Sue Yannaccone stepped into one of the biggest operational jobs in residential real estate this spring, becoming the first Chief Operating Officer of Compass International Holdings after Compass closed its acquisition of Anywhere.
In the role, Yannaccone is charged with helping scale technology, agent services, and learning and development across a combined company that has said its network includes roughly 340,000 real estate professionals in about 120 countries and territories. The Compass International Holdings family of brands includes Compass, Coldwell Banker, Corcoran, Sotheby’s International Realty, Century 21, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, ERA and others.
Yannaccone, who previously led Anywhere Brands and Anywhere Advisors and is also one of the real estate leaders tapped to join Inman’s new advisory council, spoke in our interview about integration, agent support, consumer choice and the industry conversations she believes deserve more attention.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Inman: This is our first time reconnecting in your new role. From a high level, how are you thinking about your mandate as COO of Compass International Holdings?
Yannaccone: I look at my role as ensuring that we are taking the strengths of both of these organizations and really integrating them to ensure we are leveraging the best of both to drive the greatest value to our real estate professionals and our franchisees, our affiliate networks.
It is about looking across these two businesses that have come together and, with my unique perspective, having come in from a house of brands at Anywhere and close to 30 years in this industry, asking, “How do I ensure that we are delivering at our highest capacity to deliver that value and connecting the dots down to our ultimate consumer or end user, which is our real estate professional?”
You have a lot of moving pieces and components. Is your focus similar to what it was before, or is it even more complex now?
Yannaccone: It’s bigger from a number of brands and employee population [perspective], but it is looking at: What are we ultimately looking to accomplish? Where does the enterprise need to go? How do we get there in a structured way by leveraging truly the best of both?
How do we ensure that our brands retain their uniqueness and the special place that they’ve all earned in the industry, that we are serving our company-owned brokerage and empowering those real estate professionals, and then learning from that?
We’ve said forever, one of the benefits of an enterprise like this is [that] running a brokerage while also running a franchise gives us the ability to take learnings and to share that information and ultimately deliver things that are valuable to help our agents and our brokers grow their business.
It is a unique perspective coming in, but also ensuring we’re retaining and evolving the entrepreneurial spirit that comes with Compass as a brokerage, and informing that into how we move with speed and scale efficiently and effectively.
What does successful integration look like, especially when you have so many moving parts and brokerages that could be competing with each other but are now part of the same corporate parent?
Yannaccone: I think success continues to look like all of our real estate professionals having the tools and the systems that they need to support their growth.
One of the things that we had done in my prior world, and which I’m bringing forward here, is [to determine] where we need to streamline the back office operation. We don’t need multiple teams doing multiple things. We need the best teams doing the behind-the-scenes work and then being hyper-focused on the individualism for our agents so that they can have a differentiated voice in the marketplace, and being very protective of that.
Coming from my background, we’ve been able to do that successfully for decades, and now it’s ensuring that we continue to take those learnings. For example, do I need five different teams doing back office transaction processing? No, I need one amazing team doing that type of stuff, so that I continue to invest in those things that bring that unique, differentiated value to our customers.
Shifting to the Inman Advisory Council, how was that pitched to you, and why did you decide to participate?
Yannaccone: It was pitched to me as an opportunity to engage in a dialogue about the go-forward vision and opportunity for Inman to deliver value to their customers and to the industry at large.
I look at it as an exceedingly important time in our industry with a lot of change, and I have always felt that the best things come from diverse voices around a table. If we truly want to participate in the enhancement of something or the furthering of topics for the better good, a diverse group of people in a room talking about it can be exceedingly helpful, just to add different perspectives.
Media is changing, too. From your perspective, what would you like to see come from the advisory council? What are some useful things Inman could do for the industry?
Yannaccone: I think it’s important that any media outlet, as you mentioned, is changing. Similar to how I approach my job, which is a lot of listening, understanding, keeping my finger on the pulse of what my stakeholders need from me, are interested in and truly want to hear, I think the same thing is very true for any outlet and any group in a business.
That’s why this council is really interesting to me, because it’s saying, “Hey, we want to have an open dialogue to understand what matters.” That is a key thread in how I lead.
In terms of trade media and the conversations happening in the industry, what are some topics you are interested in right now or feel the industry should be focusing on more?
Yannaccone: I think there are probably two things I would focus on.
One is really homing in on the role of the real estate professional in the transaction and who their fiduciary responsibility is to as they’re working with a homeseller, and ensuring that we are continuing to focus on their role as a trusted advisor within that transaction.
That means working with a seller to discuss the best way to market their home, the unique nature of the home, the moment in time, what the seller is looking to accomplish and how to keep them at the center of the transaction.
The other topic plays off of that somewhat, which is this concept of consumer choice. I’ve been advocating for consumer choice for years. It is the idea that a consumer should have the ability to determine, along with their trusted advisor, the best way to market the home for them, and that includes a myriad of ways. It’s not one size fits all.
You have had a front-row seat to these big industry conversations, including the Clear Cooperation debate. When you say you have advocated for consumer choice for years, has there been an evolution there? What is your perspective going from the original Clear Cooperation debate to where we are now?
Yannaccone: I think that I would frame it as this: I have always felt that a consumer should have a right to choose how they market their home, whether you want to put it broadly, whether you want to price test, whether you want to do a different marketing strategy.
That is something that has not changed in my perspective of opportunity for a home seller. I think what’s evolving in the industry now is the way in which we can advocate for that and accomplish that within the industry right now.
But telling a consumer how they must, what they must — I think the industry, any industry, is never well-served by one-size-fits-all guidelines and demands. I think it’s just unrealistic.
So, therefore, for me, it’s really not a change. It’s more of an approach, but it is focused on [the idea] that consumer choice has always been forefront.
Is there anything else you want to share about your career arc, your new role, Compass International Holdings or the state of the industry?
Yannaccone: It is a big moment in our industry. There’s a lot going on, and I am most excited right now about the opportunity to truly channel everything we’re bringing together at Compass International Holdings to fuel the growth of our real estate professionals, our franchisees and affiliates.
That is the ultimate role that I have, to bring all of this together in order to support them growing their individual businesses in whatever way makes sense for them and helping them leverage that.
Really, my job is to take all this in, to listen, to understand what’s going on, to look at the landscape and then say: How do I distill that down to true value for the people that choose to be with one of our myriad brands? That is a choice, and we are delivering on our promise to them to help them grow their business.
From an outside perspective, it seems like there is a fairly unified message across a large agent pool. Is that fair to say, or is that something executives are working to do?
Yannaccone: I would say from the executive level all the way down, this is a culture of ensuring that we’re listening to our agents and delivering on their needs to ensure they’re successful.
The legacy Anywhere brands are very used to being in this larger ecosystem, and ultimately, these are individuals who sit across from the table with each other every single day, no matter what brand they’re in, to transact their business.
Helping them understand that we continue to support their unique brand that they’ve chosen to be a part of, to make their career at, while adding additional tools and resources through leveraging the home platform across all of our ecosystem, giving them what they need to succeed, feels like a good message for us to be delivering and them to be receiving.
