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TagsColts Neck realtor documents her business with ‘Reality Real Estate' show
BY MICHAEL COHEN
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Eleven weeks into her pursuit of netting $1 million in annual sales commissions, the realtor Sarah Bandy of Colts Neck sits $1 million away from that goal. Still, with 41 weeks to go, she's garnered as much doubt as revenue.
Bandy, a middle-aged, divorced mother of two, with a varied business background and slight real estate experience, rigidly follows a step-by-step plan laid out in the 2004 book, "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent," by Gary Keller, co-founder of Keller Williams Realty. "I was introduced to the book when I went to interview with (Keller Williams) a few years ago," she says. After devouring the book a few times Bandy decided to put Keller's thesis to the test. "I did extensive research and found that no one had ever done it," she says. "I've met agents who do those numbers, but never anyone who did it by the book. Here was a book on a bunch of bestseller lists yet on a theory that had never been proven."
It might also be a dated theory in these rapidly changing times of economic tumult and technological advancement. Sue Adler, a top Keller Williams agent who grossed $51 million is sales last year says, "You can't base (a plan) off of the book alone. It was written a few years ago and times have changed."
In response to the changing times, however, Bandy juiced her website, sarahbandy.com, with a documentary style webisode called "Reality Real Estate," which follows her start of The Bandy Group and its million dollar mission. The Bandy Group is housed by Better Homes Realty and consists of a group of female agents who Bandy frequently refers to as "the girls." The show's purpose is to give potential clients an inside look at the agency but it's littered with moments of obviously scripted, over-the-top drama such as Bandy forgetting to pick up her daughter after a half day at school. But the camera crew remembers to film the lonely child in front of the school.In the same way that Reality Real Estate is not "reality," "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent," isn't really about money. It's about thinking big. "Honestly," Keller writes in defense of the deceptive title, "would you have picked up 'The Real Estate Agent Who Thinks Big'?" The book at times reads like a sales pitch with sentences often starting "Honestly, Truthfully I believe," and "To be totally honest," as if readers wouldn't expect truth and honesty in exchange for their $21.95.
Bandy's integration of traditional methods and new media helped land her some funding. "It's a unique idea and a different approach," says Raymond Shebell a personal injury lawyer who invested, but wouldn't say how much, in The Bandy Group. "And I felt Sarah had a lot of personality." Shebell met Bandy through the Colts Neck Business Association (CNBA) where they both currently serve as vice presidents in their respective categories.
The group's stats immediately appear on the site's homepage and with 295 days left the "listings sold," and "revenue" sections boast doughnuts. "If I were to go to a realtor's website and see that she has zero sales and zero revenue, I think that would disturb me a little bit," Bandy says. "But hopefully they'll see beyond that."
The site also has blog posts, client testimonials, and a short video clip promoting Colts Neck's "horse farms, winding country roads and large estate homes." As the venture progresses Bandy plans to get celebrity chefs to cook in the kitchens of listed homes to lure buyers.
"You have to use new technology to market to the new consumer," she says. "We consider ourselves the future of real estate. Like a whole new breed of realtors."
