Archive for Retention
A Third ‘Whack’: Father Knows Best Management Style is Out
Posted by: | CommentsIn this series, I’m sharing some ‘whack up the side of the head’ for managers. Here’s today’s whack: ‘Father knows best’ is so fifties old-style management.
In the fifties, ‘father knows best’ was the preferred management style. The CEO made the decisions. The agents, the workers, sold real estate. Unfortunately, too, many managers took that top-down management style clear to the doting parent extreme. When you act like the parent, guess what the agents are supposed to act like? The kids. That management style caused a rebellion from agents in the seventies, when they decided they ‘didn’t need a manager’ (a parent) and left the traditional ‘parental style’ management real estate offices for offices promising more independence.
The Extreme ‘Father’
Many managers have taken that parental management style to the extreme in a challenging market. I call this the ‘loving parent’ manager. The ‘loving manager’ dialogue sounds like this: “If I just love them enough they will come back and go to work. I feel sorry for them. I just need to be there for them because times are so tough.”
Unexpected results. There are, unfortunately, negative outcomes from this management style:
1. This style appeals to the non-producer. Loving your agents bleeds clear into sympathy, and sympathy encourages victimization. And victimization encourages non-action.
2. This style treats adults like little kids. When a three year old skins her knee, we kiss the knee to make it better, and put a cute little band-aid on it to comfort that three-year old. Why are we treating our agents like three-year olds?
3. This style drives producers crazy, lowers their production, and they ultimately leave. A recent study from The Ripple Effect, a Washington , D. C. management training and research firm, asked over 70,000 executives, managers and employees in 116 organizations what kind of impact underperformers were having on their workplaces? Eighty-seven percent said working with a slacker actually made them want to change jobs (retention issues, anyone?). Ninety-three percent said it had hampered their development or decreased their productivity.
Poor producers cause producers to produce less.
Poor producers cause good producers to leave.
Recommendations:
- Respect each agent as a responsible adult. Have an adult conversation with each agent. Ask that agent if he/she intends to work in real estate? Ask for a commitment to a work plan. After all, this is a business, not a love-fest!
- Move your ‘love them into business’ actions toward ‘business love’. Ask yourself: Is it fair that they work in the business to enjoy those commissions they want to earn? Is it fair to expect that they work even half as had as you work? Is it fair to expect that they keep honing their skills, keep getting better? Is it fair for you to expect them to invest in their businesses?
The irony of the ‘adult-style’ manager, foundationed in standards, is that it actually is the kinder of the management styles—by far. Why would we want to keep agents in careers where they were failing? Why would we want to provide sympathy instead of helping them create and implement a plan of action?
Leadership by the 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.
Do You Have a Job Description for your Agents?
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Do you have a job description for your agents? Most agents tell me they did not receive a job description when they started in the business (or in the interview). If not, why not? In my last blog, I discussed the fallacy that agents should start out as ‘independent’ business people. Now, I don’t mean they shouldn’t take responsibility for their actions and success. I mean that we shouldn’t abdicate our responsibility to teach, train, and coach them so they become great salespeople (so they can become independnet). Besides not having skills they need to succeed, they usually don’t even know what the job is!
Poor Job Descriptions Abound
As I teach management courses nationally, and speak nationally, I see many examples of poorly thought-out job descriptions and activity plans. What do you think is a poor job description? Take a look here. 
( a preview is to the right).
Why do you think I regard it as a poor job description? It’s not:
Prioritized
Some of the activities don’t result in success
My conclusion: This job description was written by an academic who had never been successful in real estate!
Abdicating our Leadership Responsibilities
Part of that abdication of management responsibility, I believe, is not providing a prioritized job description to your agents. Notice I said ‘prioritized’. Which activities should the agent start with? Which are important to be successful? Which are less important?
Before I share my job description with you, please write the job description you believe is the one you expect agents to follow.
When do you share that job description? In the interview? I hope so.
