In the following interview, Alex Iskenderian, owner/REALTOR® with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Maui Properties in St. Lahaina/Wailea, Hawaii, discusses agent development, culture and more.
Region Served: Maui, but also licensed in California
Years in Real Estate: 6
Number of Offices: 2
Number of Agents: 25
Favorite Time-Saving Tech Tool: The Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise provides a platform called the Resource Center where we can put together our marketing material and marketing collateral. It expedites the marketing process because I don’t need to design postcards or mail pieces. Instead, I can go into the system and click on the listing and the marketing pieces are automatically populated.
What is the first thing you do when you arrive at the office each morning?
I check my emails, and then I check what we call the “hot list,” which is a list of all the properties that are new on the market and have experienced a price change, sold, gone into escrow, cancelled or expired.
What is your personal philosophy for real estate success?
Consistency. Not just in tasks, but consistency in marketing, so that when a client drives by our office, they see the same sign they see on our open houses and for-sale signs and postcards and print media and HGTV. We provide all the signage for our agents, so everywhere you turn, you see the same branding. I believe our success is attributed to being extremely aggressive and consistent in our tasks, branding and marketing.
Can you describe your company culture?
We don’t have a competitive in-house culture. While we bring on agents for specific markets, we don’t bring on agents to compete with other agents in the office. We have a synergistic atmosphere in that everyone is willing to work with each other and no one is stepping on one another’s feet. We’re also relatively youthful and family-oriented. We do things as if we’re friends and family, not just agents.
What sets your team apart from other brokerages?
The Berkshire Hathaway name obviously helps. We’ve also been in the same location for 25 years, which we own, and that ties back into our consistency. We’re one of the few real estate brokerages in the state that owns all of its office locations. Our consistency with branding and marketing sets us apart, too. Even though we have minimal agents compared to some of the larger companies, it feels like we’re the dominant brokerage on the island simply because of our marketing consistency. Our signs are everywhere.
How do you keep your agents motivated?
We offer as much support to our agents as they need in order to be successful. We also have an incentivizing commission structure in which productivity is rewarded. Our agents are not penalized if they’re not as productive as before, and once they get to a commission level, it’s not taken away from them.
For more information, please visit www.berkshirehathawayhs.com.
Zoe Eisenberg is RISMedia’s senior content editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at zoe@rismedia.com.
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