3 Steps To Making Sure Your Real Estate Company Profits Next Month

Are you suffering from the correcting real estate market?

Revenue down? Expenses up because you increased your expenses as your revenue was increasing over the last 7 years?

Take these 3 Steps to make sure your real estate company is profitable next month.

Step 1.

Start with Reducing Your Real Estate Office Costs and Expenses

The mistake not to make is thinking that your expense cuts have to come from one or two big categories. Look at the small categories also.

Pull out your Profit and Loss statement and review with a 10% reduction in overall expenses as your goal.

Step 2.

Calculate the total volume of listing inventory and what that would equate to company dollar when sold.

Ex. $20,000,000 in listing inventory. 3% List Side commission. Agents are on an average 70/30 commission split. There would be a total of $180,000 in company dollar waiting for you.

Step 3.

Create a Correct Price Initiative.

Work with your agent partners to determine what listings need to have the price corrected, find out the sellers motivation and coach your agents on scripts and strategies to get the listing price lowered to a saleable price.

Contact me for the FREE ”21 Strategies For Price Reductions”  DarinPersinger@gmail.com

 

The Four Segments Of Leadership

There are four main styles, or segments of leadership that people fall into. These Four Segments also affect the culture of a company. Ultimately they determine the success or failure of a company.

Volunteer Leaders

These leaders are the first to raise their hand, the first to share a story, the first to serve their fellow teammates and the most willing to take on a project. These volunteer leaders know what they are capable of, want to share their knowledge, experience and want others to succeed. These volunteer leaders want to succeed and they want to succeed with others and through others.

Reluctant Leaders

These leaders have the ability and the capability. Reluctant Leaders for some reason need or want to be invited to be leaders. Reluctant Leaders will step up to the challenge when asked, you need to ask though. Once they are in the leadership role, they lead with as much energy and passion as a Volunteer Leader. Be sure not to overlook Reluctant Leaders. Reluctant Leaders can be the next wave of great leaders in your company. With confidence and empowerment they can become Volunteer Leaders.

Followers

There are some people that are just not going to lead. They don’t want to lead. Followers have no desire to lead. You can’t lead unless you have someone who follows, so Followers are needed. Be careful though, don’t confuse a Follower with a Reluctant Leader.

Second Guessers

Warning! Warning! Warning! Second Guessers will destroy the culture of a company. Second Guessers make it impossible for a company to grow. Second Guessers will tear a company down. They drain the energy and enthusiasm of a company. Second Guessers are neither Volunteer Leaders or Reluctant Leaders. Second Guessers wait for others to make decisions, to chose a direction, and to cast a vision. They do what Second Guessers do, they second guess. Second Guessers don’t lead, they gossip, spread rumors and try to spread doubt. The thing that is scary about Second Guessers, is that they can influence and they can lead, it’s just in the wrong direction.

Related Posts:

Ideas Worth Working For

How many hats is your real estate sales manager wearing?

My neck hurts

Recruiting Real Estate Agents: Features Vs. Benefits

I’m lucky to work with great real estate agents that share with me what real estate recruiters are doing. How real estate company’s are attempting to recruit, the latest recruiting speech….etc. etc.

The reason why most real estate brokerages and real estate recruiters fail is that they are only talking about features. Features of the company. Recruiters only talking about their own business,  their own company, what they offer.

How does that benefit a real estate agent? How is that going to help with a real estate recruits fear of change when all a real estate recruiter talks about is features?

Here is a great example of only talking about a company and their features. No benefits for the agent at all.

Take a look at all your recruiting marketing copy. Take a look at your recruiting presentation. Take a look at your needs analysis questions. What is it focused on? Features of your company or benefits for the recruit?

Related Posts:

Goals, Your Real Estate Agents…Not Yours

The one thing that every real estate recruiter should offer

 5 ways I have NEVER recruited an experienced real estate agent

Ideas Worth Working For

“And what makes people work is an idea worth working for, along with a clear understanding of what needs to be done.” -Michael Gerber

The above statement brings some questions to mind for me,
 
1. Do you have the right ideas in your company?
2. Do you have the a clear understanding as a LEADER in your company of what needs to be done?
3. Do your agent partners know your ideas?
4. As LEADERSHIP, are you communicating your ideas effectively and systematically?
5. Do your agent partners have a clear understanding of what needs to be done to succeed in this shifting market?
6. Are you asking for your agent partners cooperation or their collaboration? Which one is more empowering, engaging?
7. What are you waiting for to be your best?

