Archive for Peak Performance
Brokers: Why Aren’t Your New Agents Succeeding?
Posted by: | Comments
Brokers: Why aren’t your new agents succeeding? (half are failing in their first year; another 25% fail in their second year). What do new agents need to know to succeed? You’ve watched them come into your office and flounder. You’ve watched them become ‘time tornadoes’–whirling around in your office, sucking time from seasoned agents, while seeming to stay in terminal neutral themselves. Here’s your chance to tell me how real estate brokers (and new agents) are going wrong.
Why Tell Me Now?
Right now, I’m doing several things that I think will greatly impact the success of a new real estate agent. Here they are:
1. I’m making a new online version of Up and Running in 30 Days, to help new agents and managers assure that new agent gets started fast–doing the right things in the right order. I’ll be providing coaching, training videos, and accountability to show ultimate support for that new agent–and the broker enrolled in the program.
2. I’ve just been named New Agent Expert for a national real estate publication, which will interact with pre-license schools. So, I’ll have an opportunity to help agents prior to their coming into the business.
3. I’ll be providing brokers with coaching so they can stay on track with their new agents, and assure that everyone has the same focus–success quickly for that new agent.
So, I have two questions for you:
1. What does the new agent need to know to succeed?
2. What does the new agent need to do to succeed?
To answer those questions, think of the successful agents you know. What did they do in the first 3 months of the business? What did they avoid?
Training: What new agent training helped your new agents? What was useless? What ought to be there?
Coaching: Were you coached as a new agent? What was good? What was not useful to you? What do you wish someone would have told you? What about your coaching new agents has worked for you? What hasn’t worked?
Your Opportunity to Help the Industry
Okay. Here you go. Comment on this blog and help the industry, so we can raise the level of expectations of new agents, give brokers some guidance, and help consumers think well of us. Thank you!
Another ‘Whack’: The Market Won’t Motivate–You Must
Posted by: | CommentsIn this series, I’m sharing some ‘whacks up the side of the head’ for managers.
Whack: The market won’t as motivator anymore. You must provide an atmosphere to motivate.
Fear and greed are terrific short-term motivators, and the on-fire market furnished those generously. Fear of loss pushed buyers to make that buying decision or they would be left out. The market generously provided appreciation to sellers, so they could see the advantage of more money to sell now. (greed). The market provided the fear and greed motivators to agents, too. Now, the market isn’t pushing buying decisions. The market isn’t providing easy deals to agents. Guess what? The motivation finger has just been pointed to you! You must provide an atmosphere that motivates your agents to go to work. You are appreciating your agents. You are already encouraging them. If you’re not seeing changes in their production, you are leaving out the motivator the market used so effectively: fear.
A different way to use ‘fear’ as a short-term motivator. Don’t stop reading now. You don’t have to use that stern parent/dictator style of management. You don’t have to threaten. Instead, you must get skilled at creating, explaining, and implementing standards of production. Why? It’s a business. The market won’t motivate now. Consumers expect much better performance from agents than they are getting.
Standards as Motivators
Standards of production (minimum expectations) let your agents know what is expected of them to have the privilege of staying with you. They also create accountability for management. You must have programs that leap agents over your standards. If you don’t do this one, you are forever dependent on the whims of the market or the whims of your quasi-committed agents. Can you afford to let your business rely on those whims?
Recommendations:
a. Decide whether you’re a business or a baby-sitter. (harsh words, but, remember, these are ‘whacks’.)
b. Decide what is reasonable for you to expect—production-wise—from each of your agents (minimums).
c. Decide whether you deserve a certain level of excellence for all the hard work you do each day.
d. Implement production standards.
e. Look at your ‘agent development system’ and see where the holes are. For example: When do you expect them to start lead generating? If you expect that the first week in the business, when are you engaging them in a start-up plan? When do you start your coaching with them? One of the biggest mistakes managers make is letting agents sit around waiting for something good to happen to them—and it’s not going to happen as an accident in a transitioning or normal market.
Get a Leadership Strategy Every Month
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.
