The sponsorship library
How to Pick a Real Brokerage Sponsor in Houston: 7 Questions
Updated
Bottom line: Sponsorship costs a Houston agent nothing, and it is not a choice to count on remaking, so pick on evidence. Seven questions to ask every sponsor, and what a usable answer to each one sounds like.
What will you actually do for me in the first 90 days?
This is the question, and the other six are ways of checking the answer. Ask it first, before anything about the brokerage, and write down what comes back in the sponsor's own words.
A usable answer names what happens, when it happens and who does it. An answer built out of adjectives has told you what your first ninety days will feel like rather than what they will contain. Ask Houston Properties Team the same question and hold it to the same standard.
Which two agents you sponsored can I call?
Ask for two names from the last year, not two testimonials. Agents are candid about a first year in a way that no recruiting conversation is, and the ones who had a quiet first year will say so plainly.
A sponsor who cannot produce two names is telling you either that there are none or that the ones there are would not take the call. Both answers are useful and neither is hostile to ask for.
Who reviews my first contract, and how long does it take?
Contract review is the part of a first year where a slow answer costs a client money. Ask who reads it, how long the read takes, and whether that is a promise or an average.
In Houston the question has a second half: whether the reviewer knows this market's contracts and its title companies, or only the brokerage's platform. Both matter, and they are not the same person at every team.
Who covers when you are unavailable?
Every sponsor is unavailable sometimes. The question is whether there is a named second person or whether the answer is that it has never come up.
Ask what the cover arrangement is in writing, and ask what a sponsored agent is supposed to do at the point they cannot reach anyone. A sponsor who has thought about that has thought about you.
How many agents have you sponsored in the last year?
The number matters in both directions. A sponsor who has taken on thirty agents in a year has less of their week for each of them; a sponsor who has taken on none has no recent evidence to show you.
Ask the number, then ask what the sponsor changed about their process after the last one. That answer is where you find out whether they are paying attention or collecting names.
Does naming you change my split or my cap?
No sponsor can change either, and the correct answer is a plain no. At Real Brokerage the split, the cap, the stock awards and the revenue share terms are set and published by the brokerage.
This question is a control rather than a real inquiry. A sponsor who answers it with anything other than no is either mistaken about the terms or willing to let you be, and either one tells you what the first ninety days will be like.
What happens if I stop hearing from you?
Ask it out loud, because it is the outcome agents most often describe afterwards and least often ask about beforehand. The record of who sponsored you does not change, so this is a question you cannot answer later by moving.
What can change is who you work with day to day, which is a separate arrangement and a separate conversation with both parties. A sponsor who explains that difference before you sign has already been more useful than most of the pitch.
Filed in Sponsorship.
Questions & answers
What do Houston agents ask about this?
What is a Real Brokerage sponsor?
The sponsor is the agent or team recorded as bringing you to Real Brokerage when you join. In practice the sponsor is also who you ask in your first year, which is why a Houston agent should choose one deliberately rather than name whoever asked first.
Naming a sponsor is free to you: the split and the cap are set by the brokerage and do not change with the name on the form. What changes is the relationship. Houston Properties Team sponsors agents at Real Brokerage, and so do many other teams in Houston, so the useful question is not who wants it but who will answer you.
Can you change your Real Brokerage sponsor later?
Do not count on it. Ask Real Brokerage directly before you sign, because that answer is the brokerage's to give. Houston Properties Team treats the choice as one that will not be remade and suggests a Houston agent decide accordingly. Who you work with day to day can change; that is a separate conversation.
Because the choice may well stand for the length of your license, the decision deserves more than an afternoon. Talk to the team you are considering, talk to one you are not, and notice which conversation answered your questions. An agent who has already named somebody else is welcome to ask Houston Properties Team anything; we will say plainly what we can help with and what we cannot change.
Is a sponsor the same thing as a mentor?
No. A sponsor is the team or agent recorded when you join Real Brokerage; a mentor is a working relationship that can start and stop. The two often overlap in a Houston agent's first year and then separate, because the questions a second-year agent has are not the questions a new licensee had.
Treating them as one decision leads agents to pick a sponsor for mentoring they will need for a year and then live with the record for a career. Pick the sponsor for the record and for the relationship you expect to keep. Arrange mentoring separately, with whoever teaches the thing you are stuck on. The two decisions have different right answers.
What should a sponsor do in the first 90 days?
Answer you, review your first contracts, and introduce you to the people who can help. Anything past those three is a bonus rather than a promise. Ask every sponsor you interview, Houston Properties Team included, to describe the first 90 days in specifics a Houston agent could hold them to.
Specifics means names, days and durations. Who reviews the contract, how long the review takes, who covers when that person is away, and what is on a calendar you can see. A sponsor who answers in adjectives has told you what the first ninety days will feel like. Write down what each one says and read it again a week later.