Leading brokerage banks on RPR for agent success

When your real estate brokerage grows from 300 agents to over 2,500 in six years, it signals sound decision making along the way. For CENTURY 21^® Affiliated, based in Madison, Wisconsin, that incremental growth stems from the firm’s commitment to attracting and keeping the best REALTORS® its five-state territory has to offer.

Jackie Medows, CENTURY 21^® Affiliated Education Director

“Our agents complete intensive company training besides state and local education,” said CENTURY 21^® Affiliated Education Director Jackie Medows. “They have access to numerous resources that help them stay at the top of their game.”

As the #1 CENTURY 21 franchisee in the world, it’s no surprise that training is at the forefront of Affiliated’s commitment to supporting its agents and ensuring its rapid growth stays true to its principles. “We’ve experienced several mergers as a result of expansion,” she said. “It’s critical that we ensure every agent brought on board knows who we are, what resources are available to them and how we will support their endeavors.”

Realtors Property Resource^® (RPR^®) is a mainstay in the brokerage’s lineup of training programs. Over the past five years, over 1,000 agents have attended one or more RPR training classes thanks to Jackie and her team. And nearly 1,200 of Affiliated’s 2,480 agents use the platform on a ready basis.

The brokerage holds several on-site sessions such as the RPR / zipForm integration, a dive into RPR market statistics, and how-to use RPR’s advanced comp analyses and refine value tools. They also conduct monthly RPR Getting Started classes for new agents.

“We get our biggest ‘a-ha’ moments when we talk about the practicalities of using RPR, like how its neighborhood reports can generate referrals,” said Jackie. She encourages students to use the report to become familiar with a client’s area of interest. “Everything a client wants to know about an area is in RPR’s neighborhood report. In about a minute, an agent can create the report and email or text it to a prospect. In return, the agent conveys his/her market expertise and captures the prospect’s email address for follow-up.”

Jackie cites RPR’s market activity report as a key contributor to an agent’s success, noting how data such as active, pending, sold, expired and distressed properties, besides price changes and upcoming open houses can tip the scales in an agent’s favor when working with clients.

“RPR has all the states and almost all of the country’s MLSs,” she said. “By listening to social media chatter and then using RPR market data to interject themselves into the conversation can generate referrals.”

Beyond training sessions, Jackie points agents to RPR’s Learning Center which houses helpful articles, eBooks, webinars and video tutorials suited to every learning style. The platform also has a 24/7 Customer Support team based in Nebraska. They can be reached at 877.977.7576.