Managers: What’s Your Ideal Training for New Agents?
Posted by: | CommentsManagers: What’s your ideal training–get started NOW program for new agents? What do you want your new agents to be able to do by the end of their first month in the business? How competent do you want them to be?
I’m working on the fourth edition of Up and Running in 30 Days, the new agent’s start-up plan. The program is designed to get an agent a sale in 30 days. It has a bit of training in it, so the agent gets the ‘how’ along with the ‘what’. In addition to that book, I’ll be doing a ‘version’ of it that will be very interactive, with me as coach. So, I want to know from you, both manages and agents, what you’d like to see in your ideal program for the new agent?
Here are questions I’d love to get feedback on so I can create the program that would work best for you:
1. What’s the major concern you have right now about the program you’re using?
2. Is the program you’re using designed to get the agent a sale in 30 days? If not, what is it designed to do?
3. What’s the best thing about your present training/coaching program?
4. What would you like to see in a start-up/training and coaching program for the new agent?
5. For agents under a year in the business (if you’re reading this as a manager, please ask your agents this question): What do you wish would have been in your training program? How could it have helped you get a sale sooner?
6. Coaching: What do you want that enables you to coach to the agent’s success better?
Please let me know by commenting on this blog. I want to make this program stunningly successful for both new agents and managers.
In my next blog, I’ll tell you some of my ideas about how I can ‘take the load off’ managers, and provide much of the coaching and accountability myself in this new version of this very successful program. Thanks in advance for your comments!\
Are You Sure That Agent is Really your Best Producer?
Posted by: | Comments
Are you sure he (or she) is really your best producer?
We managers are frequently asked to ‘quartile’ our team, or evaluate our team members–to somehow rate the salespeople with us. Usually, we just start with the highest producer and work downward. But, is your highest producer your best producer?
‘Weigh’ Your Team Members Using your Values
When I was teaching CRB (Council of Real Estate Brokerage Management) courses nationally, I frequently heard the comment, “My top agent is not a team player.” Brokers complained their top agent didn’t represent the best in the company. So, the question is, “Is that really your top agent? Maybe not.
Your mission should define your rating system. Bring out your vision or your mission statement. What values do you hold dear? Do you say that your salespeople are ‘team players’? Do they provide exceptional customer service? Have they committed to a long-term career? Is one of your values that each member is contributive?
Develop a Weighing System for Accurate Evaluation
Let’s say that your five top values are:
Production
Team player
Customer Service
Longevity
Company contribution
Assign a range of 1 to 4 points to each value (4 is the highest score). Finally, score each agent in each of the five areas. Now, list your agents, starting with the highest cumulative score.
Why Values-Based Ratings are Important
Your values define you and your company, both within and with your clients. When you tout the ‘highest producer’ you are inadvertently endorsing that set of values as the values most important to you. Unfortunately, what we wish for we frequently get! In this day in age where the consumer is wary of ‘salespeople’, it’s time to define, rate, and reward your salespeople with the values you treasure. You’ll change the culture of your company for the better, and start hiring to the profile you really want.
Question: What do you think are the reasons managers ‘elevate’ someone as a top producer, even though he/she doesn’t represent the stated vision and values of the company?
Do you know what your prioritized vision and values really are? It’s a very important component of your business plan. Find out more in Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder. This program is endorsed and recommended by the Council of Real Estate Brokers (CRB). Click here to find out more.
Coaching your New Agent: Conquering the ‘Focus’ Challenge
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I did the first of a series of complimentary coaching calls for those managers who are using the Up and Running in 30 Days start-up plan for their new agents. This is a very aggressive program, to get the agents a sale in 30 days (rather than the 3-6 months it takes most new agents.) The coaches have received their coaching resource guide, so they already have some guidance in implementing the program. We had a great discussion on the recent call. I want to share some of the discussion we had on the call, to help you as you coach your new agents to much faster success.
Biggest Challenges for the Coaches
The coaches on the call told me their biggest challenges were
Keeping the agent focused on the important activities
Getting the time to coach the agents frequently and regularly
So, in this blog, I’ll tackle that first concern—keeping your new agents focused.
