To build a cohesive team, you need to carefully select its members, support each other, create incentives and celebrate the wins. Here’s how David Parnes and James Harris make it happen at The Agency.

Loyalty is one of the most important aspects when nurturing a strong team. Earning your team’s respect and loyalty can take time, but it’s the foundation for driving team morale and motivating staff to achieve common goals.

We encourage our staff with various incentives, celebrating their accomplishments and our collective wins. It can be a challenging and stressful climate in today’s world of luxury real estate.

But through the years, we have been successful, despite the challenges, by supporting one another, working through the challenging days together and, most importantly, making sure we have a little fun in the process.

A like-minded mentality

We have found that building a team with like-minded, experienced individuals who are committed to working toward the same goal is the first step in motivating our team and earning their loyalty and trust.

This allows us to effectively delegate tasks, knowing we can fully trust each team member to follow through and complete the assignment to the best of their ability.

Building a strong culture is also essential, so that your team is proud of the organization they work for, leading to a sense of fulfillment.

Loyal staff will uphold your values and ensure the sustainability of your organization, which is crucial when building a business that lasts. We always urge our staff to share any concerns.

Genuinely caring about all members of your team and their overall happiness in their day-to-day work will help you, as a leader, inspire your team and build a culture that gets each individual excited and fully engaged in their work.

Provide a sense of ownership

Providing our team with a level of autonomy and leadership within their respective roles has been paramount in creating a sense of ownership and pride for each team member and their work.

We encourage our staff to bring forth ideas, no matter how big or small, enabling them to grow within their role. Collaboration is live and well in our shared office where you can find us constantly bouncing ideas off of one another.

As leaders, we invest in our team’s success and always strive to remain “plugged in” to what is happening at the office.

Our team is intentionally small, so that each person has more control over their respective role and can maintain constant communication with the entire team throughout each transaction.

We have a group text where we are in continuous communication, and we copy all on every email so that we always know what’s going on.

The minute you lose touch with your team is when things start to fall apart. Creating a tight-knit group is what has worked well for us from the very beginning. Trust is a key foundation every team must establish to earn their respect and loyalty and give a true sense of ownership.

Develop incentives

Developing incentives for our team has been a great way to motivate them to continue to perform at the highest level.

Not only is our staff compensated with salary, but they also make a bonus on each property sale, so their efforts are further rewarded. This financial incentive encourages our team to participate and collaborate on every transaction as they have a personal interest in getting it across the finish line.

We operate as a small family and are invested in each other and the overall success of our team. We spend countless hours together and try to have fun, while encouraging and supporting one another.

As a team, we celebrate each sale. Our social media channels are a platform we use to toast to our team’s success alongside our followers and colleagues. We find that it’s important to support not only our team, but also our colleagues and their efforts. Organizing group bonding activities as often as possible has also helped us stay close.

Each of our staff members takes pride knowing they contributed to closing the deal, which further raises morale and bonds us all together.

James Harris and David Parnes serve as Directors at The Agency and star on Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles. They specialize in high-end residential real estate and investment properties in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Sunset Strip, Hollywood Hills, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Malibu.

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