My Prioritized Job Description
Now, take a look at the prioritized job description I developed as a foundation for the new agent’s start-up plan, Up and Running in 30 Days. How does yours differ? What does your job description say about what you think is important? Are you gaining as much success for your new agents as you should? What does your job description and start-up plan have to do with those results?
For a printable copy, click here.
Get that job description refined. Talk to some of your agents to assure it’s the job description that reflects how you hire, train, and retain. Start using it in your interviews. Now, you’re getting much more effective and efficient.
If you’re a busy owner or manager, you’re probably wondering how you possibly implement the leadership you know it takes today to move your company forward. I’ve got the answer. Once a month, I’ll share a new leadership strategy–a strategy you can instantly implement in your company to motivate, energize, and help your agents be more productive (plus, these are great recruiting tools). Take a look at 365 Leadership.
For just $39.95 per month, you’ll get that strategy/action plan, an instructional webinar, a coaching tele-conference call, and all the ready-to-use documents you need to make that strategy a reality. Our new session starts in January, 2012. Don’t worry: You can join through March and get any sessions you may have missed. And, you will have access to all the completed sessions any time you want to view or review them. Check out 365 Leadership today. Let me share with you the specific, creative strategies I used to rebuild 2 real estate offices into exceptional profits.
Three Leadership Principles Orchestra Conductors Taught Me
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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!
How to Lose $10,000 a Month with your Hiring Practices
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It’s estimated that an agent who fails in six months costs a broker between $10,000 and $30,000! So, if you’re hiring only one a month who fails, you’re easily losing $10,000 each month!
Do you know how much poor hiring practices cost you? Most brokers don’t realize they are doing irreparable damage to their companies by hiring those who aren’t going to go right to work—and keeping those who won’t work. Here are the 3 biggest consequences to poor selection I see.
1. Stops you from hiring great producers.
Likes attract. How can brokers hope to hire that great producer when they have more than 10% of their office as non-producers? I can see it now. “Sure, I’ll come to your office. I’m a top producer, and I just love to be dragged down by those non-producers. It will be my pleasure to waste my time with them.” Not.
2. Kills your recruiting message.
Do you have a training program? Do you use it to recruit? Here’s the real message: “We have a training program. All our new agents go through it. We don’t get any results from the program, so it really doesn’t work. But, join us.” You can’t possibly show how successful your training program makes your agents because your training program can’t possibly get results—poor people in and no actions and accountability required.
3. De-motivates your agents to provide referrals to you.
Your outcomes and hiring practices speak more loudly than you could possible speak. Why would one of your good agents possibly refer someone to you when your good agent doesn’t see those you hired starting right out and making money fast?
This Market Won’t Cover Up an Inadequate Selection Process
In a fast market, ‘accidental sales’ buoyed poor agents and made them look as though they were actually selling enough real estate to be a ‘median’ agent. When the market left, so did the agents’ ‘mirage’ of decent production. Now, brokers need to hire with purpose (using a stringent, professional interview process). Then, they need to put agents right to work with a proven start-up plan.
Please Tell Me What You Think
What do you think a non-productive agent costs the company? In my next blog, I’ll give you some line items that will probably double what you think a bad hire costs. Let’s see what you think first. Poor hiring practices really, really hurts brokers—both financially and emotionally.
Does Your Training Make the Grade?
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How effective is the training in your company and/or office? Is it doing the job you want it to do? What, exactly DO you want it to do? Some brokers say they want training for
1. Recruiting
2. Retention
3. Because the competition has it
4. Teach agents the technical aspects of real estate
But, brokers don’t usually pinpoint what I think training should do:
Directly affect the success of an agent who attends the training–and does the work during the training.
Too often, agents simply choose an office because it has ‘training’. They don’t differentiate between training programs. Yet, I know all training programs aren’t created equal. In fact, unfortunately, a great many of them don’t assure any type of success. How do I know? I look at what happens to the people after they ‘graduate’ from those training programs. So, I think, if you’re going to go to training, you have the right–and responsibility to yourself–to expect that training program would directly affect the success of your agents. Otherwise, what is it for?
