Make Video a Strategic Priority Says CEO of Keller Williams

I recently sat down with Chris Heller, CEO of Keller Williams Realty International, to hear why he is so bullish on video. In the video below, he explains why video gives KW’s real estate agents a competitive advantage in generating leads and closing deals. Read the full interview to hear Chris’s rationale for why to make video a strategic priority across your whole business. 

First, tell us a little bit about Keller Williams.

Keller Williams is the largest real estate company in the world, and we’re also the fastest growing. We have at this moment, over 127,000 associates in North America and in a dozen other countries. We were voted the number 1 training organization across all industries by Training Magazine. We’re more than just a real estate company though, we’re a training and education organization. Out of all the major brands in the U.S., we’re the only non-public, privately-owned, and we’re a company that was started and is still run by real estate agents.

Tell us about your own background at Keller Williams.

I joined Keller Williams in 2004. For the 16 years prior to that, I was with another brand, and I joined Keller Williams as an agent in 2004. By 2006, I launched my own Keller Williams Franchise; we call them “Market Centers.” By 2009, I was the number 1 Keller Williams Agent globally, and in 2010, I took a position here at our headquarters to help expand Keller Williams around the world.

What defines the Keller Williams brand? What makes it special within the real estate industry?

There are several things that really make Keller Williams different or unique. Our culture is very experiential. Our people are very passionate about our company, and that creates a very strong culture. Now there are specific reasons why that happens. First, we’re a profit-sharing company, so our associates are more partners than employees. We really have that partner mentality, or that stakeholder mentality, and because we profit-share we also give them a say in the decisions that Keller Williams makes. That creates a dynamic and an environment where it’s a, “We.” It’s not, “Us and them,” and that creates a very strong culture.

I’ve heard you say that the highest level at Keller Williams is the agent level. What does that mean to you?

The highest level in Keller Williams is the agent level. All of our decisions, all of our focus, all of our initiatives, everything that we consider is: “what’s best for the agent?”

What are some ways that you put agents’ needs first?

When an agent wakes up every day, there’s usually a couple of things that they’re focused on. One is finding more buyers and sellers — more leads. They’re either looking at ways that they can generate leads or tools they can use to help them do that. The other thing that an agent’s focused on is: how do I provide the best possible experience for the consumers, so I get more repeat and referral business?

From a technology standpoint, it’s not real difficult for us to understand what agents want and need, because we’re all agents. We know what works and what we like, and what will help our businesses. A good example of how we’ve done that in the past was that, in 2009, we came out with a complete lead-to-close system. It’s a platform that agents could operate their businesses on called eEdge. In fact, we were awarded innovator of the year that year in our industry. We were the first company to do that. We were the first company to come out with individually branded mobile apps for our agents, so our agents could share their mobile app with their buyers and sellers, so that the consumers could have a search app on their smart phone that was branded to the agent. There’s a long list of things like that that we’ve done, or tools that we’ve provided, that we’re the first and it’s always one of our goals.

I work with a lot of video leaders, but it’s not that often we see a CEO make video a strategic priority. Tell me about your commitment to video.

We always have to be growing as a company — our agents and their businesses — and growing also as individuals and as leaders. We’re very much about growth at all levels. The only way for us to do that is to really focus on innovation and actually have a specific innovation plan, so that we’re getting ahead of the curve.

At Keller Williams, we’re disrupting, which means that we’re creating new tools that are the next generation for our agents, and for the consumers our there to have a better experience in the home buying and home selling process.

Video is becoming more and more important. I think that’s going to continue as we move into the future, which is why we make video a strategic priority. If someone’s coming to my website, for them to be able to view a video or several short videos on our value proposition, or how we do certain things, or how what we do could benefit them, becomes an effective marketing tool. To be able to have videos to send out to someone as a follow-up after a phone conversation or a meeting or open house is important to the transaction process. To be able to show properties by walking prospects through them with video and say, “Hey, here’s one I’m in right now. Take a look at this one.” It’s all critical.

So it sounds like incorporating video into every stage of a real estate transaction, from lead generation through to close, is a priority?

Video helps agents in generating leads because it gives them another vehicle to be able to communicate their value proposition, to connect with that buyer and seller. But it can be used to help in a lot of different ways, from the initial contact — which might be someone visiting an agent’s website, or an agent reaching out to someone via the database — through the close of the transaction, and then forever beyond that. We use video to communicate what’s going on, what’s going to happen next, here’s what you want to be working on and prepared for, or thinking about. Then we also update our past clients on things that are happening in the market – things that might impact the value of their property, that might impact their future plans, or things that they could be doing to take advantage of current trends, or where we are in different cycles of the market.

Lead generation is only one of the ways you’ve built a video-centric business. Tell me about the role it plays in your training and coaching programs.

Well we really view ourselves as a training and coaching organization. Gary Keller is an author, he’s a teacher, that’s what his passion is, and the company was started that way and we’ll always be that way. We’re always looking at creating new courses and creating new materials, and providing more value so that our agents can learn more and grow. If someone is learning-based, there’s no better place for them to be than in an organization like this.

When we have individuals that are participating in our training and coaching programs, we see a very tangible increase in their business. In fact we’re able to look course by course, and we’re able to see what happens to an agent’s business when they participate in training versus someone who doesn’t. We can see how many more transactions an agent is able to do because of the training that they’ve put themselves through or taken advantage of. And the agents that have coaches are more productive and have more profitable businesses than the ones that don’t.

How will you continue to lead with video?

I think everything we do, we have to do it exceptionally well. That includes the tools that we provide whether it’s a technology tool that we’re rolling out, whether it’s a new training course or education, whether it’s taking our current platform for education, our online platform, and completely re-doing it to provide a better experience, and more ease of use with the users. I don’t say that bragging, I say that because it’s our focus, and it’s because it’s what we do.