Archive for Leadership
Termination: Is Yours Graceful or G–Awful?
Posted by: | CommentsHow would you rate your termination system: graceful or g–awful? How to let someone go fairly–with grace–is a huge challenge for many managers. This challenge just came up again. I was just asked by an association of real estate companies to do a leadership webinar on standards. Before I do a ‘live’ presentation or a webinar for a particular group, I use my Pre-Conference Survey to find out exactly what their needs are.
(Note: If you do presentations for ‘outside groups’, consider making a pre-conference survey so you find out their exact needs, cultural specifics, and market differences. It makes a huge difference in your ability to deliver to their needs). This was the question that stood out most to me in the survey.
Question: How Do You Terminate Someone Fairly and Effectively?
Do you believe that the person who is failing knows he/she is failing? Of course they do. And, the longer they fail, the further down their self-esteem sinks, the further their confidence shrinks, and, finally,
the person simply quits working!
They still may be employed/contracted with you, but, they aren’t doing the things necessary to move their job forward. So, it’s not fair to simply let them continue failing. Nothing will change. You must step in.
The ‘One Last Chance’ Conversation and System
The principle is this: Never let someone go without a process that proves to them and you that it’s the right thing to do–unless, of course, that person has done something so egregious that she must be terminated immediately.
I’m a huge believer in game plans and systems for situations. That means you are fair with everyone. One of the reasons managers don’t want to fire is that they are afraid they will be unfair–or perceived as unfair. The way to take away those fears is to implement a system to give each person one last chance (this is after you have tried your normal coaching and training methods).
Important: Everyone in your office must know there’s a system, and that each person will be treated fairly within that system.
What’s in the One Last Chance’ Conversation
Here are the steps to terminate someone fairly and with grace.
1. Call the meeting. Do not engage in small talk. This is serious; it has no social aspect.
2. State that the person has not met your standards (minimum expectations). You DO have those in place, right?
3. Tell the person you will provide them one last chance.
4. Show them the performance system you will use (something like The On Track System to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent).
5. Get agreement that the person will use the system.
Make The Time Frame Short
I have been snookered by the best of them! I’ve learned to make the time frame no more than 30 days. You want that person to go right to work. You also must reserve the right to terminate at any time.
Good News: They Will Let Themselves Go 50% of the Time
You will find that many people are just waiting for you to provide that last chance, so they can face the fact they really don’t want to work. They will let themselves go.
When You Terminate
You have given them a fair chance. You have been straightforward. They have not gone to work. All you have to do in your termination conversation is to state just that. 95% of the time you will get no argument. In fact, they will thank you for being honest with them. Using these five pointers will allow you to let them go with grace, and relieve your mind that you are fair in your termination guidelines.
Get On Track with Your Business
This comprehensive resource is like having your own consultant 24/7. In each secction, you have the opportunity to analyze your strengths and challenges and make a specific plan to improve. In addition, there’s a 30-day regeneration plan. See more at The On Track to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent. This is also a wonderful tool to use to consult agents in or out of the business.
Managers: What’s your ‘Inspiration’ Quotient?
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What’s your “Inspiration Quotient”? Often, we managers/trainers/coaches completely underestimate our power to inspire. Recently, I read an article in our local newspaper that demonstrates just how strong that power can be.
How a Homeless Girl Got to Harvard
Khadijah Williams’s mother was last spotted living in a storage unit in Los Angeles. But, Khadijah isn’t living there. She’s on her way to Harvard. What an improbable—yet inspiring—story. For as long as she can remember, she and her family, consisting of her mother, and her sister, have drifted from one homeless shelter to another. Yet, she’s still not drifting. And, she’s not just graduating from high school, or getting an entry-level job, or going to a community college, she’s actually enrolled in Harvard. (Don’t get me wrong. It’s a terrific feat to go from homeless to a job, or to graduate from anything. But, Harvard?…..)
What aspects of Khadijah Williams’s life caused her to veer off the homeless, dependent path and toward higher education? What role did her mentors play?
Inspiration, Tenacity, Belief: A Homeless Girl’s Lessons
Here are the powerful motivators that greatly and positively influenced this future Harvard grad’s life.
