Sustainable Selling with Bill Lublin

By now, social media plays a major role in the lives of many real estate professionals. Indeed, 25 percent of agents say they’re “extremely comfortable” using social media. But few agents or brokers are as comfortable with social media as Bill Lublin—after all, he wrote the book on it.

As CEO of The Social Media Marketing Institute, Bill saw a need for better education on social media marketing for real estate professionals. “As a species, we seem to lose IQ points when we get behind a keyboard,” Bill told us. “I began creating a course because I felt nobody was teaching people in our business how to use social media in an effective and ethical manner.”

Getting 150% of any given commission doesn’t mean you don’t wake up unemployed the next day.

— BILL LUBLIN

On the strength of that course, the National Association of REALTORS® tasked Bill with rewriting their e-PRO technology certification in 2010. Then, in 2015, Bill rewrote it again. It’s no wonder Bill is a highly sought-after speaker and educator, or that he’s won dozens of awards, including being inducted into the REALTORS Hall of Fame.

But Bill isn’t just a social media expert: he’s also served as CEO of CENTURY 21 Advantage Gold in Philadelphia, PA, one of the largest CENTURY 21 firms in the country, for over thirty years. For Bill, the secret to building a successful real estate company isn’t much of a secret at all.

“I think you have to be aware of what it takes for your company to be profitable,” Bill explained. “Because if you try to buy an agent by giving them some kind of goofy commission split that’s unsupportable, you end up with an unhealthy company. And some other person is gonna come up with a business model that’s even sillier than yours.”

For Bill, agents put too much emphasis on commission splits as well. “Agents sort of focus on trying to hit the highest commission split,” he explained. “They don’t realize that it doesn’t matter how big your commission split is: you only make money in the business if you do volume. Getting 150% of any given commission doesn’t mean you don’t wake up unemployed the next day.”

In this interview, Bill outlines the right way to talk about yourself and your business on social media, and explains how both agents and brokers can build a successful sales strategy based on sustainability.

– Matt & Seth