This is one of my favorite manias. In fact, if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: “You have part time agents.” (Said as if it were some terrible curse, or as if those part-time agents were somehow deformed, retarded, or had leprosy.) In my early days as a racer, I used to get really mad, you know, those other brokers looking over their shoulders at those part-time agents as if they were second-class citizens.

Then one day it hit me. What a great strategic advantage. I’m going to share it with you in a moment, but first, let me set the record straight on part-time agents. What’s wrong with someone who has another job and wants to improve their station in life by adding a second career? Many are trying to get out of a dead end job. Many more want to work part-time before making the leap into a new career and find that to be a mistake.

The fact is that I have had numerous part-time agents who have outperformed many of their full-time counterparts. In fact, most of those part-time agents work much longer than full-time agents. Let’s face it: the average broker today only does seven transactions a year, so it’s not like they’re exactly killing you all day, every day. The fact is, I have never seen an industry where full-time employees did so little on any given day.

So yeah, I love part-time agents. Partly because they are working two or more jobs. Partly because they have a learning attitude and don’t “know it all” yet. Partly because no one else wants them. I say, send me all! me do I love. I don’t care about my production stats per agent. I care about hiring good agents. Here’s why I like part-time agents.

Each part-time agent will average 1-2 closings a year. In my experience, they go out of their way to do things right and take the extra time to consult with me when they are unsure about something. I’d rather solve a problem before it becomes a crisis than try to fix it after it’s become a big test.

And those 1-2 closings each year will likely be in the company’s top dollar due to low agent volume. The part-time agent costs me nothing to hire, doesn’t whine or complain, and consistently produces a few deals a year, on which we make a good profit. Many part-time agents, given the right setup, will even go ahead and transition to full-time.

I’ll give you three examples of great part-time agents. The first is Joe. When Joe came to us, he was a full-time soldier and a part-time agent. In less than a year of part-time work, Joe was making more than one contract a week and began to grow his own team. Soon, his part-time income far exceeded his full-time military salary, so he made the decision to leave the military and work in real estate full-time.

When his team grew to around a dozen agents, we helped him open his own company, and now his company has over 30 agents and is one of the largest companies in our local market. Curious, Joe was turned down by several other companies before he came to join us. What a shame.

Or take Dave. Dave was a part-time agent and a full-time soldier at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and earlier this year he gave the ultimate sacrifice, when he was killed in action in Afghanistan.

Dave came to us one day looking for a way to earn a few extra bucks and take some pressure off the family budget. We discussed the earning potential of his part-time real estate job, and I strongly encouraged him to give it a try. Well, to make a long story short, Dave signed up for pre-licensing training, got his real estate license, and started working as a part-time agent with our company.

However, unlike many agents, Dave really did what we taught him to do. And do you know what happened? He followed our plan, step by step, and by the end of his first year we had paid him over $300,000 in commissions. I remember one month when I paid him over $50,000. I will always remember Dave. He was a great guy. He loved serving his country in the military and he loved doing real estate.

And Dave was a perfect example of what a part-time agent can do if given the right direction, the right tools, and the will to succeed. And Dave was never more than part-time. He had plans to open his own office after retiring from the military, but those plans were cut short by an enemy roadside bomb. But I’ll take a part-time agent like over a dozen full-time agents who sit on their butts and complain.

Finally, there is Kevin. When I met Kevin, he was driving a truck full time. He was a single father with very limited financial resources, but he wanted to. We gave him the tools and a little training, showed him the way and watched as he changed his whole life. For the first six months, he worked part-time and his income continued to increase. Eventually, he transitioned to full time.

Two short years later, he’s averaging a dozen deals a month, bought a new 8,000-square-foot house with an Olympic-sized pool in the backyard, a four-car garage, with a separate office and apartment, a truck new, a sports car and save money for the future.

Kevin will be making over half a million dollars this year, has found a wonderful new wife (my personal assistant), and is living the American dream during the worst real estate season in recent memory. Funny, several other companies turned him down before joining ours. Once again, what a shame for them.

I could go on and on telling you about Julie, Dee, David or dozens of other part-time agents who have done well and who I am glad to have had at our company. As far as I’m concerned, those are the perfect agents to have in your company. Will everyone make more than 10 offers each month? Of course not. But many will actually outperform their full-time agents, and if they don’t, so what?

I would much rather my company’s revenue be based on the production of 50 part-time agents than just 10 full-time agents. In that scenario, if you were to lose a full-time agent, you would only take a 10% hit. If you lost a part-time agent, you had a 2% hit. Add to that the fact that no one is trying to recruit their part-timers, whereas as soon as a full-timer starts doing a lot of production, every broker in town calls him out.

I say hire every part-timer you get the chance. In fact, I say concentrate on recruiting them. It costs you nothing to hire them and many will become your best agents. And because you’ll be taking a chance on them when many other companies won’t, they’ll be very loyal. An added bonus is that since their production is relatively low, they will pay you an even larger share. And that’s Max-Bang!