Today's interview is with Ron Stuart, Laurie Furem, Mollie Wasserman, Merv Forney and Paula Bean, regarding how home sellers pay for professional real estate help in the marketing & sale of their home.

As an Accredited Consultant in Real Estate, you counsel clients rather than sell to them, and you provide a variety of ways in which you can assist clients in reaching their goals (and a variety of compensation models too).

The question I have for you is this: how frequently do your consulting clients end up with a traditional type of commission arrangement for selling a home as opposed to paying a flat fee, fee for service or an hourly rate?

Ron: Rarely
Merv: About 50/50
Paula: Not often with a "regular sale"
Laurie: It's mixed...
Mollie: My experience was like Laurie's

Let's dig a little deeper. It sounds like in many cases; clients opt for something other than hiring with a commission compensation plan.

Can you fill us in on that a little more?

As we've said many times, consulting is not about a fee schedule! Consulting is a practice that provides quality, transparent choices with commission being just one of the choices offered. You can do 100% of your business by commission and yet practice as a consultant because you have the tools in your toolbox to offer other choices, both in the services you offer and how you can get paid. Providing choices is a wonderful thing - it brings you the business regardless of how they ultimately pay.

I've taught consulting before ACRE® was born and have had several requests over the last three years which I've always put aside, mostly for lack of time. However, I received a request two months ago that changed my mind.

Once the new course book is completed, it is our intention to raise the bar in terms of the requirements to become an ACRE®. Clearly, in order to become a successful consultant, one needs to not just understand the model, but also have developed a strategic focus (I don't want to use the phrase "business plan" as it makes most agents' eyes glaze over) and most importantly, have calculated your hourly rates and any fee packages that you want to offer. Without this practical work complete, the theory is useless.

First, a new course site will be integrated right here on The Consulting Times. The current course site was set up before the TCT was envisioned and the two sites have never talked with each other, not only providing conflicting information, but making for a lot of extra work behind the scenes.

1. It makes one think.
   
   
2. Jennifer's thoughts are at the heart of consulting where the fundamental question when dealing with clients should be "Is this in my client's interest or in mine?"

I was chatting with a friend of mine last week when he admitted that he had been without health insurance since he got out of college. Given that he's a real estate agent, that's not so surprising: as an independent contractor he's on his own regarding health insurance and many in our industry have simply taken their chances, especially when they are young and healthy like my friend Jack.

But as part of the approximately 15% of Americans who are uninsured, Jack has a window on a phenomenon that few of the rest of us ever see: what health services actually cost. You see, Jack was playing softball one Saturday a couple of weeks ago and sprained his ankle. As luck would have it, a member of the team was a physician and offered to take a look at the ankle at his office. After his ankle was wrapped up, Jack offered to pay him.