Collaboration Over Competition: Why the Way We Work Changes Everything
I want to tell you about a deal that happened inside our brokerage recently, because I think it says more about who we are and how we operate than any marketing piece I could ever write.
One of my agents had a buyer. Serious, qualified, proof of funds verified, ready to move. They had been working together for weeks narrowing down exactly what this buyer wanted, and the picture was getting clear. Meanwhile, on the other side of our office, another one of my agents had just taken a listing that had not even hit the MLS yet. It was still in the preparation phase, still being photographed, still being staged. The sign was not in the yard. The Zillow page did not exist. By every conventional measure, that listing was invisible to the outside world.
But inside The Agency Oklahoma City and Tulsa, it was not invisible at all.
The two agents talked to each other the way colleagues talk, openly and without any territorial instinct, because that is the culture we have built here deliberately and intentionally. The buyer's agent said here is what my client is looking for. The listing agent said I think I have exactly that, and it is not on the market yet. They connected their clients. They showed the home. The buyer fell in love. And they closed the deal before that property ever appeared on a single public platform.
The seller got a clean, smooth, private transaction with zero days on market and no parade of strangers walking through their home. The buyer got access to a home they never would have found on their own. Both agents served their clients at the highest possible level. And everyone won.
That is collaboration over competition in its purest form, and it is the reason we operate this way every single day across all of our offices in Edmond, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Carlton Landing, and Grand Lake.
Let me talk about something that I think gets lost in the way most people think about real estate, which is the deeply counterproductive culture of treating other agents like the enemy. I have watched this play out for 31 years, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the agents who hoard information, who guard their listings jealously, who view every other Realtor in the market as a threat rather than a potential partner, consistently produce worse outcomes for their clients. Full stop. They may not realize it. They may even believe they are protecting their clients by keeping everything close. But what they are actually doing is shrinking the universe of possibilities that their client has access to, and in real estate that universe is everything.
The agent sitting across the negotiating table from you is not your adversary. They are your colleague. They woke up this morning with the same goal you did, which is to serve their client well, close a transaction professionally, and go home having done right by the person who trusted them. When you approach that agent as a partner in getting the deal done rather than an obstacle to be outmaneuvered, something remarkable happens. Communication improves. Problems get solved before they become crises. Inspections get negotiated without drama. Closing timelines stay intact. And both clients walk away feeling genuinely taken care of rather than like they survived a battle.
I have personally called listing agents before showing their properties to my buyers and said something like, tell me what your seller actually needs and I will tell you what my buyer can do. That five minute conversation has saved more deals than I can count and created better outcomes than any aggressive negotiating tactic I have ever seen deployed. When you treat people with respect and lead with honesty, they almost always respond in kind. That is not idealism. That is thirty one years of data.
Inside our own brokerage the collaboration runs even deeper. I currently have sixty agents across my offices, and one of the most powerful things that happens within that network is the daily sharing of information that never reaches the public market. A buyer need that one agent mentions in passing matches a listing that another agent is preparing. An off market property that a seller wants to move quietly finds a buyer through an internal conversation that took thirty seconds. A relocation client who needs to be in a home in forty five days gets matched with a motivated seller before either of them ever opens the MLS app. This is not luck. This is what happens when you build a culture where agents genuinely root for each other and share information freely because they understand that the rising tide lifts every boat.
The Agency as a company was built on this philosophy from the ground up. Mauricio Umansky founded this brokerage on the belief that agents who collaborate outperform agents who compete, and the numbers bear that out across all 160 plus offices worldwide. When a listing in Oklahoma City gets shared with an Agency agent in Beverly Hills, in New York, in Miami, in London, in Dubai, the reach of that property multiplies in a way that no single agent working alone could ever replicate. That is the power of a global collaborative network operating as one unified culture rather than a collection of individuals protecting their own territory.
I want to say something directly to any Realtor reading this, whether you work with me or not. The agent you are about to call about your buyer's offer is your colleague. Treat them that way. Pick up the phone before you send the email. Ask them what their seller needs. Tell them what your buyer can do. Solve the problem together. I promise you that the deals you save, the relationships you build, and the reputation you earn through that approach will compound over years and decades in ways that no competitive posturing ever could.
And to any buyer or seller reading this, here is what this means for you practically. When you work with an agent inside a genuinely collaborative culture, your access to properties and to qualified buyers expands dramatically beyond what the public market alone can provide. You are not just getting one agent working for you. You are getting an entire network of professionals who talk to each other, share information freely, and all have a stake in seeing great outcomes happen. That is a fundamentally different experience than working with an agent who operates as a lone wolf, and the results reflect it.
In thirty one years in this business I have closed more deals through collaboration than I could ever count, and I have never once regretted treating another Realtor with respect. Not once. The real estate business is long. The relationships you build in it are longer. And the reputation you earn for being someone who plays straight, shares openly, and shows up as a colleague rather than a competitor is the most valuable asset you will ever have in this industry.
We are all in this together. Act like it, and watch what happens.
Wyatt Poindexter | Managing Partner | The Agency Oklahoma City & Tulsa | 405-417-5466 | www.OKLuxuryHomes.com | 31 years of selling Oklahoma's finest estates and homes | Elite Guild Member of The Institute of Luxury Home Marketing | Ranked #1 Realtor in the State of Oklahoma for Volume | 2026 RealTrends Verified #1 Realtor for Volume in the State of Oklahoma