Up and Running Gives you Two Keys to Keeping your Agents Focused
1, The Daily and Weekly Schedule. Have your new agent analyze his/her daily schedule at the end of the week. There is an exercise in Up and Running to reveal to the agent the priorities he/she needs to arrange in order to create a successful business. Unfortunately, most agents arrange their priorities to protect themselves from starting the business! Teaching your agent how to ‘self-manage’ by analyzing that past week is huge to set them on the road to successful sales.
Tip: Use this scheduling strategy with your experienced agents. Most agents have never created a weekly schedule, and don’t analyze their past week with the priorities explained in Up and Running.
2. Business-Producing vs. Business-Supporting Activities. Keep reiterating to your agents the difference between business producing and business-supporting activities. Up and Running teaches agents to put all their business activities into one of these groups. It’s one of the most important concepts an agent can grasp—and few agents have ever been taught this fundamental and very important concept.
Tip: You know your agent has struggles with time management. Help them analyze their activities and schedule their activities to do more business-producing activities. Their time management challenges will shrink, and their incomes will sky-rocket.
Invitation: If you’re using Up and Running in 30 Days with your new agents, and didn’t receive an invitation to be on our tele-conference calls, email me at Carla@carlacross.com and I’ll add you to the invitation list.
Next blog: I’ll discuss when to start Up and Running, and how to assure your new agent has a complete track to run on—so he/she gets that sale fast, which is yours and his/her goal! I’ll also discuss how frequently and consistently you must coach that new agent to assure he/she adheres to the Up and Running activities and goals.
This is the resource package I’m referring to. It will greatly shorten your timeframe in hiring and getting that agent started. It will increase your production and profits, which makes it much easier for you to recruiting successfully. Check it out: The Manager’s Up and Running Coaching System.
Free bonus: When you order it, you will receive 2 customizable flyers to promote the program inside your office, and promote it to recruits. Training is the name of the recruiting game in this decade! Get onboard.
Four Strategies to Build Leadership on your Real Estate Team
Posted by: | Comments
In my last blog, I talked about the importance of building teamwork in a real estate company. It’s back! But, how do we do it? One of the important ways to build teamwork is to build leadership in the team. Why? Because, a great team is more than the sum of its parts. It consists of leaders in practice.
For Owners, Managers, Trainers, and Agents
If you’re an owner, manager, trainer, or agent who wants to build a team, you need these strategies. Otherwise, you’ll only be supervising workers. Here are the truisms about how people work, and the strategies to developing leadership with the people who work with you:
Truism #1: People don’t know what’s expected of them. Just because people accept a position doesn’t mean they know how to proceed with the job.
Strategy: They need to have clear direction, a job description and a firm understanding of the responsibilities–prioritized. Do you have a job description for each of your team positions? Do you provide it prior to hiring? Do you coach to it? Do you help your team members get so good at it that they can start training new team members (move into leadership)?
Truism #2: People don’t know WHAT to do to get the job done. Even if you hire someone who has real estate experience, it doesn’t work to leave it to them to figure what exactly needs to be done—from your point of view. They don’t know your priorities. They don’t know how you work.
Strategy: Provide them the processes and systems they need to succeed. Do you have processes and systems in place to teach them exactly what needs to be done?
Truism #3: Most people will struggle with the ‘how’.
Strategy: It’s your job to teach them HOW. Some people think “leaders” are the “idea people” and aren’t supposed to get into implementation. But if you want your team to excel, you must show them how.
Having worked with assistants for over 15 years, I have found that assistants and team members need help in systemizing any process that you want done. They need help in developing dialogues to deal with affiliates and consumer in the way you expect. They are good at systemizing their own processes–but not good at all at systemizing ours! Help them.
Do you have foundational systems in place from which to improvise? Do you have a solid training program to bring a new team member on board? Do you a method to ‘clone’ yourself to develop someone who can take over your job?
Truism #4: When accountability factors aren’t built in, things don’t get done. There’s a great difference between “do it the way you want” and expecting results and “do it the way you want and let’s check how it’s going regularly”.
