have given the bigger teams a good run for their money and won team awards. We didn't even realize that we had won anything or that we  was acknowledged , we don't go to the local county awards or the Re/max awards. The office just submitts the information every year for all the office agents.

So as a team, I know that not all teams give bad service. I work with alot of mega teams, in our area they sell some our listings, and I appreicate their co broking business. Of course there may be a few that are more difficult , but that can be true even it if was not a mega agent .

When I entered the real estate realm, it was my first experience with sales. Before, I sat behind a desk pushing a pencil doing debits and credits for years. It was a huge transition for me and I was enlightened to say the least! The sales awards made me uncomfortable simply because of the competition they stimulated within the office environment. I observed hard working struggling agents intimidated when others that started at the same time received kudos for their sales and their success was not from hard work, but simple luck. I understand awards are well deserved and they stimulate agents to work harder; I have received them myself. But they can also stimulate agents to focus only on their sales volume and not on quality service, which is the point of this post. Wouldn't it also be productive to award agents that receive praise from their clients as well as sales production? I believe that focus would not only build a finer reputation for the brokerage, but create quality agents rather than only money and award focused agents which may induce incorrect priorities.

I agree with the sentiment.  We too struggle, but nothing is better than having a happy client.  If we don't get the awards, it is OK.

Darcy

This year, our Association is not having awards. The individual offices have been encouraged to have in office awards but no AOR production awards.

The reason is that our new MLS system does not provide for co-listing or co-selling agents. Hundreds of agents who are in teams or have partners were upset about not getting 'credit' for their 'half'.

My original statement up there was, how some of the agents liked having a team leader take credit. Because it's been my experience that many of the agents do care. Not that it's important to me.

I'm always trying to develop the agents in my office while I'm building and maintaining my business relationships. Capitalism at its finest.

"Do well by doing good." (B Franklin)

(singing to the tune of G Thorogood . . . "I Work Alone, yeah with nobody else")   :)