One of the questions I receive on a consistent basis is “Where can I find good agents to join my team?” This is a very important question because your team will ultimately dictate the success of your business.
Bad Team – Bad Business Average Team – Average Business Great Team – Great Business
Isn’t it a little bit odd that this little secret is really the key to success in real estate, but nobody ever bothers to tell you? I didn’t learn this in my licensing or continuing education classes. I learned this the hard way. At first I recruited “bad” agents and my business suffered. Then I started to recruit “average” agents and things got a little bit better. Finally, I began to recruit “great” agents and my business exploded.
Bad Agents
These are the agents who take up a ton of your time but don’t sell any homes. That actually makes your business worse because you’re not gaining any more sales, but now you’re dealing with their complaints, problems, issues, etc. When you ask them why they didn’t sign a prospect to an exclusive agreement, they’ll almost always give you some sort of excuse.
How do you attract bad agents to you? Easy. Run a “Help Wanted” ad in your local paper or on Craigslist. You might not believe me, but I’m telling you it’s true. If you stop and think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that a great salesperson wouldn’t be looking at the help-wanted section. Why? They’d be too busy selling.
The Average Agents
Average agents are agents who do all right. You can count on them for a sale or two every now and again. An average salesperson takes the cream off the top, meaning they sell homes to the easy prospects. They don’t really do a very good job of following up with prospects. Sales simply fall in their lap. They go through the paces without much effort.
Average agents can easily be recruited from other companies. I still remember a meeting I once had with an agent form another brokerage years ago. This agent wanted to join my team, but the timing wasn’t right to leave the brokerage she was with. This was because she owed them $7,000 in commissions that had been advanced to her. Would a great agent be $7,000 to the negative in commissions? No.
The big problem with “average” is that we tend to let “average” hang around. Average agents make some sales, which generates some some commisiions. We worry that if we let the average agent go, we lose out on the money they are generating. This is incorrect thinking, coming from the mindset of scarcity. We look at losing out rather than looking at what we stand to gain. It’s better to replace average agents, especially when you can find great ones.
The Great Team Members
Great agents turn dirt into gold, converting the most sales. They rarely make excuses, they consistently perform at high levels, and they have the ability to hear what a prospect really wants and deliver on it every time. They adapt to the prospect they are working with, and they always self-correct. They are closers.
The challenge with them is that great agents aren’t easy to find. You can’t do it by running help wanted ads. You can’t find them in other businesses, because if they are great agents already, they don’t need you or your team. They have their own.
So to find great agents, you have to go outside the existing pool of agents. The trick is simple: Look for great people, not great agents. Here are who always make up the majority of my very best team members:
Past Clients
As I would go through a transaction with a client, I’d get to know them better and ask myself if they had what it takes to be a great agent. Once our deal was done, I would set up a one-on-one appointment with them and discuss my opinion that they would be excellent in real estate sales. I would then explain my business, explain the opportunity to them, and offer to help them through the process of getting their license.
This simple strategy led to five great agents and one great office manager.
To utilize this approach, you must always be on the lookout for great people. Most team-builders wait until they need a new agent, then go look. You must do the opposite to attract great agents. When you come across someone in your day-to-day journey through life, figure out how you can get them on your team.
Great team members build great businesses.