What should you expect from your company/office training program as a manager?
What to Look For: Five Critical Points
1. The objective is fast productivity, not just knowledge. When an agent interviews, he/she should ask what the objectives of training are with that company. If it’s just knowledge, in my opinion, they should run the other way! They will know a lot, but they won’t be in business very long!
2. The training program has business-producing expectations and goals. For example, if the agents expect to make money fast, the training program needs to help them learn to set prospecting goals and attain them. That doesn’t mean lecturing in class. That means they get an activity plan and are working in the field during the class duration. That also means that they aren’t in class all day.
3. The training program is built around a business start-up plan. In the interview, show the company’s business start-up plan for the agent. If it isn’t sales-producing, it isn’t a real start-up plan.
4. Sales skills are practiced by the students in class. How can we expect agents to be competent with clients if they haven’t gained competency and confidence in the classroom? Clients are very discriminating these days. They expect agents to know what they’re doing! During the interview, show how students spend class time. This should not be lecture!
5. Expectations for achievement in sales developing and packaging are clear. Is this a college-level training? In college, students are expected to perform during the course. If agents are not expected to practice outside class, and get sales packages together (like listing and buyer presentations), then this isn’t a real training. It’s just a time-eating event. Wouldn’t your consumer expect agents to have a high level of competence, no matter their days/weeks/years in the business? Then, your training program must deliver.
Armed with these 5 critical expectations, you can evaluate your training program .
Question: How do you evaluate your training program? What’s working right? What’s not working? What do you think should have been in your training program?
Want to see that kind of program–and a sample of what it looks like? Check out Advantage 2.0.
Click here to see more.
The Clues: How to Teamify your Office for More Profits
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You’ve decided you want to move into the world of participative management, and create a real team. How do you start? Here are some great resources.
Start reading books on visionary leadership and team building. One the best is Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Porras and Collins, Harper Business. For a quick read, choose Ken Blanchard’s High Five: The Magic of Working Together. Author Jon R. Katzenbach has several recent books on teams, too. Pay attention when successful leaders in other industries talk about how they “teamified” their associates using vision, values, participation through advisory groups and rewards for common focusing such as profit sharing.
Lots of Clues on the Sports Pages
Read the sports pages. Ask yourself, “Why is that person considered a good coach? Why did that person fail? How did that person get a bunch of highly gifted, undisciplined athletes to stop playing as individual stars and start playing like a team? Why do some “teams” fail with more gifted athletes than the team who wins with less individual gifts and more team play?
Leaders Build True Teams
I don’t believe that teams fail. I believe that leaders fail to build true teams. The main reason leaders fail is because they don’t know how to be team leaders. They have never experienced being on an effective team of any kind or being led by an effective leader. So when they call it a “team,” it’s merely a group. They say they want team play, but instead they reward individual play. They ask for cooperation and fair play, but when a dispute arises, those values fly out the door so that the higher producer is “protected” by management. They say they manage by a value system, but what is it—and where is it? In reality, they manage by expediency.
How to Recognize a Team
To recognize a real estate team, you will see evidence that:
- Individuals give up some self-interest for the good of everyone, e.g., no one steals leads or bad-mouths team members to sales associates or the community to get the upper hand.
- Your leadership council makes win-win decisions, not win-lose ones. An example of win-lose would be a decision in which sales associates win, management loses.
- Team members are accountable to a common goal, e.g., each team member agrees to sell a certain number of homes to support team goals.
- New team members are highly supported and encouraged to set goals and achieve them. For example, no team member joins an office where they must “prove themselves” alone to get any attention.
- Systems exist that support teamwork such as advisory councils, task forces, and a business plan that mirrors the vision and values of the team.
- Team rewards exist such as like profit sharing.
Why Bother?