Strategy: Hold your team members accountable for each step along the way to completion of a task as well as the end result.
The pay-off for developing competency and leadership skills in all of your team members is a business that is ‘owned’ by all those involved, with empowerment assured.
Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest football coaches of all time, said of teamwork, “Teamwork is the primary ingredient of success.”
Your goals is to develop processes, systems, and training for your team members to bring them into a leadership mentality with you, so you can delegate more responsibilities and finally replace yourself!
Want leadership actions you can put immediately into practice with confidence? Take a look at my subscription series for anyone who wants to step further into leadership: 365 Leadership. You’ll get one leadership action per month that you can put to work in your real estate office. Read what attendees are saying about the program at 365 Leadership. Join us. It’s profitable and it’s fun–and it’s very affordable!
How’s Your Online Reputation?
Posted by: | Comments
Is your online reputation building–or eroding your profits? For years, our industry has hired agents to ‘see if they work out’–to ‘give them a chance’. We are proud that we ‘hire from our gut’. We brag that we have great intuition about who will be successful in real estate. And, unfortunately, that gut and our intuition keep letting us down. Now, the reputation we’ve gotten from those hiring practices is viewed from a much larger perspecctive.
Reputation and Referral: It’s No Longer Done Just Word of Mouth
I’ll bet you’re familiar with Angie’s List, or Yelp, where products and services are rated by consumers. Just think. If you were a roofing contractor, and you got poor ratings, it could literally ruin your business. Now, let’s relate these online evaluations to real estate agents. Are agent ratings now available to the millions of people using the Internet? Yes! In fact, some are on Yelp. In addition, though, new websites devoted only to evaluating real estate agents are springing up. Check these out:
www.realestateratingz.com www.incredibleagents.com www.zilllow.com
Word of mouth is wonderful, but, since it’s verbal, it is not very memorable and can’t cover a very wide area. But, Internet postings can stay forever—either to haunt you or support your reputation. Read the reviews on the sites I’ve mentioned in this article. Some of them are from raving fans. But, many of them are from very dissatisfied customers.
People Love to Spread their Unhappiness….
You know, too, from experience, that unhappy people are much more likely to spread their unhappiness than are moderately happy people. In fact, the marketers tell us, on average, the unhappy person tells eleven people. Now, with the Internet, unhappy people have a much greater impact on yours and your real estate agents’ business and profits.
Consumers Just Don’t Love Us Anymore
The recent survey by the California Association of Realtors shows some stunning and alarming trends about customer service expectations and delivery. In 2005, Internet consumers rated their overall satisfaction with their agent at almost 90%, while traditional buyers rated their overall satisfaction at 37%. However, in the ensuing years, the ratings have plummeted. In 2009, both Internet and traditional buyers only rated their overall satisfaction with their agent at 4%! (The ratings of Internet and traditional buyers now are equal). In other words, consumer expectations of what an agent should do for them are just not being met.
Dissatisfaction and Ability to Broadcast Should Give the Industry a ‘Heads Up’
It’s true that the past few years have been very challenging for real estate agents. They have had to deal with customer distrust, indecision, short sales, and REOs. It’s much more difficult to bring a sale to closing. Yet, this is the very atmosphere in which agents should be perceived as much more valuable to the consumer. Instead, the consumer is judging the service received from the agent very harshly. There are several reasons for this:
- Unrealistic expectations from consumers
- Inability of the agent to adequately educate the consumer
- Too many ‘dual career’ (read that as part-timers) and undedicated agents in our industry
In my next blog, I’ll provide you a survey you can use to gain great testimonials–and fix any problems fast.
Five Reasons Why Your Training Isn’t Working
Posted by: | Comments
How well is your training working? Do you know? What are your goals for training? To recruit? Or, do you have more specific goals for your training? Unfortunately, most brokers don’t have training goals. They just know they ”need training’.
Here are the major mistakes trainers make, and why their training isn’t getting results. I’ve also provided recommendations for you to make your training pay off.
