Profit good. Sharing better.
More about the company I am aligned with. Keller Williams Realty is the largest real estate company today (over 100,000 agent) and we have something unique. Our owners make profits and they choose to share them. It’s roughly a 52/48 split with 48% of the profit going to the agents that helped the company grow.
It free to participate, you make no investment and assume no risk but every month there is a check that is deposited into your account and it’s real money. If you want to see details you can down load a white paper here but this not really the story I want to tell. It’s just back ground.
If you are a part of KW and help grow the company you earn profit share. If you stay with the company for 3 years and 1 day, you get to keep earning that money, even if you change companies or careers. That profit share is your’s til you die and then it transfers one time to a person you designate in your will.
But what if you die before the 3 years are up? That is the story I want to tell.
I am sharing a story I heard and I believe to be true but I have not been able to find a reference you can check independently. If I find one I’ll update this post. I do know the facts to be true with regard to vesting if you die before the 3 years is up but how that happened is the interesting part.
There was an agent who died unexpectedly before her 3 years was up. She had understood the profit share model and she has several good agents in her down line. Upon her passing it was noted that her estate was not going to receive the profit share and the International Associate Leadership Council (IALC) of Keller Williams wanted to make a change. They voted unanimously to have her vested and her profit share went to her estate. In fact, here is the exact quote from the KW Policy Manual:
“In the event of the death of a non-vested individual, KWRI will make arrangements for the early vesting of an individual who has helped the system grow through the addition of associates, the opening of a Market Center and/or work promoting the growth of a Region, and KWRI will pay any applicable Profit Sharing to the deceased’s estate per guidelines which are established by the International ALC and KWRI”.
The really cool part of this story is who told it. It was explained that this was told by the son of the agent that died. He shared how he and his siblings were able to go to college and graduate because of what Keller Williams did in vesting his mom, by changing rules and making it retroactive to include her.
I love who I work with and I will be no where else as long as this attitude of sharing, doing the right thing and the culture remains like this.
If your company doesn’t share the profits or doesn’t take care of their own like this, call me. We need to talk.
Thanks for listening,
Jerry Robertson
678-231-1578 Cell