Why bother to learn the leadership skills required to create a team? Because, it’s more rewarding—both financially and emotionally. I’m a flutist, and I can tell you there’s a much greater synergy in playing a flute concerto with an orchestra than in playing a flute solo—alone—or even with a piano accompaniment. Learn the skills of teamwork, for, in the next decade, trend watchers tell us that teamwork in the workplace is critical to profitability. It’s even true in real estate.
Want to get specific strategies, that you can immediately implement, to build your team with confidence, take a look at 365 Leadership. It’s a small-group coaching program ONLY for owners and managers. Each month, you’ll get a new leadership strategy to recruit, coach, train, and motivate your associates. You’ll build new structures to get out of that old ‘top down’ management that agents hate! Take a look at 365 Leadership and see what others think of the first program. Our next program starts in September.
You deserve the kind of coaching and support to take your management career to the next level!
Building your Team: Start with the End in Mind
Posted by: | CommentsWhy bother to re-structure your leadership style to build a true team? Because you’ll recruit more and retain better
. Bottom line: more profits.
To build a team: Start with the end in mind. Today, teamwork will exist only when there is a common vision in the office—a vision created by leadership.
Is That Vision Strong?
Ask yourself: Do you have stated values and a vision of where you want to be at the end? Is that vision inspiring? Has the team adopted the vision, is the team energized about it, and is the team working together toward it? This is one of the things we work on in 365 Leadership, our small-group coaching program with a new leadership strategy every month.
Ensure the Team Is in Tune
Are you sure your team is a ‘team’? Or, is it just a group that you work into a frenzy once in awhile? It’s difficult for us to tell, if we’ve never been in a real team. Let me use a musical analogy to try to explain how a team sounds and feels.
I play piano in a jazz group. I’m the leader. So, before I call a tune, I have to start with a vision—a clear idea of how I want a particular tune to sound. I have to pick the tune, hear the rhythm in my head, get the feel, review the structure and decide on the parts I want the members to play—all before I call the tune to my jazz members. Then I’d better be sure everyone in that group agrees to the terms and conditions of that vision before we start—or it’s going to sound like a mess! I’ve actually called tunes and had band members say they couldn’t play the tune in that rhythm. I’ve hired jazz members who wanted to play their own version of the tune–rather than our version! Better to know it before beginning, or else the band doesn’t sound like one band—it sounds like three players each choosing a different tune.
Building a Team is Easier if you Have a Model
Great and profitable companies (outside of real estate) today have visions that fire up their associates to have a sense of meaning and accomplishment. This creates a teamwork atmosphere. Think England’s The Body Shop, which sells personal care products. Soap doesn’t fire up those employees, their environmental causes do.
Recommended reading: Read the best business book of all time (my opinion): Build to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, by Porras and Collins. There are dozens of stories and quotes about visionary companies.
Commit to a Common Focus
So you have enlisted your team members in a common vision. Now, how do you get everyone’s commitment? By helping team members determine what’s in it for them. You will hear a sports star say, “It didn’t matter if I scored 50 points. We lost the game.” If that person were not a team player, it wouldn’t matter if the team won or lost.
Accountability is Key
First, build in accountability. Each team member must have a defined role, with responsibility to perform that role well. We in the real estate industry have really fallen down on that one. We don’t require much of anything from our team members. Still, we call them a “team.” What if the Los Angeles Lakers had no defined roles and no accountability for players to master their roles? They wouldn’t have won a championship!
What would be examples of accountability?
- Being accountable for your goals to a “peer partner.”
- Being accountable for your goals to your manager.
- Being accountable for some training for your associates.
Reward Team Play
Second, reward team play. Behavior that’s rewarded is repeated. What do we reward in real estate? Individual sales achievements. If we want team play, we must devise systems to reward team play. What would team play rewards look like? They could be commission or profit sharing for recruiting, peer coaching for retention, etc. This is an area that real estate companies must build, otherwise sales associate have no reason to play on the team. Other reward systems might be rewards for a team in a contest, rewards for coaches in a coaching/mentoring system and rewards for participation in sales associate advisory councils.