Trust Everyone Around Me

I remember watching my nephew and nieces when they were little playing soccer. Every kid on the soccer field would chase after the soccer ball. They looked like a swarm of bee’s. Going this way. Going that way.

It was a joy to watch them grow, progress and become better in the sport. As they got older, they started to comprehend and understand the sport and their role, their position on the team better. They stayed in spot on the field and let the game come to them. They did their job, instead of chasing after the ball wherever it was.

In a real estate company there are many roles, many positions. These different roles make up a team. Sure, Together Everyone Achieves More and when there is TRUST, everyone can focus on their role and do it to higher level.

So do you have partners? Do you have admin staff? I have an important question for you.

Do you Trust them?

Do you delegate? Do you empower? Do you allow them to make decisions without asking your permission first? Do you micro-manage? Do you allow them to fail? Do you allow them to learn?

Do you Trust them?

In order for a Team, a company, to develop to its highest level, the people involved have to be able to say,

“I Trust Everyone Around Me”

To me, that’s the real definition of a team.

Connecting In A Real Estate Recruiting Presentation

I never do the same real estate recruiting presentation. Why should I? I am recruiting a different individual each and every time.

My real estate recruiting presentation is about the agent. 100% about them. When do I talk about what my real estate company has to offer? When I know what the real estate agent wants. And when the real estate agent asks.

If I’m meeting someone for a real estate recruiting presentation, I’m at the CONNECT step in the SCEF Recruiting System. I’m trying to CONNECT with them to see if we are a match. Should I go into business with this person? What are their desires, goals, plans? What drives them? What are their values? 

I had a recruiting appointment today with a real estate agent, he said to me,

“I’m cautious. I’m going to take my time and do my research.”

After an hour together and spending only about 5 minutes talking about commission splits and office fees, the recruit said to me,

“I’m coming here. If that’s OK with you?”

Recruiting An Agent That Is Only Interested In Commission Split

Recruiting Real Estate Agents Has Nothing To Do With Commission Split

5 Ways I have never recruited Top Producer Real Estate agents

Fun vs. Professionalism

What kind of culture do you have in your real estate company?

Is it fun?

Is it professional?

If it was me, I would lean to the side of fun when you are not sure what direction to lean.

How Your Real Estate Company Can Reach Its Goals

Take one moment….think about this.

Do you teach your real estate agents to reach their goals by telling their customers and clients what their goals are, as a real estate agent?

Or do you teach your real estate agents to help each individual customer and client reach their individual goals?

Your goals will be met only, if and when you help others acheive theirs. Do you know what your real estate agents goals are?

Recruiting and Retention Of Real Estate Agents Through Validation

Question: When was the last time you said congratulations to an agent that didn’t work in your real estate company?

Tough Question: When was the last time you said congratulations to one of your own real estate agents?

Tougher Question: When was the last time you said “Thank you” to one of your own real estate agents?

Toughest Question: When was the last time you said to your agents “I’m lucky to be in business with you!”

You can just as easily recruit real estate agents through validation, as you can retain your own agents. By making the people around feel important, recognized and valued–you can start to build and grow your business.

 

 

 Related Posts:

Recruiting Real Estate Agents has nothing to do with commission splits

Goals: Your Real Estate Agents, not yours

A Quick, Easy Real Estate Agent Retention Excercise

Defining Culture In Your Company

Culture is.

Culture is what it is.

Culture is not good or bad. Culture just is. Here are the questions,

Do you have a productivity focused culture? Do you have a learning based culture? Do you have a caring, sharing culture? Do you have a culture were people’s individual aspirations are encouraged? Do you have an open, diverse culture?

Your real estate company or office has culture already, does it have the culture you want it to have though?

Related Posts:

How many hats is your real estate sales manager wearing?

Connect Realty launches without much hoopla

Are your current real estate agents excited about you recruiting?

Casual Friday

Know what you are saying, or singing

Casual Fridays are casual. I am going to leave the suit and tie in the closet, wear some jeans and keep it relaxed and light.

Here is a Youtube that makes me laugh harder and harder every time I watch it. And now it’s stuck in my head. I’m walking around during the day singing her version of it.

