June 2017 marked the 25th anniversary of CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises, which bills itself as a “life betterment company.”
“My favorite part about being in the real estate business is empowering, educating and encouraging real estate agents to make their life better, whatever that means to them, while they aspire to provide our customers with their finest real estate experience…guaranteed,” says Broker/Owner Craig Beggins.
While most of the firm’s markets have yet to return to the peak values of 2005, Beggins notes that the first half of 2017 has been exceptional. Thanks to a strong year, the firm—which covers West Central Florida—has opened two new locations and is consistently hiring 12 to 15 agents a month.
Still, there are challenges, explains Beggins.
“All of these new business models that threaten to disintermediate the agent from the transaction, which are attracting large rounds of funding, are a challenge,” he says. “Everyone thinks what we do is easy and can be replaced by technology, but that’s not so. We’re selling 300 homes a month, and there’s not one transaction that’s the same as another. Our agents and our staff go above and beyond normal expectations. Perhaps someday we’ll find a ‘normal’ transaction.”
In Beggins’ opinion, the firm’s biggest opportunity for growth is organic, and he’s currently on a quest to help 300 agents add at least one additional closing per quarter. When accomplished, this will produce a 40 percent growth for the company.
“Being a part of CENTURY 21, we believe in the theory that one plus one plus one equals five. We’re teaching our agents to sell the power of the CENTURY 21 brand, the power of CENTURY 21 Beggins in the local market and their expertise in the trenches,” he says. “We’ve always embraced technology, and with the help of CENTURY 21 and its technologies, we feel very comfortable that we’re on the cutting edge, and, internally, we have a 40-person staff to support our agents. We’re paperless, we have secure email servers and we can literally do an entire transaction and never touch a piece of paper.”
As far as training, Beggins feels he offers something unique.
“It begins with our three-week onboarding process, which leads to what we call Beggins University, a four-day intensive sales training course, both of which are reinforced by a daily team huddle from 8:30 to 9:30 each morning,” says Beggins. “During these team huddles, I expose the celebrations and mistakes that are made so that each agent can gain the experience of a master agent in a short period of time. It’s like an MBA in real estate, with case studies and all.”
Due to this training process, the company is highly attractive to new licensees.
“We’re very good at growing our own. Retention comes naturally from our agents knowing that we have a prescribed system that produces results and frees them up to focus on their customers,” says Beggins. “And, of course, the more productive an agent becomes, the more they’re rewarded by CENTURY 21 and Beggins Enterprises.”
Vitals: CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises
Years in Business: 25
Size: 10 offices; 300 agents
Region Served: West Central Florida, from Sarasota to Clearwater
2016 Sales Volume: $700 million
2016 Transactions: Approximately 2,500
www.c21beggins.com
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