Get The Strategies to Build that Team
Want to get specific strategies, that you can immediately implement, to build your team with confidence, take a look at 365 Leadership. It’s a small-group coaching program ONLY for owners and managers. Each month, you’ll get a new leadership strategy to recruit, coach, train, and motivate your associates. You’ll build new structures to get out of that old ‘top down’ management that agents hate! Take a look at 365 Leadership and see what others think of the first program. Our next program starts in September.
You deserve the kind of coaching and support to take your management career to the next level!
Team is No Longer a ‘Four-Letter Word
Posted by: | CommentsIn real estate, for years we said,
we don’t need to think of ourselves as a team. We’re independent contractors. We work alone.
That perspective has certainly changed in the last few years, and it’s a continuing trend. Why? Because the challenges are so much greater. The needs for specialists is so much greater. Both managers and agents are learning the benefits a synergystic team. And, for managers, it gives them an opportunity to stop that old ‘top-down’ management style and step into participative management (see the 365 Leadership coaching program for more on this).
Who Has Supported You in your Life?
Think of a time in your life when you accomplished something noteworthy. Were you completely alone? Or was someone with you? If someone was involved in your accomplishment, think of how that person was involved. Did he or she help you get that done? Taught you the skills to do that job? Encouraged you?
That exercise always elicits smiles, warm memories and enthusiasm. And no one with whom I’ve done that exercise has ever said that he or she accomplished something important alone.
Management tip: Try that in your real estate office. See what kind of response you get. Then hold a discussion using the points in this and my next blog.
No One Succeeds Alone
What about talented people? Can’t they master skills alone? The answer is—no. Since I have been a musician from age four, I thought about my musical experiences—and how much musicians can accomplish alone—or not. I concluded as I thought about my musician friends, that, no one could succeed without outside coaching.
As I grew up, I watched innately talented musicians get “stuck.” They could take themselves only so far without some coaching. (You would call that “playing by ear.”) For example, many found they had to learn to read music to achieve their goals. Why? It’s impossible to learn a Beethoven sonata “by ear”—it’s simply too long. I don’t know anyone who taught him- or herself to read music—alone. And that’s just the basics. We musicians know that we can’t hear ourselves play or sing well enough to correct all our mistakes. We need a coach with a great ear to help us refine our performances. And the need for coaching never ends, as long as we want to maintain levels of performance.
Who Is Supporting You to Master Real Estate Management?
It’s time to acknowledge that none of us can master real estate alone. How did we ever create the folklore that we had to work alone in our endeavors to achieve accomplishments in real estate? I can’t think of a skill that anyone can master where the “practitioner” had no teaching, coaching, mentoring or encouragement.
But by perpetuating this folklore, we have damaged the real estate industry. We did the easy, expedient and inexpensive thing: We told our sales associates that this was an “independent business”—that they were in business for themselves. We trashed our training programs. We forced our sales associates to seek outside coaching and consulting. What we got was a very uneven standard of performance, and we created adversarial relationships among sales associates—and between sales associates and managers. What we allowed were uncommon goals, more competition, less cooperation—and we did it with a bunch of people who already are highly competitive. We threw out leadership—and what we got was anarchy, in some cases.
Leadership Steps
Start coaching your sales associates again. Help them discover that no one achieves alone. Then start building a team atmosphere. What do I mean by “team”? Not what you might think. Don’t get up in front of your sales associates and say, “We will accomplish more together as a team. So now we’re a team.” That’s ludicrous. And yet, that’s exactly why so many teamwork concepts fail. Teamwork is not an announcement. It’s a process—a process that requires skills that many managers, and sports coaches, have not mastered.
What Exactly is a ‘Team’?
A team is not a rah-rah group of people drawn together in a power play. A team isn’t a social group. A team isn’t a group of people who agree to do things the manager’s way, or whoever is the “boss” such as the dominant sales associate. A team is two or more people working on a common task, focused on mutually agreed to and mutually beneficial results.
