``Live and in Person'' Agent Training Relies On Old-Fashioned Methods.

Business Editors & Real Estate Writers

MORRIS PLAINS, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2002

There's a difference between instruction and training.

A lot can be learned by reading manuals, but how to become a functioning real estate agent has to be taught-- in person-- by someone who's been there.

Kirk Miller is director, business development for Weichert Real Estate Affiliates, Inc., the franchising real estate company affiliated with Weichert, Realtors(R). Responsible for introducing Weichert Fast Track Training to sales associates in newly affiliated offices, Miller says, "Newly-licensed agents don't know what to do. They have all these facts in their heads about agency, laws, procedures, but really can't begin on their own. They need to be told, shown, walked through the process."

Dale Midgley, facilitator of Fast Track training, has been telling, showing and walking associates through the process since January 2002. According to Midgley, some 300 new agents in a dozen new franchises from Manhattan to Atlanta to Hendersonville, N.C. have been provided with an immediate track to run on. The five-day live training sessions are held locally in each market immediately following a franchise opening, and then as often as needed afterwards, delivering on its promise of "live, local, often and affordable."

Martin J. Rueter, president of Weichert Real Estate Affiliates, Inc., says that while other real estate franchise groups have replaced personal training with technology, Weichert has added the e-learning systems to their program. Sales associates are taught in-person how to communicate with people on the personal level needed, as well as how to offer customers the latest, fastest market information. "It is possible," Rueter says, "to be in concert with today's technological advances and still maintain the person-to-person interaction that is real estate sales."

Weichert agents are taught, through role-playing plus illustration and action, how to: build a client base, deliver convincing presentations, price and effectively market listings, work with buyers, manage the pending period and develop a business plan that leads to success. Those are the basics.

Underscoring these principles is a set of sub-learning that supports the "People First" philosophy for which Weichert is known. Personal marketing, listening skills and building rapport are high on the list, equal in importance to knowing the local Real Estate Board and MLS rules and regulations.

"Communication is still the key," Midgley points out. "And there's only one way to hone that skill, live and in-person, with the Weichert training edge."

Weichert, Realtors, based in Morris Plains, N.J., has 9,000 sales associates in 200 offices in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., as well as affiliated franchise offices located in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

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    CONTACT: Weichert, Realtors, Morris Plains
             Jennifer Engel, 973/290-5780

    KEYWORD: NEW JERSEY
    INDUSTRY KEYWORD: REAL ESTATE
    SOURCE: Weichert, Realtors