1. Be aware of the power of your words
Someone told Khadijah she was smart. In the third grade, she scored in the 99th percentile on a state exam. Her teachers told her she was gifted, and put her in special programs—even though her schooling was intermittent—and she moved schools constantly. What do you tell people? Do you pick out their strengths and help them accentuate them?
2. Help them believe in their unique talents and skills
Khadijah believed in herself because she believed what her teachers told her about herself—the positive. Can you think of someone in your life that believed in you more than you believed in yourself at the time?
3. Give them the encouragement/inspiration from mentors
Khadijah realized she couldn’t do it herself, and sought out organizations and mentors. When is the last time you encouraged someone to take a risk?
4. Help them keep on keeping on. Never give up
Fueled by her belief in herself and the faith others had in her, Khadijah developed unbelievable tenacity to put herself into programs, stay in school, and ignored the taunts of the other students (you’re homeless, you can’t do this, etc., etc., etc.)
5. Help them create a better environment
Even though her mother and sister continue to live the homeless lifestyle, Khadijah has never blamed her relatives or her environment.
Yes. It’s a challenging business. But, you have skills the agents are hungry for. From these five points above, you can see the absolute power of the mentor. You have the ability to change people’s lives for the better!
Who/what inspires you? Let me know who and what inspires you and why by putting a comment on either of my blogs on this subject (1-2 paragraphs, please). Simply write a comment on the blog, telling me who and/or what inspires you.
Managers’ tip: Why not do this as an exercise with your agents? You’ll inspire them and re-light the fires of desire so they’ll be eager and enthusiastic to do what needs to be done to get back into the action.
What If Your Coaching Isn’t Working?
Posted by: | CommentsYou’ve been coaching an agent for three months. You haven’t seen any improvements. What do you do if your coaching isn’t working?
The biggest mistakes managers make in coaching agents is to continue the coaching relationship when the agent isn’t doing the work. Usually, we continue because we didn’t set coaching standards at the beginning of the relationship. When our coaching doesn’t get results, we think that we must re-motivate the agent—that this is our job.
Who or What Motivates?
Motivation happens when we do an activity and it works for us. Then, we want to do it all over again. That’s right. WE do the activity! In this case, it’s the agent doing the sales activities and having some success. You just encourage that success. You can’t encourage not doing things, which is what you’re doing when you let that agent meet with you and you ‘pump them up’ even though they haven’t done what they were supposed to do! Don’t get caught in that trap.
Reasons to Terminate the coaching Relationship
Here are the reasons to terminate the coaching relationship:
- Not doing the activity work
- Not meeting at the scheduled time
- The results are working negatively on your own self-esteem
You’ve done your agent and internal review, and you’ve established the coaching rules. Now, it’s easy to terminate the coaching relationship. You already set up those perimeters prior to starting your coaching relationship. Remember, you have only time to coach those who respond. You also need this response to provide your own self-assurance that what you’re doing is working.
Free Yourself for Better Experiences
By terminating the coaching relationships that have no pay-offs, you’re freeing yourself to coach those who do want your time and talent—and you’ve pre-determined that these people will be successful. You’ve created the best recruiting tool there is—concrete success from your agents with your personal and professional help.
Choosing and Coaching ‘Responders’ Has Many Benefits
I find time and time again that when I try to work with people who do not want to achieve higher goals, they fail—and I feel as if I’ve failed. So, my caveat to you now is this: Choose the people you will coach carefully, to retain your self-esteem, self-confidence, and contribute your talents to those who will respond. That’s a win-win!
A coachability evaluator: Click here to get an evaluator you can use with agents.
What are your reasons for terminating a coaching relationship? What mistakes have you made in continuing a non-working relationship?
P. S. I’m working on an online program right now for the new or challenged agent, to get them into great business habits fast. One of the features of this program will be broker coaching. I’ll coach brokers on choosing those who are coachable, and how to coach when you have no time to coach! What do you want to see included?