This video is proof that passion is only part of the equation. I believe she has passion, she just doesn’t have the words to the song.

And are you thinking the same thing I am, when did Shania Twain become Bulgarian?

What Is The One Thing That Every Real Estate Recruiter Should Offer?

Guerrilla Consulting offers this advice for consultants,

No matter how different your practice is from that of other consultants, the one service you should offer to clients is a diagnostic assessment. You might refer to your service as a strategic assessment, gap analysis, business process evaluation, or even an initial consultation.

Whatever you choose to call it, the service is a relatively short, systematic project to evaluate a specific area of client concern and offer objective advice. The emphasis is on short, systematic, and objective.

Reread that as,

No matter how different your real estate brokerage is from others, the one service you can offer to real estate agents that you are trying to recruit is a diagnostic assessment. You might refer to your service as a strategic assessment, gap analysis, business process evaluation, or even an initial consultation.

I call it a Needs Analysis. Call it whatever you want, just make sure you call some recruits.

Related Posts:

Recruiting An Agent That Is Only Concerned With Commission Split

The Greatest Single Question You Could Ask A Real Estate Recruit

Five Ways I Have NEVER Recruited An Experienced Real Estate Agent

The Importance Of YOU Building Your Real Estate Brand Online

Yesterday I gave you the run down on how a real estate company might want to blog….

This morning I ran across a post confirming why,

but the reality is that unless we’re active using the internet to build up our own brand online, there’s always a danger that other people will define our brand for us.

Tech Tuesday

Real Estate Company Blogs

Should real estate company’s be blogging? The franchisor? The real estate broker/owner?

I say yes.

Of course, there are good ways to go about it and bad ways.

The Good 

Redfin, the online real estate brokerage, operates a corporate blog and numerous local city market blogs. You could use their model of the corporate blog being about the industry, the inner workings of the company, and the company in general and promote and support your agents blog. Don’t try to compete with your real estate agents blogs. If one of your real estate agents has the market stats on a local area, link to them. Don’t compete with them.

The Bad

A large independent in the state of Wisconsin, First Weber, started a company blog in June of 2007. It lacks focus, it lacks a voice, it is not aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t engage the consumer and worst of all, it doesn’t promote or support their real estate agents. Three things that they could do immediately to make their real estate blog better.

1. Create a blog roll with all their real estate agents blogs
2. Invite a home buyer or seller to blog about their personal experience working with First Weber
3. Define who the author of each post is. Let each blogger find and use their voice and allow the customer to get to know the people in the real estate company.

The Great

Real Living keeps a fantastic real estate franchisor blog. And best of all they have been doing it since February of 2002, before most of us even knew what a blog was! They provide great links on their side bar, easy for the consumer to access. (Seller References, Buyer References, Agent Selection References, etc.) It seems like everyone in Real Living has a blog too, from the President to the Franchise Sales Director

If interested in contributing to Tech Tuesday on Real Estate Growth Solutions contact Darin at DarinPersinger@gmail.com

Related Posts:

Hiring new licensee’s is not real estate recruiting

How many hats is your real estate sales manager wearing?

Do you know what business you are in?

Reducing Your Real Estate Office Costs And Expenses

In many situations it is much easier to reduce expenses, then it is to increase revenue.

This is easier said then done, I know. And it’s a balancing act on cutting expenses with out sacrificing services to your real estate agents. This also becomes a retention issue.

The mistake not to make is thinking that your expense cuts have to come from one or two big categories. Look at the small categories also.

Pull out your Profit and Loss statement and review with a 10% reduction in overall expenses as your goal.

For example, if you are paying the energy bill for your real estate office, set all computer’s to hibernate after 5 minutes idle.

Start a paperless initiative. Try to get your real estate agents to think twice before printing. If your real estate agents do feel the need to print and the document does not need to be given out, have them print on already used paper. I have seen many agent print a spec sheet in error and just tear it up and throw away.

Why not flip that piece of paper over and print on the back side?

Do you have policy and procedure manuals, office guideline materials, and company material that could be read on a computer and signed with an electronic signature acknowledging receipt?

Are you still spending thousands of dollars on a complicated phone system? Look at what your real estate agents are talking on. Their cell phones. Why not get rid of long distance? It doesn’t cost your real estate agent extra to make a long distance phone call on their cell phone.

