When Mary Tucker joined her high school’s rifle team, a few of her classmates questioned her skills and told her she should probably quit. That afternoon, Mary went home, asked her dad if they could build a shooting range in their warehouse, and got serious about practicing. Cut to today, and in a few short years, Mary’s dedication to the sport earned her a silver medal in the air rifle mixed-team event at this year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Like many sports, participation and training in shooting comes with a cost – $5,000 for a new rifle here, $2,500 for a shooting jacket there, and add in $20,000 for another new rifle and a move to Colorado Springs to attend the Olympic Training Center. The supplies and opportunities to compete at a high level are not inexpensive, and as Mary started requiring more of these supplies and opportunities, her father, Keller Williams productivity coach Rob Tucker, shares that focusing on his own work became challenging. But, through the power of KW’s profit share program, Tucker, who coaches five Keller Williams market centers in Alabama and previously held an operating principal role, was able to support his daughter’s passion and constant growth within the sport, culminating in her Olympic win.
Paving the Path to Profit Share
Keller Williams’ profit share system was created as a risk-free financial tool to allow associates a passive income wealth-building opportunity. Over the years, it has allowed associates and leaders to take dream vacations, give back to their communities, pursue their passions, and, in Tucker’s case, raise Olympians.
When asked about his journey with profit share, Tucker is quick to say that he fell into lucky circumstances. He started his career in real estate in 2000 and two years later joined KW as their first residential agent in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the original operating partner of three market centers in the area.
“I was blessed to be in the right place at the right time and brought on the original agents in those market centers, and my profit share grew,” Rob says. “So I’m one of the one hundred or so who have made a million dollars or more in profit share. The ability to have that has paid the bills and paid for her opportunity to be able to do what she’s doing now.”
Once Mary started practicing two hours a day, her success was quick to follow. Within 30 days of her teammates’ cutting comment, she shot up to number one on the team. The next month, she won a state championship, and another 30 days later, she was fifth in a national competition. Ultimately, she won a scholarship to be on the shooting team at the University of Kentucky, where she’s currently a junior studying kinesiology.
“When it really got serious, it was very difficult to continue being a real estate agent,” Rob says. “We were traveling, we were going all over the country for competitions, and we had to move to Colorado. And, if it hadn’t been for profit share, we wouldn’t have been able to do that properly.”
How to Put Profit Share to Work for You
With his firsthand knowledge of the value that profit share can bring into a family’s life, Tucker helps other agents see the benefit of developing their own through his current role as a productivity coach. First, he reminds agents that it’s all about quality over quantity when it comes to who you add to the Keller Williams family.
“I always tell somebody it’s not that you are recruiting to KW; it’s that you’re referring your friends and people you want to work with to Keller Williams, because of the family and the culture of Keller Williams,” Tucker says. “And, when you do that and find the right people that will engage and help other agents and become a part of the culture, then it can’t help but grow. I have only directly had 16 people name me as a sponsor. Seven of them became influential and became engaged in Keller Williams and in the culture and were very involved in helping it grow.”
Ultimately, what you are doing is committing to building long-term relationships with those who you enjoy working with.
“Go have coffee with agents you want to get in business with that are in other companies, or even maybe not even in the business, and build a relationship with them – not about necessarily real estate – but find out who they are, what they want, and what their goals and what their future entails, and where they want to go,” he says. “At some point, you’ll be able to invite them to a training session at your market center. You will be able to help them build their business. You’ll be able to help them reach their dreams. And it’s because you became a friend of theirs and were truly watching out for their best interests.”
Getting in the Game
Like Mary’s story illustrates, hard work can yield medal-winning results, and Tucker hopes agents will put in the practice to enrich their businesses and their own profit share. For Mary, the work means six to seven hours of training a day, which also includes mental training much like agents can do as well.
“I would love for agents to realize that if they put that kind of preparation into real estate as a business, they would have massive success,” he says. “If you practiced what we’re doing and took it beyond ‘How many leads can I generate?’, but if you practice what you’re saying to them for three hours a day over the next 30 days, you’re going to go from not being great at dialogues to one of the best because you’ve done the work.”
“If you nonchalantly go about the business like most agents out there do, then you’ll have the same results that most agents out there do. Put in an Olympic-level practice and you’ll have Olympic-level results,” he shares.