Hunt - INSIGHTS from a Franchise Insider

Copyright 2014 Authored By Bill Hunt

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-4952-9909-0

ISBN 13: 978-1-4952-9909-4

William E. Soteroff, Vice President, KW Worldwide

Back in the day, Bill worked for Century 21 and I worked for RE/MAX. I always had a great deal of respect for the way he ran his operation, and I knew one day we would have the chance to work together.

Tom Kunz, Former CEO of Century 21 Real Estate, LLC

Whenever I needed something done in Asia, Bill Hunt was my go-to-guy.

Richard Mendenhall, Former President of the National Association of Realtors

I dont know of anyone else you has lived and breathed domestic and international franchising like Bill has. His book has a ton of great info, not only for the real estate industry but franchising in general.

Johan Gouws, Chief Operating Officer, Keller Williams South Africa

This is a must-read for anybody thinking of entering the exciting world of franchising. Bill Hunts journey provides real life insight into the process, and his practical pointers at the end of each chapter really help when it comes to writing your business plan.

Jose Perez, Founder of PCMS Consulting

Bill and I have been in the world of franchising for many years. This is the first book that tells you what its like from an insiders perspective. His advice and observations are spot-on.

Javier Parraga, Former EVP of Realogy and Founder of Zippy Shell Mobile Storage and Moving, a Self-Storage Franchising Company

There is no one I would rather have helping me launch a business abroad than Bill Hunt. His wealth of knowledge is a sure recipe for success.

Ron Sudman, CEO, Management One Property Management

This book gives you inside information of what to look for, and how to avoid the pitfalls, in international franchising. If youre thinking about franchising, you have to read this book.

Janet Case, CEO, Proxio Inc.

Bill Hunt is one of the true gurus of international real estate marketing and franchising.

John Wong, AREAA Founding Chairman

When Bill speaks, people listen. He brings a wealth of information on how to build a global real estate company and how to bring international transactions together.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Although I began my international business career in 1990, I only commenced writing my first book, Memoirs of a Franchise Gypsy, when I retired as president of Century 21 China in December of 2008. I had planned on completing it within a ninety-day period; however, that time frame rapidly slipped by as I got busy in other consulting endeavors, and almost one year passed before I picked up from where I had left off. As a source of information for the book, I went back through the thousands of pages of diary notes that Id kept as a matter of habit through those twenty years of living and working overseas. It was from those notes, and the many experiences, challenges, and successful solutions found in them, that I was able to draw the material for this book.

Once I was really motivated to complete the book, I flew to southern Chinas pastoral Yunnan Province and checked into a small inn in the village of Du Ke Shang, which is the four-hundred-year-old town portion of what is now referred to as Shangri-La (a part of Tibet before 1959). It was here, at an elevation of over ten thousand feet, in an absolutely quiet and tranquil environment, that I sat in my study with a coal brazier burning to ward off the chill air and wrote eight to ten hours per day for eighteen days straight until I completed the first draft. Through the assistance of my friends (who volunteered to be readers) and my editor, and after several more challenging months responding to their suggestions, I was able to publish the book in January 2011.

Throughout this revised and renamed second edition, I have highlighted areas and situations found in my previous book to give comparisons of how a traditional real estate franchise brand operates today as compared to the unique Keller Williams Real Estate culture and business models, which, judging from their meteoric growth, are far superior in todays real estate environment.

When I was doing my initial research, I wanted to see what perspectives and core subjects other authors used in their books on franchising. I noticed that their books were definitive analyses of what franchising is and is not, the types of franchising, the success of franchising, and what you should be aware of with regard to the pitfalls and opportunities in todays marketplace if youre thinking of buying a franchise. If you were an existing franchisor, there were books covering diverse topics such as how to build your brand, how to support your franchisees, how to sell more franchises, how to avoid conflict with your franchisees, how to navigate the various legal issues of disclosure and contract enforcement, and so forth. If you were an entrepreneur, topics included how to franchise your business using the strength of a proven franchise concept, using other peoples money, step-by-step approaches to how to do it yourself, and how to hire a professional franchise consultant to assist in writing the legal contracts, the operating and procedures manuals, and the sales and training manuals.

As I continued my research, I noticed that the majority of the written material was focused on domestic start-up franchises in the United States. I found very few books covering franchising from an international perspective and even fewer that approached the topic of emerging markets and the challenges franchisors would face upon entering those markets, either acting as the franchisor or selecting master franchisors. Of the many books I read on the subject, most were from a theoretical point of view. Very few of the writers had actually lived overseas for any extended period of time or had hands-on operational experience.

I had found the niche I was looking for! I have more than thirty-six years of franchising experience with twenty years overseas in executive roles within the Century 21 real estate system setting up and operating master franchises in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Central and South America, and China. As the president of Century 21 China from January 2001 to November 2008, I had a major role in building the new company to become the largest real estate system in China with more than one thousand three hundred offices, and fifteen thousand agents in thirty-two cities. We literally helped create the real estate business in mainland China.

Between my China experiences, I moved to the Century 21 parent company, Realogy Corporation, in Parsippany, New Jersey, for eighteen months as the senior vice president overseeing all international operations for four of the worlds most successful real estate brands with more than six thousand offices and fifty-five thousand agents in ninety-two countries. This experience truly gave me an inside look into the world of franchising.

This latest book focuses on my challenges to introduce North American real estate franchising into the emerging countries of Latin America and Asia, and I firmly believe that the experiences I had are fully relevant to any other franchise system. I have attempted to keep my lessons as generic as possible so that they are applicable to any franchise. Throughout the book I point out mistakes made and lessons learned so that, hopefully, readers will not repeat them as they expand their franchise operations globally. I conclude with a chapter about what I have learned over the past three years as the first international business consultant for Keller Williams, along with my ten reasons for why they are now the largest real estate company, by agent count, in North America today, with more than ninety-six thousand agents.