Stop buying coffee Styrofoam or paper cups. Get a vendor to provide coffee mugs.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head from past experience. Where can you cut costs and expenses without sacrificing services?

How Many Hats Is Your Real Estate Sales Manager Wearing?

Would you rather have a real estate sales agent that only sells real estate or a real estate agent that has a full time job and sells real estate part-time? Why?

Well, how many different jobs are you asking your real estate sales manager to do? Or are your real estate sales manager’s doing everything part-time?

I see many real estate company’s were the real estate manager is,

• the broker in charge
• the trainer
• the staff supervisor
• the office manager
• the real estate coach
• the janitor
• a competing sales agent
• the office therapist
• the recruiter

And yet the broker/owner keeps wondering why recruiting goals are not met, why production isn’t increasing, and why the trash cans are overflowing. In these types of real estate company’s it is truly a matter of expectations not matching environment. 

Even if your real estate sales manager is doing all these tasks “good”, I guarantee that they are doing none of them “great”. What, if your sales manager did “great” would have the biggest benefit to your real estate company?

Related Posts:

My neck hurts

Sales meeting: Good luck with that!

5 Ways I have never recruited experienced real estate agents

A Quick, Easy Real Estate Agent Retention Excercise

It does no good to recruit great real estate agents if you don’t have great real estate agent retention also.

This is a quick, easy exercise to get you started on real estate agent retention:

Imagine you are your competition—

Look at your real estate company through the eyes of the competition, what weakness could you see in your real estate company? What would you exploit if you were them? How would you take advantage of that weakness?

Maybe start by looking at the four styles of real estate company’s and figure out which one you are.

There are some important elements to this exercise to make it work.

• Remove ego
• Be humble
• Be honest

Related Posts:

Where are you at in your real estate business?

My neck hurts

Stop giving minimum standards

Sales meetings: Good luck with that!

Tech Tuesday

I am planning on bringing you tech ideas for your real estate business growth solutions each Tuesday. I do not plan to be the writer of these posts though as I know that there are much better, more qualified people then myself to help you with that part of your real estate business.

If you would like to contribute to Tech Tuesday, contact me DarinPersinger@gmail.com

Recruiting An Agent That Is Only Concerned About Commission Split

I was talking with a real estate agent last week that has told me in the past, that she hates getting real estate recruiting letters but would sit down with a real estate recruiter if she got a phone call.

So, she finally got a phone call and she asked the real estate recruiter, “What is your commission split?”

The real estate recruiter choked. The recruiters response according to the agent was something like, “Lets get together first and I will be happy to share with you our split.”

Wrong answer. Guess what our real estate agent did? She replied with a ‘not interested’ and hung up. This is a real estate agent that is open to the idea of meeting with a real estate recruiter and the recruiter blew it.

How would you have answered that question? And we already know the wrong way to answer it, so thank you to that recruiter.

Read some of the articles below for ideas or check out the SCEF Recruiting System:

What is a recruit looking for in a real estate office?

Recruiting real estate agents has nothing to do with commission split

The greatest single question you could ask a real estate recruit

Focus on the domino real estate recruit

Before you recruit that top producer

Expectations Matching Enviroment

I see and hear about real estate offices asking their real estate agents to lead generate. These real estate offices ask their real estate agents to block out time to lead generate 2-3 hours every morning. This is great! These are realistic expectations for leadership to give. However the environment that leadership is providing does not always match the expectations.

If you are a real estate office that would like your real estate agents to lead generate, and you are probably following the advice of real estate guru’s that teach the morning is the best time to do it because otherwise it won’t get done, then you need to look at if your real estate office environment is alignment with the expectations.

Are you scheduling sales meetings in the morning?

Are you scheduling training sessions in the morning?

Are you scheduling property tours in the morning?

If you are scheduling anything during the time that you would like your real estate agents to be lead generating and doing business development activities you are sabotaging yourself and them. You are sending the wrong message. Your expectations do not match the environment you are creating.

What you are saying to your real estate agents is, “Even though I want you to lead generate in the morning, I am going to schedule this sales meeting, that is not really that good or that important and no one really attends, so don’t worry about lead generating today.”

And what they take from that is, “Even though they want me to lead generate in the morning, they schedule all these other things during that time, so lead generation must not be that important, so if I have something that comes up in the morning I should just blow off my lead generation time and do whatever else comes up.”

