I’m in the Philippines thinking about something I see in some real estate offices — and not in others.
There’s a framework for global economics: wealthy nations built wealth partly by extracting resources from developing nations. Take resources, send back minimum, keep profits. One-directional. Built into the system.
Some real estate offices operate the same way. Others don’t. And that difference is everything.
Some Extract. Some Build.
Top agent carries the office. Some offices take the split, desk fees, transaction costs, then wonder why the producer leaves. Others partner with that producer differently.
Recruiter works three months landing a producer. Some recruiters place and disappear. Others stay invested in that person’s success.
It’s not always intentionally malicious. It’s structural. But it’s extractive. And extraction has an expiration date. When people figure out they’re being taken from, they leave. When they leave, systems collapse.
The Winning Model
I watched a broker flip his problem not with better splits but with partnership.
He paid recruiters commission on placement plus percentage of first-year production. Suddenly recruiter wasn’t placing and leaving. Recruiter was invested in success. Different incentive. Different results.
He invested in top agents’ businesses like partners — training, marketing, leads when pipeline was thin. Not charity. Economics. Agent success is broker success.
He built mortgage and title partnerships based on mutual profit. “How do we build a model where you win, agents win, I win, and we all care about client first?”
That’s not soft leadership. That’s competition. The agents worth recruiting already have options. The top producers know extraction. Affiliate partners have other brokers calling.
You only compete by not being extractive.
One Question This Week
Look at one relationship — an agent, recruiter, affiliate partner. Ask honestly: Am I extracting value from this or creating it with them?
The brokerages winning now aren’t the ones extracting hardest. They’re the ones who figured out that when you stop taking and start building with, the people worth having actually stay.
Win the Day.
