As training programs grow into one of real estate’s most significant trends, Compass announced a new offering Monday that is supposed to help agents beef up their business much in the same way company founder Robert Reffkin built his.
Robert Reffkin
The new program is called the “Robert Reffkin Agent Action Plan.” Reffkin announced the plan in an email Monday to members of Compass, saying it’s based on the idea that people want human connections with their agents, that most agents’ business comes from referrals and that “relationships are built on communication.” The email also notes that Reffkin developed the program with Chirag Shah, a real estate coach who is currently working with hundreds of Compass agents.
“The plan is based on the same ideas that helped me connect with some of the most prominent leaders in business early in my career and raise more than a billion dollars for Compass — one relationship at a time,” Reffkin added in the email.
The program is designed to last 12 months. It includes monthly “accountability workshops” held via video conference, templates for handwritten notes and emails, video scripts, phone call dialogues and other resources. It allows participants to choose and assign tasks, and is accessible to agents via Compass’ software platform.
In his email, Reffkin ultimately described the program as a “playbook” agents can “use to stay in touch with their past clients and sphere of influence.”
The Action Plan is free for Compass agents and there is no limit on the number of company personnel who can participate.
The launch of the program comes at a time when education and training programs have become a kind of low-key but growing trend in real estate. Perhaps most notably in this context, Compass announced in December that it would give agents up to $10,000 for training and coaching.
However, Compass isn’t the only big company beefing up its training offerings. In November, for example, Keller Williams announced that it is launching a real estate school for would-be agents. A month before that, RE/MAX debuted a revamped version of its agent and broker education platform RE/MAX University. And in 2020, Realogy revamped its broker education platform, and then made it more digitally accessible in early 2021.
Taken together, these efforts highlight the fact that training and coaching have become a major focus of large real estate companies over the last two years. Trends such as iBuying, digitization and the coronavirus pandemic may nab more headlines, but the answer major firms have for those various challenges again and again turns out to be more and better training.
Presumably the rise of new and revamped training programs is also a response to growing competition among big brokerages for top talent, with firms such as eXp Realty and Compass known in particular for their successful recruiting efforts.
In any case, Reffkin was optimistic about his own eponymous training program Monday, concluding in his email that “no matter how big or small your business is right now, I can unequivocally say that if you follow this plan, you will grow your repeat and referral business.”