Three Steps to a Successful Coaching Relationship
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’ve done any coaching at all, you have found that people don’t respond just because you told them they needed to be more productive—or they told you they wanted to be more productive. You may have blamed yourself for their failure to produce. Although it is true that we all need to hone coaching skill sets, failure to move an agent off ‘dead center’ is usually not a function of poor coaching skills. It’s usually a function of the coach choosing a poor candidate.
The Steps to Choose the Right Coaching Candidates
Step One: Determine who is coachable
You and I know that a successful real estate office is built one agent at a time. Although there were 30 licensees in that office (some of whom I never met), there were many fewer workers. If we didn’t have sales volume, we couldn’t attract the kind of people who would want to be on the team to attain that vision. My first job, then, was to find out who wanted to be productive. Here are the steps I followed, and that you can follow, too, to create a coaching relationship with those who will respond positively to your guidance.
First, set up a meeting with each agent that you think is coachable. Have prepared a list of questions, arranged with a place to write his/her answers for each question. Schedule at least 45 minutes with each agent. Here are 3 of the questions you should ask:
- Describe how you created a successful real estate business in the past.
- Describe how you are creating the business that you are doing now.
- What would be different in your life if you had higher income?
Coachability evaluator: Click here to get an evaluator to use with your agent so he/she can determine if he/she is coachable.
Step Two: Evaluate Your Chances of Success through Coaching this Agent
After asking these past-based questions, take the time to evaluate whether or not you think this agent has the skills and motivation to move his/her career to a higher level. Here are three of the questions you should ask yourself?
- Has this agent demonstrated the ability to overcome failure in the past?
- Is this agent realistic about the activities required and the time frames involved, to succeed?
- Does this agent accept personal responsibility for production?
Step Three: Get Agreement on Mutual Expectations from the Agent
You’ve now determined who wants to work to higher goals. You’ve done your due diligence to determine whether you think they’re coachable. Now, you have to get agreement on the game plan—the plan of action. This is the point at which the agent may say, “I just want to do better on my own. I don’t need any coaching. I just want to be able to ask you questions whenever I want to, and I want you available.” If this is an agent that is not meeting your minimum production standards, I suggest you give them a choice:
Either
- attain specific monetary results (a listing sold or a sale) within a certain time period, or you will terminate that person (and you must be explicitly clear when you say this)
or
- implement a mutually-agreed upon game plan and meet with you on a pre-determined schedule with pre-determined activity standards to be attained and goals to work toward
The game plan: Coaching often fails because it’s not anchored by a specific, pre-determined, agreed-upon game plan. Most agents weren’t taught how to organize a start-up business plan, or weren’t given one and coached to one as a new agent, so they don’t have a proven game plan. You need to have one ready.
“George, I’m so pleased to be working with you to help you take your career to the next level. What we’ll do now is to agree on the activity standards to maintain our coaching agreement (minimum numbers of lead generating and sales activities), your goals, a time frame (should be at least 3 months), and the scheduling for our coaching appointments. We’ll agree on what would stop our coaching relationship, too (not doing the activities, not keeping the coaching appointments).”
P. S. I’m working on an online program right now for the new or challenged agent, to get them into great business habits fast. One of the features of this program will be broker coaching. I’ll coach brokers on choosing those who are coachable, and how to coach when you have no time to coach! What do you want to see included?
Is Everyone Coachable? How to Create the Foundation for Successful Coaching
Posted by: | CommentsManagers’ time is their most valuable asset (along with their agents). With a majority of managers today also selling real estate, their time allotment is precious. Yet, they’re told take the time to ‘coach’ agents to help them succeed. Read how to determine who to coach and when to decline and/or quit coaching—and keep your sanity and self-esteem while doing it!
Whose Fault Is It When They Fail?
A few years ago, I was facilitating a panel of exceptional trainers at the Realtors National Convention. During the question period, a fellow stood up and said, “I’ve tried all the training and coaching methods you mentioned. But, three of my agents just don’t respond. What am I doing wrong?”
What do you think is the answer? It is that he’s not doing anything wrong—except, choosing the wrong people to train and coach!
Like many of us, I went into management to help people succeed. So, as a new manager, I tried to train and coach all the agents who wanted (or needed) to step up to the next level. From that experience, I found that I couldn’t help those who didn’t want to be helped.
