The required education to become a licensed real estate broker is a pathetic, ridiculous joke, they said.
Dave Conklin and partners Rory Wilfong and Steve Young told the world why in their semimonthly podcast Sept. 4.
They might have, at least.
Mark Boyd, who records them, doesn't tell them when he's started and their conversations transition seamlessly to the broadcast.
With journalists visiting the studio earlier this month, he went about preparing for a typical podcast.
"They don't really talk any differently when we're not rolling," Boyd said. "Not all company owners are this entertaining to listen to."
Conklin, Wilfong and Young each enjoyed enough success in real estate to pool their knowledge, talents, and cash to found Web Xtreme in 2003, a business that operates several Web sites.
The flagship is
www.getmyhomesvalue.com, a site that brings together local agents with customers who want to sell their homes.
The site succeeded beyond anyone's expectations and now counts as members more than 2,500 agents across the country who pay about $250 per month for the service.
A disturbing trend soon emerged.
"We were getting very frustrated with our client base," Wilfong said. "We would have agents cancel on us, saying they were overwhelmed. They were getting too many leads."
In real estate parlance, a "lead" is someone interested in making any sort of real estate transaction.
Rusty Hooker, an agent in Bradenton, Fla., has subscribed to the service for about a year and has gotten more than 100 leads.
"Of those 100," he said, "I probably got 10 face-to-face meetings, and that's when you get a high success rate, when you can actually shake somebody's hand."
Hooker earned seven listings from those 10 meetings.
Kelly Tiff, a Scottsdale, Ariz., agent, has used the service for two years and talked about how too many leads can overwhelm the unprepared.
Conklin, Young and Wilfong "say a lot of things other people are scared to say," she said.
"A lot of agents don't want to hear 'You've just got to work harder.' But it's true," she said.
After coaching numerous agents through their "too-much-of-a-good-thing" problem, the trio created a new Web site with more direct teaching tools.
'Lazy, scared, stupid'Launched in late 2003,
www.rorysteveanddave.com hosts a blog and their freewheeling podcast. Both aim to fill the gaps they see in agent's real estate education.
Mark Boyd, Web Xtreme's public relations director, also handles sound, recording, and acts as the podcast's host, sort of.
Several articles caught his eye the day of the podcast and he chose three topics to discuss, written in huge letters on a marker board in his office/studio.
"1) Surrounded by stupid agents; 2) Ethics failures on the rise; 3) LAZY, SCARED, STUPID."
Boyd handed out an article as Conklin, Wilfong and Young sat around a glass table on high stools, donned headphones and sounded off.
Conklin seized on a recent
Rismedia.com piece headlined "Industry competence at lowest point ever."
People have a negative image of real estate agents, he said, because the recent boom attracted undisciplined throngs out for an easy buck.
Wilfong jumped in, saying that today's rough real estate market is good insofar as it weeds out the agents who can't hack it.
"Let them get out of our way," he said.
The criticism, while harsh and colorful, doesn't obscure the goal of teaching.
"I think it's awesome," said Tiff, the Arizona agent. "They just seem to have such great personalities. They're so upbeat and motivating and they have a lot of good info."
Many agents, Conklin said, are essentially running their own businesses with no business training or experience.
"When you're studying for the real estate exam," Conklin said, "you learn about ethics and law and nothing about business."
Frank Christoffel III, executive vice president of the Lancaster County Assocation of Realtors, said that while real estate education clearly focuses on rules and regulations, an agent's success or failure doesn't hinge on classroom learning.
"The old saw says that the worst thing that can happen to an agent is to sell a house the first week because then you think that it's going to stay that easy," he said.
Christoffel, while not familiar with the podcast, lauded the goal of informing consumers and agents alike.
"I think it's excellent," he said. "Especially for agents in an adjusting market.
"They will adapt or they won't survive," said Christoffel.
Authorities?Neither Wilfong, Young, nor Conklin has a master's in business administration and none has reached his 40th birthday. At 37, Wilfong is the elder; Young is 30 and Conklin 27.
So what qualifies them as business experts?
Nothing, Conklin said, except personal experience.
Wilfong and Conklin were longtime friends and became real estate agents in 2000. Young began his career as a loan officer, through which he met Wilfong and Conklin, and founded his own company, Classic Mortgage Services, in 2002.
The professional and personal kinship that the three share shined through in their podcasts and led them to pool their resources to start Web Xtreme in 2003.
"I have a massive interest in technology," Conklin said. "And I wanted to create a Web site that would generate leads."
Thus www.getmyhomesvalue.com was born and Web Xtreme now employs more than 60 people at its Greenfield Road headquarters, in addition to the thousands of agents who subscribe to their service.
Wilfong puts their success down to a simple formula: "Show you're sincere."
Michael Schwartz is a staff writer for the Sunday News. His e-mail address is mschwartz@lnpnews.com.
