Saying “yes” to the wrong agent can be costly in the long run. Rainy Hake Austin shares how The Agency decides who to partner with as it grows.
In this industry, growth can be easily measured in terms of number of offices, number of agents, and transaction volume. The metrics are visible, the momentum feels good, and it’s hard to resist the temptation to say “yes” to everyone who wants to participate.
I understand the temptation. I also learned again and again what it would cost.
At The Agency, who we say no to helps us grow just as much as who we say yes to. That’s a harder position to defend than you might think.
When a highly profitable agent wants to join your brokerage, their instinct is to find a way to make it work. Production is production. A number is a number.
But production is not culture, and numbers are not values. And at our scale, with more than 180 offices in 17 countries, culture is more than just a byproduct of growth. That’s what makes growth sustainable.
Actual costs paid by the wrong agent
The costs of poor cultural fit are largely invisible in the quarter in which they occur. It shows up later in agents who quietly disengage, managing partners who spend their energy on conflict instead of building community, reputations that take years to build, and one wrong hire to complicate matters.
I’ve seen this happen many times, and I’ve found that the short-term gains of high-end producers who don’t share your values are almost always outweighed by the long-term costs of their presence on the surrounding environment. Culture is not something you put in a handbook. It’s what you put up with and what you embrace.
Agents who fit into The Agency aren’t primarily defined by their productions. They are defined by how they produce. That is, whether they cooperate or compete, elevate or degrade those around them, appear as a resource to their colleagues, or treat all other agents as threats.
When you develop meaningful relationships with your fellow agents and leaders and are personally aligned with the company’s values, you become part of something worth building and worth staying with.
Actual situation of selective recruitment
Being selective does not mean being exclusive for the sake of it. It’s about being honest with candidates, with managing partners, and with yourself about what your company culture actually needs to thrive.
That means asking different questions during the hiring process. Not just what someone did, but how they did it. Not just in which markets they operate, but also how they talk about the clients they serve. It’s not just their quantity that matters, but also whether the agents they’ve worked with describe them as people who have made the office better.
It also means being willing to lose an agent. That’s the part that requires real discipline. If a top producer chooses a competitor because your process is too strict or your culture is too specific, your instinct is to wonder if you made a mistake. In my experience, that rarely happens.
Agents who are attracted to the Agency because of its corporate culture, not in spite of the standards it sets, are the ones who stay, make referrals, and become leaders who make subsequent hires easier. That combined effect is the true growth strategy. It just takes a while to appear in your spreadsheet.
what to do to retain
Another aspect of selective recruitment is what you do with existing agents. Nothing demonstrates the value of a culture more clearly than seeing leadership protect it. When agents know that not everyone can participate, that the bar is real and consistently followed, they strengthen their decision to participate. It tells them that it means something to them to be a part of it.
Retention is a relationship, not a contract. But it’s also an environment. The agents who have been with The Agency the longest are almost always the ones who talk the most about their work and their colleagues. They are here because of the people around them. Selective recruitment is a way to protect this.
The counterintuitive truth about growth
In 15 years, the agency has grown to more than 180 offices in 17 countries. We opened 27 new offices in 2025 alone. We are proud of our growth, but for me the most important growth is not the ranking numbers. It’s the quality of the network we have built. Agents show up to each other, offices where managing partners know agents by name, and a culture that has somehow remained intact in 15 years of rapid expansion, across 17 countries.
It doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because we are willing to consistently, sometimes at great cost, say no to the wrong fit and yes to the right fit.
In an industry that values growth above all else, this remains the most counterintuitive thing we do. It’s also one of the things I’m most proud of.
