FOR BROKERS: Companies to Watch
Lifestyles, REALTORS®
Jacksonville, Fla.
www.lifestylesREALTORS.com
BY ROBERT FREEDMAN
Critical path to sales
Corporate marketing method helps snare big share of market.
Even by the standards of the hot condominium markets in northern Florida, the roughly 700 percent growth rate in sales volume that Lifestyles, REALTORS®, posted between its launch in late 2001 to the end of 2004, and the 150 percent growth it reached in 2005, are impressive.
The company says it closed $500 million in sales in 2005 and is on track to reach $1 billion in 2006. Lifestyles, which is headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., has a presence in Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta, and Minneapolis.
The quick sales growth stems in part from the company’s preference to fill its sales ranks with marketing professionals—from the likes of Citibank, IBM, MCI, and Xerox—who bring an understanding of corporate sales techniques. Company President Michael Bugg believes the techniques resonate particularly well with the high-end buyers the company typically works with.
About 80 percent of Lifestyles’ 300 associates have corporate backgrounds. The others are seasoned real estate salespeople and new licensees, many directly out of college, says Bugg.
With a roster of corporate talent, Bugg can implement corporate sales and marketing techniques, such as critical path marketing. In this widely used technique, salespeople map out steps needed to reach a sale and then follow an action plan to reduce the chance of steps falling through the cracks.
In the context of working with condo developers, salespeople using the method identify the marketing advantages of the development and then map out the critical path. Associates work with the developer early in the process. They consult on the amenity package and condo rules; match the marketing strategy to the target audience; execute the promotional activity, including the opening party; and manage the sales and closing process; among other things.
“People from the corporate world tend to hold to the critical path automatically,” says Bugg, who was himself a corporate marketer for MCI before entering real estate.
No two compensation plans for associates representing condo projects are the same, because each plan grows out of the customized marketing package. But in a typical case, the selling associate and the brokerage might each receive a small percentage fee, so there’s no commission splitting between the broker and the associate. The brokerage might also receive a separate agreed-on fee (based on a percentage of sales) from the developer to offset its project marketing costs.
The company represents condos at price points ranging from $120,000 to $7 million. About 40 percent of the projects are new construction; the other 60 percent are rental conversions.
About 40 percent of the company’s business is in existing single-family home sales, for which associates are compensated with a traditional commission split. The company uses critical path selling in these sales, too. “Traditionally schooled sales associates are willing to learn how it’s done,” says Bugg. “Many of them never learned a specific sales method at their old brokerage, and they like having a method.”
Lifestyles, REALTORS®
Jacksonville, Fla.
www.lifestylesREALTORS.com
