According to Wayne Johnson, Founder and Managing Director of Agent Profit Planner, the true measure of a real estate agency’s success lies in the numbers.
Wayne has spent many years in real estate, both as an agent and in national franchise management, gaining valuable insight into the challenges that agency owners face when it comes to truly understanding their financials. In response to this, he created Agent Profit Planner, a tool designed to help real estate agencies convert financial insights into practical growth strategies. This tool provides a clearer financial picture, enabling agency owners to make better decisions for long-term success.
Early in his career, Wayne established his own real estate offices. This experience highlighted a crucial gap in the industry: a disconnect between strong interpersonal skills and a solid understanding of business finances. Wayne recognized that a clear financial outlook is essential for sustainable growth.
Over the years, Wayne observed that many real estate agents excelled in communication and sales but often faced challenges in managing the business aspects of their roles. In particular, Wayne noticed that agents in smaller businesses, though strong in sales, often lacked the insight into what truly drove profit. They were skilled at generating revenue but had limited understanding of the financial dynamics that could impact the success of their business.
This gap in financial understanding led to many agents visiting their accountant annually, signing paperwork, and then returning to their daily tasks without fully comprehending the financial health of their business. They would return to their daily routines without a clear picture of their financial health, stuck in a repetitive cycle.
Recognizing a recurring challenge faced by many real estate agents, Wayne took the initiative to develop a solution. He began with a simple Excel tool to address the issue but quickly realized the need for a more comprehensive and accessible approach. Seven years ago, he transformed this tool into a cloud-based program, continuously refining it based on user feedback.
Agent Profit Planner is more than just a financial tracking tool. It empowers agencies to test different strategies and predict future profits. By simulating various scenarios, agencies can assess the potential impact of changes before implementing them in the real world.
While standard dashboards focus on past data, the program gives agents the ability to test various variables, like expanding the team or modifying fee structures, before implementing changes in the real world. It encourages planning ahead.
Wayne’s approach gives agents a transparent, growth-focused view. It starts by assessing the business in its current state and determining its current profit situation. Agents can then replicate the current scenario and modify various factors, such as increasing the sales team, changing fees, or restructuring incentives, to observe how each adjustment impacts the bottom line. This allows them to plan for growth with confidence and avoid uncertainty.
Wayne points out that the tool is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized agencies, where a single financial misstep can lead to major setbacks In these types of agencies, each decision carries weight, and even minor errors can have a substantial effect on the bottom line.
Agent Profit Planner continues to thrive with the help of the REACH program, which supports innovative PropTech solutions. The platform is created to work effortlessly alongside bookkeepers, ensuring it’s easy to use, even for the busiest agency owners. It’s also designed to be set up quickly, taking no more than two hours. While it may seem complicated at first, agents can start seeing real, meaningful results once it’s up and running.
The goal has been to make the tool as straightforward as possible. It focuses not only on the numbers but also on how those numbers guide better decisions. This tool enables agency owners to approach their business with a new outlook and make proactive, well-informed choices.
In a competitive market with narrow margins, Wayne understands how crucial it is for agencies to closely monitor their profit drivers. He has witnessed the consequences of inefficient spending firsthand.
Wayne has often encountered agency owners asking about seemingly mysterious expenses, such as long-forgotten software subscriptions they’ve been paying for without using. By simply reviewing their expenses, agencies can often uncover surprising savings before even utilizing the program.
Through his program, Wayne helps agencies spot areas of financial leakage. A frequent pitfall he notices is principals offering high commission rates to sales staff to secure top performers, not realizing the significant effect this has on their profit margins.
Wayne emphasizes the significance of strategic hiring in driving business growth. He points out that many real estate principals, preoccupied with listing and selling properties, often neglect to dedicate adequate time to recruitment and strategic planning.
Additionally, Wayne notes that principals frequently retain underperforming staff for extended periods. His tool provides data-driven insights to identify agents and assistants who may no longer be contributing effectively, assisting principals in making tough staffing decisions.
Wayne is deeply motivated by the goal of supporting small to medium-sized agencies in achieving their full potential. He recognizes the hard work that agency owners put in and highlights the widespread misconception that they are all highly profitable, noting that many are not. Wayne emphasizes the importance of taking time to reflect, suggesting that agency owners should dedicate just a few hours each quarter to review their numbers, as this can lead to substantial improvements in their business.