Why Coach Your Agents?
I have turned around two failing real estate offices. In the first instance, I didn’t know what I was doing and failed my way to success. The second time, I knew what I was doing, because I figured out the patterns that I had used the first time—intuitively. But, the agents in the second office had no confidence, at first, that I could do it. So, I’ve had real life experiences in coaching agents to success—in an environment where they didn’t believe in themselves—or me.
A New Vision Must Form the Foundation for your Coaching
In both instances, I created a completely different vision and team in each office. The second was more dramatic, since the agents had never had any vision or focused leadership and were enjoying an extreme ‘victim’ posture. They desperately wanted someone to paint a picture of the future that was bright and attainable. They had given up on painting such a vision. My job was to create a bright, vibrant vision, mission, and the teamwork to attain it. In one year, using the four steps I’ll explain in my next blog, I had created a six-figure profit and completely changed the atmosphere and culture in the office.
Readers: What mistakes are you making in those you choose to coach? What have your failures taught you? How do you choose your ‘coaching clients’ now? What did you put in place prior to starting your coacing/
My Big ‘Red Flags’ in the Interview Process
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For the last few blogs, I’ve been blogging about that all-important interview process. We’ve talked about the dangers of ignoring the red flags. We’ve investigated how to discover those red flags. I’ll bet you have certain ‘red flags’ that pop up during the selection process that drive you nuts. I do, too. These include the following comments from the candidate:
“I just want to hang my license” (usually stated over the phone; my response is that I want to hang them…)
What are your commissions?” – stated in the first five minutes of the interview (I’ve never interviewed an agent I hired who started the interview that way)
“I want a special deal.” –also usually stated in the first five minutes of the interview, or even over the phone (what makes them so ‘special’?)
Personally, I have never interviewed a candidate who was a ‘fit’ with one of my offices when they led with commission questions.
Other Red Flags
The candidate won’t fill out any paperwork (pre-appointment questionnaire or application)
They ‘drop in’ and expect me to drop everything to meet with them (they must think we managers just sit around waiting for Their Excellencies to show up)
They’re late to the interview—or just don’t show up
They obviously didn’t make an effort to dress in business attire for the interview (I realize this varies greatly by area, but you can tell if the person made an effort).
Specific Red Flags To Notice in the Interview Itself
They won’t answer my questions, or, when they answer, they answer as though it was a question for me to acknowledge
They won’t let me set the structure and tone of the interview (they immediately want to know what I will do for them)
They say they don’t know their production for the past year—with any metrics
They defend their low production and/or are accepting of a few transactions a year
They don’t have an idea of how they will change their production for the better
They seem enamored with the companies that have already hired them in a 15-minute “interview” (low self-esteem, anyone?)
They have been ‘sold’ on the companies that tell them they will provide them leads
They want to be hired ‘on the spot’. They’re not willing to do a 2-interview process, even when I explain the benefits to them
As you can tell from my red flags, my values and vision drive my judgement about these candidates.
What are your ‘Red Flags’?
One broker’s red flags may be another broker’s acceptable standards. What are yours? List five red flags or knock-out factors. What process or system do you have to discover them? Decide whether you would absolutely not hire an agent who demonstrated that behavior, or whether it was a minor flag. Finally, how many of those minor red flags do you need to identify before you rule that candidate not suitable for your team?
How to Discover the ‘Red Flags’ in the Interview
Posted by: | CommentsDo you use a planned, consistent interview process? If you do, you will easily discover those ‘red flag’ areas–those areas you must double-check to assure that candidate is qualified to work with you. If you don’t use a consistent interview process–when every interview is a ‘wing-it’ experience—you’re constantly thinking about what to do next. We can’t pay attention to those red flags which pop up and wave themselves in our faces. We’re seduced, too, by what we perceive as the candidate’s attractiveness for us, and we tend to ignore those red flags. If you’ve ever hired someone, and then discovered, that person had a ‘secret’ he kept from you in the interview, you know what I mean!
