Hire

A HIRE Education For Your Company Culture

by Steven Morris

I once met a lady who told me she was a real estate broker. I told her that I was a broker as well in both Florida and California . She asked, "What area do you sell in?" I told her that I no longer sell real estate and that I now do consulting and coaching for real estate brokers and real estate companies. She asked, "How do you do that? Do you have some sort of degrees?" I laughed and said, "Yes I do. I have 98.6 of them." You don't need to higher education to be successful as a real estate broker/owner or sales manager. What you need is a HIRE education. Not only do you have to have knowledge in effective recruiting but you have to share that knowledge with your real estate salespeople and create a recruiting culture in your company. You don't have to do all of your recruiting by yourself. Your real estate agents are a tremendous potential resource for hiring new productive agents. Your real estate agents need to understand the benefits to them of your recruiting efforts. They need to know and understand that the more productive and professional real estate agents your company has means that the company will have more for sale signs, advertising calls, community image, and in general a better environment for your existing agents to do more business. This message can not be merely given to your real estate agents once. You must deliver the message continually to make it a part of your company culture. A recruiting culture with a HIRE education. At every one of your sales meetings you should have a portion dedicated to telling your sales force about your company vision, mission and how important it is to your agent’s business for your company to grow through recruiting. If you are consistent you will be surprised after a short time in how inspired your agents will be to help you recruit. There are some company models that offer a money incentive to real estate agents to help the company recruit. I personally believe that beyond compensation it's more important that your agents WANT to help you recruit. This comes through your efforts to inspire your agents about your vision of your company's growth. It comes through your leadership. After learning this concept one of my broker clients told me that he was truly amazed when he sat down with one of his top producing agents to discuss it with her. She told him that she would be delighted to help recruit quality agents to the company and that she had no idea that he would want her to do so. Successful people enjoy and are proud of working with other successful people. You can take advantage of that knowledge. Ask all of your real estate agents for the names of agents from other companies that they have worked with that they consider skilled, professional and would enjoy having them on their team. Growing a solid profitable real estate company requires recruiting real estate agents, helping those agents produce, retaining them and making sure your agent’s buyers and sellers are happy with their customer experience. Here's a tip for you. If you are in an area of the country in which your closings are done at a closing table with the selling agent, listing agent, buyers and sellers all in attendance you should spend five to 10 minutes visiting each closing. Take with you four small gifts such as a $5 or $10 gift certificate from Starbucks or Borders. Shake hands with the buyers and sellers and thank them for their business. Congratulate and brag a little bit about your agent and how happy you are they work for you. Also tell the buyers and sellers that you are sorry that the cooperating broker doesn’t work for you but that they are also a great agent and their client was wise in selecting them. Give each one of the agents and clients your gift and say goodbye. Just a quick hello, thank you and goodbye. There you have it in one 10 minute visit. Customer appreciation, agent retention, and a potential new recruit. The cooperating agent will say, "Gosh! My broker/manager never does that!" If you are in an area of the country that doesn't have this type of closing table do the same thing by mail and telephone. Better yet deliver the cooperating agents gift to them at their office. Don't be afraid. You’re not in the lion’s den. You're just saying hello and giving them a gift of thanks. Believe me, they will remember you when they are ready to make a move. Creating a recruiting culture will take some time but it will be a tremendous resource in your recruiting efforts.

To help solve problems like these and to gain more knowledge of growing your real estate company in recruiting, agent production and retention consider purchasing Steven’s CD sets and having him personally work with you.

Steven Morris is a real estate broker, sales management consultant and coach with 30 years of experience and can be reached at 888-326-3949 or SMorris@MorrisWilliams.net