Brian Icenhower on impact of commission lawsuits and low volume

The HousingWire award spotlight series highlights the individuals and organizations that have been recognized through our Editors’ Choice Awards. Nominations for HousingWire’s 2024 Marketing Leaders Leaders award are open now through April 30th, 2024. Click here to nominate someone.

The recent commission lawsuits have had a profound impact on real estate agents and brokerages as they face increased scrutiny and pressure to provide more transparency in their commission structures and potential conflicts of interest. The lawsuits have prompted a reevaluation of industry practices, leading agents to adopt more client-centric approaches with a heavy focus on demonstrating the value they bring to the transaction process.

“The public’s reaction to NAR’s recent lawsuit settlement has shown that the perception of agents has been significantly diminished,” said Brian Icenhower, Founder and CEO of Icenhower Coaching and Consulting. “Agents and teams now must alter their processes and marketing messages to be more transparent and add more value to the consumer. It is crucial that agents’ marketing and branding is more “consumer-centric” and less focused on agent success, wealth and income levels.”

Icenhower was selected as a 2023 Marketing Leader for revolutionizing the way real estate agents, teams and brokerages can access high-level training on marketing through his latest creation, the ICC Custom Training Suite.

HousingWire reached out to Icenhower to learn more about how he started Icenhower Coaching and Consulting and what he sees as the greatest need in the industry in today’s market.

HousingWire: What was the catalyst for starting Icenhower Coaching and Consulting?

Brian Icenhower: While owning and operating various real estate brokerages and affiliated companies over the past 30+ years I witnessed a steadily decreasing amount of parity in agent success levels. Today, a very small percentage of agents conduct the vast majority of the business, while more than 50% of agents in most local communities haven’t even closed a transaction in the past year. I started ICC to help close this gap by providing agents and industry leaders the educational, training and coaching support they need to be successful.

HousingWire: Where are you seeing the greatest need for coaching in real estate agents and teams right now? What has changed the most in the past 12 to 18 months within the industry?

Brian Icenhower: A decrease in overall sales volume due to higher rates and low inventory has created a need for agents and teams to further diversify their lead generation sources since agents are now competing for a reduced amount of clients and sales.

The public’s reaction to NAR’s recent lawsuit settlement has shown that the perception of agents has been significantly diminished. Consequently, agents and teams now must alter their processes and marketing messages to be more transparent and add more value to the consumer.  It is crucial that agents’ marketing and branding is more “consumer-centric” and less focused on agent success, wealth and income levels. The public has clearly spoken . . . and they want a bit more humility and a little less arrogance.   

HousingWire: The coaching world, particularly in real estate, can be competitive. What marketing techniques or strategies do you use to differentiate your offerings from your competitors?

We view ourselves as the graduate school of the real estate coaching industry since we represent so many leaders of the highest performing real estate teams, brokerages & national brands in North America. Not only do these types of clients need individual coaching, they also need scalable education & training systems to help all of their agents succeed too. We’ve responded by revolutionizing & elevating the way real estate coaching & training will be conducted moving forward.

ICC developed its own Learning Management System (LMS) that’s loaded with ICC’s vast library of training courses that also enables clients to easily create their own custom courses for their local training needs. They can host live video conferences & classes, get manager dashboards & reporting for agent accountability, print course completion certificates, award degree designations to agent graduates, and print student workbooks & teaching guides to conduct in-person classes in their own offices. ICC creates this custom-branded hub that seamlessly integrates all our clients’ online systems (MLS, CRM, DocuSign, Zoom, etc.) together much like Roku or Fire Sticks bundle different streaming services for consumers.

This way ICC is able to permeate entire organizations by coaching our clients and all of their agents simultaneously. ICC coaches are also able to advance their clients forward more rapidly than traditional coaches who just communicate on weekly calls since our clients are learning on their platforms in between calls as well. Finally, our extensive learning portals enable coaches to diversify & customize coaching content based on different client needs rather than just coaching each client on a single system.

HousingWire: What is one habit that you swear by personally and/or encourage your clients to adopt?

Brian Icenhower: Be humble and always seek out accountability. The highest performing individuals are self-aware of their need to embrace accountability in all things that are important to them. Whether it be their health, relationships, business success or otherwise, they always find someone skilled to help overcome obstacles and do the uncomfortable stuff that gets them where they want to go. Relying on their own personal trials and errors always leads to burnout and settling for much less than they could’ve otherwise achieved in a much shorter period of time.