Methods to Discover those Very Important ‘Red Flags’
Here are some methods you can build into your interview process to avoid those costly hiring mistakes:
- Use an application consistently, or at least ask the candidate to answer some questions in writing (have all questionnaires approved by an attorney to assure they consist of legal questions)
- Ask the prospective candidate to complete some tasks prior to the interview, so you know if the are willing to make you ‘leader’ and learn from you
- Create a professional interview process you follow consistently*
- Create ‘behavioral predictor’ questions (questions based on their past) and practice those questions until you are a master at them
- Use a behavioral profile (like the DISC) to check your observations and learn more about the candidate. Learn how to ‘validate’ the behavioral profile with the candidate.
- Quit being in a hurry to hire every candidate, and choose those candidates more carefully. After all, they reflect your vision and values.
For a copy of my 8-step interview process, click here.
What a Systematized Interview Process Does for You
You will not only hire better candidates, you will avoid those awful ‘surprises’ after committing to that agent (and I’ve had some doozies, as you probably have had, too). You will gain the respect of your team, because you aren’t giving them a problem, but a solution. You will find hiring winners easier, because that candidate is judging your competency as an interviewer and leader at the same time you are judging that candidate’s appropriateness for your team.
SAVE in March: $70+ off Recruiting Resources
(regularly $129.95, now $99.95)
For in-depth how tos in these four sins to saint status, see Your Blueprint for Selecting Winners. 
A $40 value, the Blueprint is FREE to those recruiters who purchase The Complete Recruiter. Plus, get The Complete Recuiter at $30 off (regularly $129.95, now $99.95) AND my new eBook on recruiting, From Romance to Reality. Order now and save $70+. This offer expires Mar. 31, 2012. Click here for more information.
Are You Ignoring the Red Flags in your Interview Process?
Posted by: | CommentsIs your interview process gaining the kind of agents you want? Or, are you unpleasantly surprised ‘after the fact’?
The scene: You have been waiting all week with baited breath for that desired candidate to keep his appointment with you. Now you’re in the interview. Everything seems to be going fine, until…
You get an uneasy feeling. It’s just a ‘gut’ response. You can’t put your finger on it. Yet, this candidate has been recommended to you. He’s a top producer. You need him. Other companies have been wooing him. So, you ignore your gut and keep going.
Sound familiar? We’ve all been there. We are enamored with that candidate. We really, really need his production. Our competitive nature comes to the fore when we learn other companies are vying for this very agent. So, we don’t pay attention to the ‘red flags’ that are being waved in front of our face. In the next few blogs, we’ll investigate those ‘red flags’–and I’ll ask you to share with me YOUR red flags, too.
What are ‘red flags’?
The term ‘red flags’ has been around our industry for years. Literally, ‘red flags’ are indicators you observe which may be ‘knock-out’ factors for that candidate. Or, taken one at a time, they are warning flags. They indicate a candidate doesn’t fit the profile of the kind of agent you’re looking for.
Some Indicators that We’ve Been Ignoring Red Flags
From consumer feedback and sales statistics, seems to me we have been ignoring the red flag concept in our hiring practices lately. Why do I draw that conclusion? One reason is that 65% of agents today are part-timers. Now, you may decide to hire a part-timer on purpose. But, I’ll bet you’ve hired several agents in the past year who didn’t reveal to you they had a full-time job (and it wasn’t selling real estate…). You thought you had hired someone who would start ‘up and running’, but, instead, you hired someone who is slow and crawling—if moving at all!
Consumer Feedback Indicates our Red Flag ‘Ignorance’
Another clue that we’re not paying attention to those red flags is the consumer feedback. In a recent survey of buyers, the California Association of Realtors’ survey found that buyers rated their buyers’ agents at an all-time low: an overall satisfaction rate of a lousy 4%! Yes. That’s right. Not 40%–but 4%. You and I know that’s too low to get return business. It’s too low to maintain any type of attractive commissions. So, it’s time to bring that ‘red flag’ concept back and practice it to protect our businesses.
What ‘red flags’ do you note? How have you been ‘snookered’?
SAVE in March: $70+ off Recruiting Resources
(regularly $129.95, now $99.95)
For in-depth how tos in these four sins to saint status, see Your Blueprint for Selecting Winners.