You can think of the team acronym, “Together Everyone Accomplishes More.”
Want to get specific strategies, that you can immediately implement, to build your team with confidence, take a look at 365 Leadership. It’s a small-group coaching program ONLY for owners and managers. Each month, you’ll get a new leadership strategy to recruit, coach, train, and motivate your associates. You’ll build new structures to get out of that old ‘top down’ management that agents hate! Take a look at 365 Leadership and see what others think of the first program. Our next program starts in September.
You deserve the kind of coaching and support to take your management career to the next level!
The Other 5 Biggest Mistakes Real Estate Recruiters Make
Posted by: | CommentsIn the previous post, we explored 5 of the 10 biggest mistakes I’ve seen real estate recruiters make–and, admittedly, I’ve made. After all, I started like most of you–here’s your desk, here’s your phone……you know the drill…
So, here’s the rest of my list. What did I leave out? Why are we selecting so many who fail to make it in real estate?
6. Recruiting agents without the necessary skills or motivation to be
successful (excuse the picture…I couldn’t resist…)
We keep beating our heads against stone walls recruiting agents who are deficient in the two skill sets we say are most important to real state success: technical (computer) skills and sales skills. We hire them, and then we pour thousands of dollars down a black hole trying to train them to do the things they won’t or can’t do.
Why not hire agents who already have technical and sales skills? In my new program, The Complete New Recruiter, I ask managers to make a list of the skills and qualities they feel are critical in the agents they hire. Please do that. Then, create questions that bring out whether an agent has the skills and qualities you need.
7. Talking too much in the ‘interview’ process
Well, it’s not really an interview process to most managers. It’s actually a talk marathon, where the manager talks to the would-be agent until the agent gets tired and agrees (or not) to join the company. That’s what dozens of agents have described as their ‘recruiting interviews’. Your first hour of the recruiting interview should be contoured like this: The interviewee talks ¾ of the time. You talk ¼. What are you doing while the interviewee is talking? Asking questions and listening. What are you listening for? Whether or not that interviewee has the necessary amounts of the skills and qualities you want. How do you assure you’ve got the complete story? Probe around that one idea until you’re completely assured that the interviewee has sufficient strength of that trait or skill. The Complete Recruiter has lots of tips on mastering sales skills for recruiting. This is just one of them.
8. Selling all the features and benefits of the company in the same way to each recruit
That’s simply because the manager didn’t ask good questions at the beginning of the process. If he had, he would’ve discovered what needs the agent wanted met. Then, he would’ve designed his presentation to meet those needs.
9. No recruiting plan
About three years ago I was the head writer for the CRB (Certified Real Estate Broker) People Management course. This course includes recruiting, selecting, training, and motivating agents for high productivity. I was excited to teach the course the first time, and was thrilled that there were about sixty managers in the course. I found that most of them had been in the business over ten years.
I wanted to create something where they could share recruiting experiences and ‘wins’, so I decided to do a little contest for ‘best recruiting campaign.’ I introduced the contest the first morning, and waited for the entries. There were none. At the beginning of the second day I asked the students if it was a dumb contest, or what seemed to be the barriers. They told me that none of them had a recruiting plan, much less a campaign! How could you implement your recruiting ‘moves’ without a plan of action? We pound into our agents heads the idea of business plans. Yet, we don’t have plans for the most important of all our activities—recruiting. If you’re among the 95% of managers who don’t have a plan, I’ve provided a simple, straightforward method of planning in The Complete Recruiter.
10. No system for agent follow-up
You’ve interviewed the agent. The agent doesn’t join that day. Now, what happens? In most companies—nothing! You need a contact management system. You need a contact plan. You need materials, and you need strategy. Finally, you need someone to run that plan. Hire a competent assistant and let that assistant engage your plan. This agent follow-up is really a part of your overall recruiting plan. You expect your agents to do it, and you need to do this, too, with your potential recruits. Remember, follow up until they ‘buy or die’!