1. Talking and calling it training just won’t cut it when you have low production. Remember, people today have a 30-second attention span. You’d better use other delivery methods to teach, so they really learn. (Task force, case study, role play, action plan, for example).
Broker recommendation: Becoming an effective trainer requires mastering several specific training skills. Take a Train the Trainer course. Or, to cut your learning and preparation time, purchase a training program with a facilitator guide to tell you the effective training method for what you’re teaching in that module.
2. Using your old materials and old information just isn’t believable today. I see training programs cobbled together with five different trainers’ scripts. I hear information shared that hasn’t been current since hula hoops.
Broker recommendation: Update your training materials and training methods to deal with today’s practices and consumer demands.
3. Being a ‘nice’, supportive trainer just isn’t enough today. The market isn’t nice; the consumers aren’t easy; the challenges are much greater than ever before. You’d better get as tough with your students as the market and consumers demand.
Broker recommendation: Don’t do any training without accountability built in. You need to see that the student takes action. Make the student do something to get into your class, do meaningful actions to stay in your class, and complete meaningful actions to get out of your class.
4. Training as though the consumer is dumb. No wonder the agents don’t like most training. It’s boring. It’s not ‘real life’. It’s simplistic. It doesn’t teach them to work with the demanding consumers of today.
Broker recommendation: Your training should teach your agents to think. It should provide the foundations for systems and processes. It should be built with basic skills leading to more complex skills, processes, and systems.
5. On demand video will not solve your production problems. Many large franchises are providing video on demand training. Brokers may be relieved that this is going to take training off their plates. I wish. Unfortunately, video training can provide very limited production results. Why? Because people don’t learn much by watching video. Yes, they learn a little. They observe someone else doing something; they get information. But, they don’t have to take action.
Broker recommendation: Use video as a support to the kind of training that gets results. Results-based training is face-to-face, uses a skilled facilitator, has high accountability, high interaction, and includes action plans in the field.
I have a resource to help you. I’ve built a training program that covers those 5 bases above. It’s a high accountability, results-based training program: Advantage 2.0. Check out out.
Three Leadership Principles Orchestra Conductors Taught Me
Posted by: | Comments
In my previous blog, I introduced the idea that leading an orchestra is very much like leading a group of real esetate agents. In fact, it’s fascinating to me, as a life-long flutist, how much dissension, individuality, and insistence on ‘going their own way’ orchestral players exhibit. They are often portrayed in the press as we managers think of leading agents. Getting them to all agree, in both groups, is like herding cats!
Transferable Leadership Lessons Learned
There are three important lessons we can learn from the great orchestral conductors about leading for a prodctive, focused atmosphere with common values:
1. To get into the orchestra is a privilege; you must audition. Each player must meet certain standards if the orchestra is to succeed as a whole. So, selection is key to top performance. That means, to the real estate manager, that we must be selective and set standards for hiring, so that the person hired will fit well into our common focus. If we hire Bill, Sally, and George, and them segregate them, we fracture our focus, and create a negative atmosphere that makes it extremely difficult for our new associate to perform well.
2. Before the conductor allows the orchestra to play the piece together, each person and then each section must practice to perfect their parts. Musicians know perfect practice insures perfect performance. When we finally put all the parts and sections together, we also experience
the whole as greater than the sum of the parts.
In the business world, we call the results of this practice method ‘teamwork’ and ‘synergy’. How does a real estate manager accomplish this in his office? By establishing a strong, comprehensive new agent training program, focused on practice and performance, not focused on knowledge. The training program is the ‘music’, complete with the values and concepts that are endorsed in that real estate office. Each member agrees to and is trained that way.
3. The ‘first chair’ leader (the best player) has great responsibility for the teamwork and focus of his section. He is charged with assuring his section plays as one and that each player plays well so all players benefit. On solo parts, he can shine, but he still needs to play within the framework of his section and of the whole orchestra. This creates a win-win for all in the ensemble.
