What Has the Industry Learned From Keller Williams?

They call it "Family Reunion" and for 2013 it was Dallas, Texas that played host to over 11,000 raving Keller Williams Real Estate participants from all over North America and nine overseas markets who gathered to celebrate the company's 30th birthday party. For those who made an appearance at CEO Mark Willis's State of the Company presentation (and that would be all 11,000 of them since both "respect" and "being there" are intrinsic elements of KW's now famous culture), there was even a birthday present.

At long last, Willis was able to make the announcement that KW had become, by agent count, the largest brokerage organization in the industry. Interestingly enough, this achievement was confirmed with KW auditing its competitor's websites for reported office agent populations.

This auspicious event and accomplishment make this a good time to review the many contributions that KW has made to the North American real estate industry over the past thirty years. This article is not intended as a tribute to KW, although many might argue that one is due. Neither is it to suggest that there are not several entities within this industry that have made significant contributions to the industry over the past two decades, because there certainly are. It is to say that in the annals of entrepreneurialism, the KW achievement deserves special notice for what it has done, how it did it and when it did it.

Over the past 30 years, KW has created and perfected a business model and corporate culture that long ago declared a wide range of traditional business practices irrelevant and impractical. By doing so it brought upon itself a level of attention and comment that frequently went beyond that reserved for mere competitors, approached ridicule and occasionally reached levels of unhappiness that one might have thought were associated with heretics.