At the 2024 Colorado Association of REALTORS® Spring Summit, during the Critical Thinking Session, those in attendance were asked to identify the number one issue facing Colorado REALTORS®. Of those present, the majority of responses (at 43%) identified “lack of professionalism and competency” as the top issue Colorado REALTORS® face today.

REALTORS® care about professionalism. It’s the foundation of the Code of Ethics. We have a Pathways to Professionalism document with specific examples of what professionalism looks like. The challenge to supervising brokers is to get their agents to Walk the Path; and to keep Pathways to Professionalism top of mind. We also have an opportunity to set expectations instead of making assumptions and be more diligent in our hiring practices.

That’s the reason this toolkit - Walking the Path - was developed; to provide a tool-driven resource that brokerage leadership can implement to make professionalism top of mind for their agents.

Walking the Path provides real estate brokerage firm leadership with the tools they need to integrate professionalism and competency into their company culture. Designed to be implemented twice a month at company meetings, it provides the following for 24 different topics:

• Leader guides
• Handouts/worksheets
• Brokerage email text
• Social media post language for corporate pages.

Additional resources include:

• Monthly challenge ideas.
• Recommended reading list.
• Company Professionalism Pledge template.
• Worksheet for a Professionalism & Competency section in the Office Policy Manual.

We’ve also developed an Ensuring Competency module with a checklist and supporting documents to implement:

• Let’s Chat worksheets to help you check in with agents about their competencies.
• Setting up an in-office mentor program.
• Setting up office hours.
• Creating an Agent Competency Directory.
• Encouraging agents to provide quarterly updates on classes/designations they’ve taken.