We are among the most elite real estate professionals in the world yet it seems like we are glorified babysitters for our staff.  I have to tell you, this is one of the biggest problems I see with the top producers I work with. You think to yourself  “if only my staff would show half the level of commitment and passion that I do…”.Real estate teams I would like to say that I sympathize with your situation, but I don’t.  The fact is that it’s your fault!  You are the boss and you are letting it happen.  Over my many years of coaching the best agents in the world, I have never seen one exception to this.  There are many reasons why and how this happens but I believe there are 3 major issues that come up every time I start coaching someone who is having problems with their team.

Hiring people is the biggest, most challenging decision a business owner has to make.

Agents and Brokers don’t put enough stock in the importance of building a real estate team; they focus on getting people on board with the right qualifications at the right price and that’s it. It’s an easy trap to fall into because it’s an easier way to hire. And when your business is growing fast and doing well, and you’ve got more work than you know what to do with, to heck with building a core team…you need warm bodies at desks!

The end result of building a team without really thinking about the team is usually not a good one. Higher turnover. Dissatisfaction at work. Lower productivity. A core team of passionate, true believers will always go the extra mile for each other and by extension the broker or agent they work for. People will stay at jobs they dislike if they love the team. The problem with hiring the right people is that it takes a lot longer. You have to be prepared to invest a good chunk of time in the process — finding candidates, interviewing them, testing them, trying them out … The payoff is enormous. This is especially true for agents just starting their team. Those first few hires are going to be key ones. Those people are practically partners. You need them to stick it out through thick and thin, and be as devoted as possible. You need them to create the culture for future hires. You need them evangelizing the business. You need them taking ownership. You need them to be the driving force of success.It’s a tall order, which is why you need to invest the time, thought and energy into hiring people properly. And you always need to focus on building a great team, not a bunch of people connected together by the fact that they work in the same office.

Management

Think back for a moment to when you first got into the Real Estate Business.  It was just you against the world, knocking on doors, making cold calls, asking your family and friends for referrals… working 24/7.  You worked like a dog but in some ways wasn’t it so much easier?  At some point, you suffered what Michael Gerber refers to as an “Entrepreneurial Seizure”. This means that you hit the point when you needed to hire staff to do more business and you thought that you could just hire more staff and you can just go on and do the same things that you were doing before you started your “Team”.

Management is the most overlooked skill among top producing agents. The way that I look at it is that as soon as you add your first team member, you go from being a  salesperson to becoming a CEO.  As CEO, your job is to train, motivate, and provide direction and vision for your “company” on a daily basis.  If your staff is properly managed, not only will your business have exponential growth far beyond what you thought possible, but you will be amazed at how independent your team will become.

Management is usually the last thing that salespeople want to become, but over the years, I have seen so many successful teams explode their business with a little more direction and attention.

Shuck the losers!

This may seem harsh, but it is holding back so many successful teams.  There is nothing worse for team moral and productivity than having one or two team members that just are not pulling there weight.  It becomes like a cancer within your organization that just grows with time.

“Shuck the losers” is a term that Lee Iacocca came up with when he was saving Chrysler.  His philosophy was always replacing the bottom 10% of your staff.  Jack Welsh had a similar 20-70-10 principle which means 20% of your staff are all stars, 70% of your staff in good and the bottom 10% are replaceable.  That is exactly what he did.  Can you imagine how focused that would keep your staff?

I don’t believe you can use these methods in small business but the principal is right.  One of the things that I tell my coaching clients is to hire slow and fire fast.  Once you realize that someone is not a fit for your team… get rid of them.  This may seem obvious but how many people on your team are underachieving but you don’t want to fire them because they well liked or they are a personal friend of yours. Remember, it not shows friends…its show business!

You may already know about these three points, but it always comes down to are you actually doing the things you know you should be doing.

To your success,

Ken Goodfellow

“Coach Ken”