As you become an established name in the real estate industry, you may find yourself taking your business to the next level. This means improving your leads and closing more deals to generate bigger revenue. It also includes building an organization with high-performing agents.
Typically, it takes experienced management to set up a winning team of real estate agents that can effectively close deals and meet quotas. However, with the right tools and mindset, it can also be achieved by individual real estate agents who want to grow their business. If you’re looking into starting a real estate agency, you can increase your chances of success with these tips:
Understand What the Business Needs
It’s important to use recruiting software, like the one found on brokerkit.com, to look for talented real estate agents. However, you must first assess if your business is growing fast enough and that it’s becoming more challenging to handle all tasks by yourself. Perhaps, you have more listings and transactions than before, to the extent that you can no longer focus on new leads. If this is the case, you can consider hiring agents.
Generally, a good benchmark you can use is if you have 40 transactions a year. Then, it may be wise to make your first hire. Do note that in some cases, an individual agent can handle up to 60 transactions all on their own. If you have established yourself as a reliable professional in the real estate industry and find yourself managing one transaction each week, you’ll most likely need some help to take care of additional leads.
Put Specific Systems in Place
Once you’ve established that you need people to support your business, you need to take a closer look at your processes and systems. It will help you run your organization more smoothly as you begin building your team. It will also provide a clear framework for incoming employees to work efficiently. With a solid structure in place, new agents can begin producing results right away.
The key systems you need to set up as you expand your business include:
- Business plan and goals. These will serve as a guide on what you want your business to achieve and how you envision doing it. Being clear with your goals also gives everyone in the team a target to reach, so their efforts will be more focused on the objectives.
- Marketing and advertising. To ensure there are always incoming transactions, you need to tell people about your business. As such, you need effective marketing and advertising strategy in place to go about it.
- Client database and referral system. These include how you want to maintain and grow your current client database. In the case of the referral system, you need to establish the process of getting internal referrals, as well as if you’re willing to accept referrals from other brokerages.
- Commission process. You must define how much commission you want to split with your agents so you can manage their expectations. Also, think about what happens when your agents bring their leads. Will you also split the commission?
- Online marketing. Utilizing online platforms such as your own website and social media pages is one of the best ways to get new leads. Establish an online presence for your business and then devise a plan for how you can maximize it.
- Financial and productivity reports and forecasts. Reports are essential when it comes to seeing how your business is doing. It also helps you find out ways to improve your processes and pinpoint pitfalls to avoid in the future.
Prioritize Hiring Administrative Assistants
Many real estate brokers prefer hiring administrative assistants first because they offer great support no matter what stage you’re in at setting up your organization. If you’re in the initial phase, for example, having administrative assistance can help ensure all your real estate systems are running smoothly.
Once you’re ready to hire high-performing agents, your admin people can focus on bringing in new transactions without worrying about the organization’s workflow. Also, administrative assistants can support you in facilitating contracts to close a deal, freeing you up from spending hours managing paperwork and other requirements.
Focus on an Agent’s Qualities When Hiring
One of the things many top real estate agencies have in common is the traits of their agents. Often, they value real estate agents that have the right mindset and winning personality traits more than those who are highly skilled but have poor character. While skills are important factors, they can be learned and developed. On the other hand, an individual’s personality is harder to change and teach.
When employing real estate agents, here are some traits you may want to look for:
- Proactiveness. Hire agents that are actively seeking ways to improve your business. You want to have people who don’t sit around waiting to be told what to do when building your organization. It’s best to have team members who challenge themselves to find new leads and better ways to close deals.
- Willingness to adapt and learn. Change is inevitable in business. Thus, it’s best to employ agents that are willing to adapt to new systems and learn new technology. In particular, look for people who use tools that can enhance the efficiency of your business, like social media and customer relationship management software.
Real estate agents who experience a successful career often find themselves building their own organizations as their next step in expanding their business. If this is something that applies to you, make sure to check out these helpful tips for establishing a winning team. They won’t just guide you through the process, but also ensure you have the right people to support your business goals.
