Real estate can be a transient business. It can also be a lifelong career. Commissions can barely pay the bills. Real estate can also be a limitless income-producing opportunity to fund your best life. Part of this comes down to the hard work of the individual and commitment to consistent activities over time to reap the rewards of a successful real estate career.
Some of this also comes down to which brokerage and team an agent chooses to partner with. New agents should do their due diligence and choose wisely.
Leaders, take your responsibility seriously. If you partner with new agents, you have a responsibility to help them succeed. However, they must put in the work, too. You can’t want it more than they do.
Everyone, at some point in their life, starts out as a beginner. There is a steep learning curve in real estate, and as a leader of several real estate businesses, it’s important to me that our company nurtures emerging talent (after all, that was me less than 15 years ago). Experienced agents can cast a long shadow.
It’s easy to feel like they get all the business and all the leads because they can make it look so easy. A strong team has a healthy mix of new and experienced agents, and a good leader knows how to nurture both.
Here are three ways to help less experienced team members compete:
1. Discipline and time management
Having discipline and structure is difficult for anyone — particularly for entrepreneurs and particularly for entrepreneurs new to the real estate industry.
It’s hard to know where to start, what to do, what to focus on, who to call, etc. That’s why we like to get team members into a system and structure from Day 1.
Our ideal (and recommended) daily schedule includes morning personal development, then a 10-minute power-up call, followed by 15 minutes of script practice, and then three hours of lead generation. That means all of the most important work in a new team member’s day is done by noon.
How many people can say that? The afternoons are reserved for meeting with clients and customers, setting up showings, and following up with leads. And, if there are no appointments to go on, then it’s time for more lead generation.
Entrepreneurs and sales professionals often get start their own business because they crave freedom, and they don’t want any structure. And yet, the opposite is actually true. The more structure and discipline you create in your life through strong time management practices, the more freedom you actually have.
We know what works. We don’t require our agents to follow any particularly structure, but we do enough training around the importance of creating discipline, that most of them choose to opt in. And those who do (surprise!), are the ones that have the most success. Discipline and structure will definitely give new agents a competitive advantage.
2. Sales training
Good sales strategies are important for new and experienced agents, but they are critical for new team members. Some people might be born with natural sales abilities, but it’s by studying best practices, learning lead-generation scripts, mastering the art of follow-up, and understanding the local and national market that makes a real estate sales professional stand out. Knowledge is power.
Each morning, we start with script practice and infuse our days with real-time sales training whether it’s on conversion, contracts or negotiations. Each month we host a weeklong bootcamp focused on topics ranging from circle prospecting to relationship selling to working with investors.
In weekly team meetings, we discuss the local market and real estate trends so our agents are equipped with the latest data. And, in this current economy, it’s incredibly important for your new team members to not only have the data, but to also actually understand the story that the numbers are telling. We talk about that, too.
Becoming a local and industry expert through studying the art of sales will help new team members compete.
3. Don’t leave any agents behind
Every month, our company, across all 25-plus locations, rallies around the concept of “No Agent Left Behind.” It’s our collective mission to make sure that every agent in our company puts at least one home under contract each month. No, we don’t always hit that goal, but it’s always in the forefront of our mind.
How does that look in reality? Every week, each individual team takes stock of where their team members are at. As the end of the month approaches, if someone still doesn’t have their name “on the board,” then the rest of the team circles the wagons and supports the hell out of that individual to help them meet with one more client or make one more hour of calls, to offer a negotiation tip to get the deal done, etc.
This is an incredible display of our culture and a surefire way to help new team members compete. Why? Because they have a group of new and experienced, yet all talented, individuals around them who believe in the importance of teamwork and who truly understand that everyone achieves more together.
And here’s a bonus for you: Tap into what drives your team members. The surface answer is likely going to be a specific dollar amount, but don’t stop there.
Why is that income important to them? What will they do with that money? How will it make them feel? Are there other ways to tap into those drivers today without waiting for a specific outcome to arrive?
You can help new team members compete by creating a rhythm to their day and week, doubling down on their skills with sales training, leaving no team member behind and focusing on what drives them. You’ll be giving them a competitive advantage and creating an unbeatable culture at your company. Win-win!
Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Adam Hergenrother Companies