A $40 value, the Blueprint is FREE to those recruiters who purchase The Complete Recruiter. Plus, get The Complete Recuiter at $30 off (regularly $129.95, now $99.95) AND my new eBook on recruiting, From Romance to Reality. Order now and save $70+. This offer expires Mar. 31, 2012.
Trends: Are You Anticipating Them or Chasing Them?
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It’s What Happened When We Weren’t Looking that Defeats Us….
I just finished the 4th edition of Up and Running in 30 Days, the new agent’s business start-up plan. To do this, I updated the trends, and told new agents what those trends should mean to them as they start their businesses. But, let’s talk about trends from a management perspective. Are you anticipating them or chasing them? The last few blogs were concerned with trends and management long-term habits. It’s hard to change those habits. One way to convinnce yourself, though, that it really is time to make some changes is to look at current trends and see if you are
recognizing them
watching them
or
anticipating them and implementing new strategies
Being able to identify a trend or micro-trend is an art and a science. It’s difficult for us brokers to step back and look at a bigger picture, because we are so busy running our businesses. And, many of our models of success –and successful businesses–are based on old business practices (like hiring everyone who walks in the door). “If it works, don’t break it” is our favorite mantra. Yet, that very philosophy has lowered our commission structures, threatened our consumer base, and made our good agents unhappy with our offices (if we’re keeping non-producers and have no standards).
Getting a ‘whack up the side of the head’ from this very challenging market now may be enough for us to take another look at our business practices and ask, “Is that the best we can do?”
How to Proceed. Choose one area of concern that you have with your business. (Hint: the foundation of all change in a real estate office is the implementation of standards). Write a plan for implementing that change. Take action in one area, and you will see how it positively affects other areas. Mentally get out of real estate for awhile. Look at other successful businesses to see how they handle their customers, their employees, their standards. Get a coach or consultant to help you as you make these changes, so you do these things with purpose, congruent to your core values. There are some of you reading this that will actually change the industry for the better!
Another Leadership ‘Whack: Quit Calling your Agents your ‘Customers’
Posted by: | CommentsWhack: Toss the mantra ‘our agents are our customers’. The real customer is demanding we pay attention to them—or else.
Many brokers call their agents their ‘customers’. We thought that, by calling our agents our customers, we would please them, create loyalty and forge recruiting tools. This trend of calling agents ‘customers’ was a reaction to the old-style ‘father knows best’ management. Not a bad thought, but, unfortunately, too limiting. We assumed that, if we provided the services agents wanted, everything would be wonderful.
That thought process has sure gotten us into trouble. Why? Because we forgot that the person who actually pays commissions is called a ‘buyer’ or a ‘seller’—the end user. If the end user is unhappy, they vote with their feet. The result of our lack of focusing on the end user is plummeting commissions and alternative ‘agent-lite’ companies, relying much more on technology than personal service.
The bigger business world got it long ago. When is the last time you were asked about the level of service in a business you were using? I’ll bet you are asked at least once a week. The bigger world of business discovered long ago that they had to satisfy the needs of the consumer-and that those needs were escalating by the minute.
How do we put the real consumer first, providing the services that make them so happy they would never leave us?
Recommendations:
- Quit hiring non-committed agents. They simply will not do the work, create a business, and serve consumer needs to warrant a ‘generous’ commission
- Establish standards of production for your agents. What do you expect of them—and when?
- Accept that a low-producing agent cannot and does not provide excellent service—and the consumer knows that
- Pretend you are a consumer. Which of your agents would you want to work with? Which of your agents wouldn’t you want to buy a home from?
If your agents aren’t your customers, what are they? Perhaps partners, as one very successful franchise has termed them. You decide.
Get Real Leadership Strategies
Do you want to step into a better leadership style? Be more effective? Recruit more and better? I’ve created a very special, unique program for managers and owners: Once a month I share a specific leadershp strategy to recruit, choose, train, coach, and retain winners. These are proven strategies to get you out of a rut, take you past crisis management, and energize and inspire your team. See more at 365 Leadership. This new series closes for enrollment March 15. Find out more here.