How To Be a Broker - Office Management Certification (OMC)

The New Broker's Benchmark: Prepare and Perform! is a video course series designed to provide information on suggested policies for your brokerage that will assist you in maintaining compliance with the Department of Real Estate.

There will be videos to watch on multiple pages, as well as interactive quizzes and reviews to ensure comprehension. A final exam will be required at the end of this course to signify completion.

In Part 1, Prepare, we'll review how to best prepare for yearly business planning and to adjust your plan throughout the year. This course will also cover components of the CA-RPA, CA-RLA an how to understand your financial statements. In this section you will be able to:

• Identify the common organizational structures in real estate and how they might affect how you run your business;
• Understand, how to set up or update an Office Policy Manual for your brokerage;
• Explain valuable information, instruction, tools and techniques for running a real estate brokerage from an operational point of view;
• Learn about specific aspects of managing financial statements for your brokerage business.

In Part 2, Perform, we'll review how to set appropriate policies for your agents and employees. You will also learn what to include in your office policy manual. In this section you will be able to:

• Identify the rules in which your agents will follow when they interact with clients, other agents and staff;
• Understand, how to set up or update an Office Policy Manual for your brokerage;
• Explain valuable information, instruction, tools and techniques for running a real estate brokerage from an operational point of view;
• Learn about specific aspects of handling dispute resolutions with your agents and clients.

This course is a series of videos recorded from a live webinar so that you can learn the material in an Online Anytime format. Annette Graw, an experienced REALTOR®, shares her knowledge on managing the brokerage, office assistants, agents and other staff.

Nuts and Bolts: The Broker’s Day-to-Day is intended to provide the learner with a general working knowledge of the basic operations of the broker’s office and how to better function in your supervisory role to increase productivity in your agents.

The topics covered in this course are:

1. Broker Supervision
2. Training and Education
3. Recruiting and Retention
4. Building a Better Brokerage
5. Business Issues

Course Objectives

After attending this course, students will be able to:

• Understand the role and responsibility of the broker
• Describe the different avenues and opportunities for education and training within the industry
• Understand that the brokerage needs to retain good agents and recruit new ones
• Know what is required by the DRE and the best practices to stay compliant
• Develop an office that motivates, encourages and enables agent to thrive in our competitive real estate world
• Describe several methods of education and training, both inside the brokerage as well as Realtor resources.
• Understand that there are several avenues for training within our industry
• Learn who is responsible for the role of broker.
• Define recruiting and retention as well as "de-hiring."
• Learn the many resources we have through CAR, both in your office and on-line, as well through your local Association of Realtors.
• Describe different systems in place for hiring, training and business management
• Develop a culture in your office that attracts seasoned agents.
• Understand and implement DRE and State of California requirements.
• Understand local regulations, taxation and license regulations.

This Administrative Staffing course is intended to provide company leadership with real-world guidance and practices focused on developing an organization that fosters efficient operations through effective staffing. Not all staffing issues are issues with an employee. Effective staffing relationships go beyond the employee and encompass the business as a whole, developing a cohesive partnership for success.

Administrative Staffing: The Human Side of Human Resourcesis intended to provide company leadership with real-world guidance and practices focused on developing an organization that fosters efficient operations through effective staffing. Not all staffing issues are issues with an employee. Effective staffing relationships go beyond the employee and encompass the business as a whole, developing a cohesive partnership for success.

Learning Objectives

After attending this course, students will be able to:

• Identify the consequences of ineffective staffing relationships
• Create a personnel profile and an accurate job description
• Follow a successful hiring process from start to finish
• Prepare for the employee's First Day
• Develop an effective training plan for new hires
• Explain the importance of Performance Management
• Encourage Personnel Development
• Avoid making the same mistakes in hiring again

The Recruiting and Retaining course will focus on various aspects of capitalizing on personal strengths when recruiting like using simple strategies for overcoming reluctance and 21 ways to reach potential recruits. Additionally, attendees will learn to review current practices for recruiting and how to implement new strategies.

In this course you will learn:

• How to capitalize on your personal strengths when recruiting.
• A simple strategy for overcoming call reluctance.
• 21 ways to reach potential recruits.
• The profile of real estate sales success and how to identify agents who best fit that criteria.
• How to create an Office Production Profile that will help you to identify the gaps in your office and how best to fill them.
• Why it is critical to focus on profitability, not just revenue.
• The profile for new agent success including the primary reasons new agents fail.
• The steps you need to create a Unique Recruiting Proposition for your office/company.
• Why you should always conduct multiple interviews, use a job application, and do a reference and social media check for every person you interview.
• Key questions to ask new and experienced agents plus how to overcome their most common objections.
• How to avoid violating the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations.
• Key questions to ask as you launch your brokerage including how to handle naysayers.
• Pitfalls to avoid when partnering.
• Ten best practices for retention and agent supervision from over 50 top brokers.
• How to calm angry situations and handle terminations.
• What constitutes an actual agent team.
• When and how to coach agents about starting a team.
• Best practices for attracting and retaining agent teams.
• Why many agent teams are a ticking time bomb for their brokers.

Discover what the terms mergers and acquisitions mean and the various elements of these types of transactions. Throughout three learning tracks, you will be introduced to mergers and acquisitions, the differences and what might be the right strategy for you to utilize in each scenario. Other aspects to cover will be valuation and deal structure, value formulas, how to make sure companies have a good and correct valuation, and the actual transaction.

The objective of this course is to familiarize C.A.R. members and licensed brokers with the world of mergers and acquisitions. We will explore the various elements of a transaction, beginning with how to best structure your business. This course will cover both high level points and some finite details unique to M & A’s, including how to prepare for the due diligence process.

• In the first part of the course, I will provide an overview of what M & A’s are, how they are being used, various types and their purposes, and the consideration that goes into them.
• In the second part, I’ll explain how to prepare a brokerage for acquisition or set it up for a merger with another company. I’ll share personal and business considerations and list important points that need review and execution. Valuation and deal structures are also covered.
• In the third part, I’ll explain the different steps of the merger and acquisition processes, along with the terminology and typical timelines. I’ll take you through the checklist of things to consider before entering an agreement, the transaction details, the financial aspects of the deal and what to expect during the due diligence process.