It doesn’t take a masterful recruiter to win all the awards. All it really takes is determination and persistence. And, when you look at the few managers who actively recruit, you know that merely taking a stab at in a consistent manner will win you many recruits. Start now!
The 10 Biggest Mistakes Real Estate Recruiters Make
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Isn’t it amazing the number of things a new manager is supposed to be able to do—from day one—even though he or she isn’t trained to do those tasks? Take recruiting, for example. As a new manager, I was expected to prospect, get appointments, ask great questions, and select agents who would be successful. But, did I have the skills to perform those tasks with competence? You can bet not!
Even though I was a top-producing agent, I didn’t take the time to think through, and didn’t know how to, apply the sales skills I had used to attain high sales volume to the recruiting tasks at hand. So, I, like thousands of other new managers, just did it ‘by ear’. Along the way, I had some ‘wins’ and lots of ‘losses’. Through my observations of myself and others, I’ve created a list of ten top mistakes, so that you can avoid the pitfalls I—and others without training—have fallen into.
In this blog, we’ll look at the first five. Also, I’ll add some advice I learned from all those mistakes!
1. Charge ahead to hire
It should occur to us that we need to sit in a quiet place and think about the kind of people we want to hire—before we dive in. But, we are so thrilled that someone is in front of us that it doesn’t occur to us that they bring with them their values and ethics. So, if we haven’t thought out our values, our beliefs, and our perspectives first, we run the risk of hiring people who will then dictate what the company values become. Before you start interviewing, decide what you will and what you won’t stand for. Write out your values and your beliefs. Then, when you interview, check to be sure that agent carries those same values and beliefs into your office. Someone’s got to be the leader, and it better be you!
2. Recruiting to old-style management strategies
I know, I know. Just go make those calls and you will get some recruits. Yes, that’s true. But, wouldn’t it be better if you built a company that stood apart from the others because of its ‘attractors’? The greatest attractors today to a company are twofold:
a. Does the company have values and beliefs that the agent can live by—and agree with?
b. Does the company focus its energy on the success of the agent—or on itself/
If you are still trying to recruit to an old-style dictatorship, or, if you’ve given up leadership—get a clue. Find out what participative management is all about. Find out how to build a team. Figure out how to help each agent reach his/her goals. Now, you’re on the right track. Re-tool your business structure so you’re attractive to the entrepreneur of today and tomorrow.
3. Trying to recruit on the company features
“Our company is the largest around.” Well, guess what? If you’re a branch manager, and all your branch managers say the same thing, you’re not going to differentiate yourself that way! You must make yourself a magnet. What about your background provides a benefit to a new agent? To an experienced agent? For example, I was a musical performer and teacher. That taught me performance skills, and how to teach others performance skills. You can see the benefits to agents. I’m able to help an agent reach his goals through greater skills.
4. Not differentiating the feature from all the other companies that have the same thing
“We have a great training program.” So says every company out there. What’s so great about your program? You’d better be able to tell ‘em and show ‘em. “Our training program has a 90% rate in our agents making a sale in the first thirty days they’re with us.” No one else in the area has success figures like that. Here’s the brochure about our program. It spells out the comprehensive five-step program for new agents. Do you want a program that assures you make money fast?”
5. Trying to attract agents through ‘price wars’ 
We in the real estate industry just love to hire agents through the bidding wars. We either provide a lower desk fee, better commission splits, or more trinkets and trash. Guess what? That’s the chicken’s way out. In reality, price is never the best recruiter. But, if you don’t have a great company organization, if you don’t help agents meet their goals, you’re going to have to compete on price. It’s all you’ve got. Now, work hard to provide real value. After all, consumers pay 10% more for products and services they believe are of quality.
Recommendation: Read Drive–The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink. The motivators have changed, but no one has told real estate professionals!
So far, what have I left out?