Hiring an agent or a team
There are two models for real estate agents, you can either be a sole practitioner or be part of a team and there are advantages and disadvantages to both. I'm not going to suggest that because I choose to be a sole practitioner that it is the better model, rather it is a better model for me.
Before I became a Charleston real estate agent I spent over 25 years in sales and management in the gift and home decor industry and much of that time was spent managing a large (and in most cases) a very successful and top producing sales force.
I also used the services of a number of real estate agents back in those days. I had some good ones and some not so good ones. I think many people who have had several real estate transactions would probably say the same thing unless they didn't move around the country like I did and stayed local using the same agent over again as long as they were happy with the quality of service provided.
Sometimes I thought I was going to be working with an agent but actually wound up working with a members of the team of the agent I selected. And while it doesn't always have to be the case, in my personal experience I wasn't all that happy when I wound up in that situation. Maybe I was disappointed to find out that the hard work that I spent finding a top agent didn't result in getting to use that agent or maybe the members of the team just weren't all A players to use a phrase from the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson on how he built Apple (by the way, the book was outstanding).
As I say, that doesn't always have to be the case and some team leaders might surround themselves with all A players but how many Apples are out there in the real estate space. My guess is not too many.
Now because I really didn't want to manage anyone any longer, I chose to practice real estate as a sole practitioner with the idea of providing outstanding personalized service.
And isn't outstanding personalized service what you really want anyway whether it comes from an individual agent or a team member.
Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons by Dawn (Willis) Manser