The first chair must be a consummate leader. There are actually many wonderful virtuosos who can’t play in orchestras, because they aren’t team players. They want to ‘play it their way’—and their way is not the orchestra’s way. Kind of like a real estate office, except, brokers, unlike conductors, many times allow solo performers in their offices even if they aren’t team players!
What’s Wrong with ‘Doing Their Own Thing?’
Brokers tell me that their top agent ‘does her own thing’. I hear them say that she is ‘not a team player’, but she does make them lots of money. Oh, really? So, in what orchestra is that top agent playing? Obviously, not yours! The lack of common focus and endorsement of maverick behavior by top producers only shatters any teamwork and shared values the broker is attempting to instill in his group.
Make Up Your Mind
If you want a team, create one with an all-winner group. Banish your maverick player to someone else’s orchestra. The result: More production from your ‘section’ players, more teamwork, more common focus, and a more pleasant job for you!
Leadership: Did You Know You’re Leading a ‘Real Estate’ Orchestra?
Posted by: | CommentsLeadership: Have you ever thought of your office as your orchestra, with you as conductor? As a flutist and music major, I played in exceptional orchestras and for great conductors all through high school and college. I experienced how great conductors pulled the orchestra together as a team to create an awesome, inspiring, focused sound—the sound of one instrument. You could think of this as a vision-focused team.
To do this the overall sound had to have been planned, practiced, nurtured, and led by the conductor—the leader with the end vision in mind.
Where’s the Real Estate Leadership Today?
The development of the orchestra by its leader is a good analogy to use to take a fresh look at how we lead, the things we encourage, and the actions and attitudes we tolerate. After all, the broker/leader’s challenge is the same as an orchestra conductor’s: To create an atmosphere of common focus, shared values, and teamwork for mutual success. So, for this blog, I’ll use the orchestral analogy to explore a common problem in real estate offices—negativity–a problem that I believe few managers consciously address well.
When an Agent Hears a Different Tune, Who is Really Leading?
A few days ago, a newer agent in another state who had bought my program, Up and Running in 30 Days, called me to ask this question: “How do I keep my spirit and motivation high when the agents in my office are so negative?” This is not the first time I’ve been asked this question. I hear it hundreds of times each year, as I talk to your newer agents and those experienced agents who are struggling.
Yet, I don’t think brokers realize the extent of this negative atmosphere—or the irreparable damage it causes. Worse yet, some brokers actually take actions—or allow situations–that actually ‘nurture negativity’. Why? Simply because they haven’t thought through the ramifications of their actions as leaders. How do I know this? Brokers tell me various ‘solutions’ to their lack of common focus–solutions which really encourage negativity!
Rewarding Negativity Gets More of It….
Let’s take the problem of negative people in a real estate office. This is how many brokers ‘handle’ that problem. They simply advise the new agent not to talk about business to Sally, Bill, or George, because they’re negative. Oh, sure. That’s like the orchestral conductor saying to the oboists, “Don’t listen to the flute section because they’re not playing it right. Just listen to the clarinets.” If the conductor did that, he’d have several different versions of the symphony going on. Let’s get real. The agent listens to whoever talks to him, because he believes there is only one orchestra in the office (what a thought)! The manager, though, by her actions, is creating four or five!
They ‘Get’ The Tune and the Rhythm Every Day Intuitively and Automatically
We brokers delude ourselves that, by attempting to ‘segregate’ the agent’s conversations, the agent will hear only what we want them to hear, believe only what we want them to believe, and perform only how we want them to perform. Only in our dreams!
Why Look at the Problem?
Because a strong ‘negative motivation factor’ costs brokers money and wasted effort. In teaching CRB (Certified Real Estate Broker) courses, I’ve found that brokers estimate it costs ten to thirty thousand dollars to hire a new agent who fails in six months! I know you work hard at recruiting. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to assure that the agent you recruit experiences the very best, most focused, team-oriented atmosphere available?
Leadership Learning from the Great Conductors
In the next blog, I’ll give you three principles on leadership I learned from watching conductors in the orchestras I was privileged to be a part of. For now, think of the ‘rhythm’ and tune you’re providing your associates. Is it the one you intend–or not?