Take a look around your office, it all starts with leadership. Are you getting the results that you want? Are your real estate agents meeting your expectations? Does your environment match the expectations?

Where are you at in your real estate business?

Real estate brokers: Do you know what business you are in?

My neck hurts

Different Approaches To Attract Real Estate Agent Recruits

When recruiting in a down real estate market, the better agent you can recruit, the better your company becomes. The challenge becomes, how do you attract and recruit the best real estate agents in your market?

The way not to attract and recruit real estate agents can be read in my post, 5 ways I have never recruited an experienced real estate agent.

Penelope Trunk, author of the book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success gives some ideas on her blog on how to recruit great candidates.

One piece of advice she gives is to let people know where they can get to with you,

I was talking with Dylan Tweney, senior editor at Wired, and he was using a similar hiring tactic, showing people how a stint with him at Wired is a stepping stone to places like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

This is basically making your focus what your recruits goals are, not yours. I have previously mentioned that,

You should know what your real estate agents personal goals are, so that you can help them discover and design their business goals.

You can’t argue with Penelope Trunk that a good recruiting technique would be to demonstrate to a recruit how by working with you, they can achieve their long term goals.

She also gives an interesting perspective about “propping up” managers suggesting,

One of the most important aspects of a job is who you are working for. A good manager can help you to get where you want to go next, and a bad manager can be so undermining that the job becomes a blemish on your resume. So it’s odd that companies advertise jobs instead of managers. Instead of publishing a laundry list of dream traits of a dream candidate (usually unreasonable anyway), companies should list the dream traits of the dream manager this job falls under.

So how about it? Are you or your managers someone that recruits want to work with and work for? What’s the benefit of a recruit with a manager in your company?

Casual Fridays

I haven’t decided if Fridays will be just casual Fridays or business casual Fridays.

Jeans and t-shirt or Docker’s and Polo-shirt?

If you have a suggestion, let me know. darinpersinger@gmail.com

The Four Styles Of Real Estate Company’s

This has nothing to do with business models. This has nothing to do with franchise or independent. This is about retention of your real estate agents. Recruiting real estate agents into your real estate company is important and retention of your real estate agents is even more important. It does no good if you recruit two experienced agents in one month and that same month you lose two productive agents.

1. Real estate company doesn’t care about their agents, doesn’t provide training, coaching and support
2. Real estate company doesn’t care about their agents, does provide training, coaching and support
3. Real estate company does care about their agents, doesn’t provide training, coaching and support
4. Real estate company does care about their agents, does provide training, coaching and support

Which real estate company are you? How can you prove it?

Also Read:

Goals: Your real estate agents, not yours

Sale meetings: Good luck with that!

Stop giving minimum standards

Connect Realty launches without much hoopla

Trulia, Yahoo and Zillow: Working together for you

At the Trulia blog, it was announced that 3 of the biggest listing aggregators, Trulia, Zillow and Yahoo are teaming up to format a new standard for data feeds to make it easier for Real Estate company’s to syndicate their listings and get maximum internet exposure.

From the press release,

The data feed specification will be based on the XML format and
will comprise all the requisite components of a listing, such as
address, price, square feet, beds, baths, and additional descriptions
of the home. Where as today, brokers and listings providers would need
to create upwards of a dozen different formats for one listing, the
new standard model will significantly reduce the amount of time spent
preparing the content for distribution online.

This is quite an interesting event for real estate internet marketing. Realty Thoughtsblog has already called this The Year of The Listing. Think about it. A small 2 agent real estate brokerage should just as easily be able to get the same kind of internet exposure as a large 300 real estate agent company, with out having the to figure out the different techinical aspects of each listing aggregator.

Some other company’s that are involved in the new data standards format are Homes.com, Homescape, Oodle, Point2 Technologies, RealEstate.com, Vast.com, and vFlyer.

Anyone notice who is missing from this mix?

What Is A Recruit Looking For In A Real Estate Office?

I have told you that when you are trying to recruit a real estate agent that the commission split has nothing to do with the recruiting process. Bold statement?

Not really. A good real estate agent, the kind you want to recruit is smart, savvy and understands that they can get a good commission split from just about any real estate company or real estate office.

Allen Butler, author of The Butler Blog explained what an agent, new and experienced might be looking for in, Choosing a Brokerage on the BloodhoundBlog.

However, if I were an experienced agent, I might like to have a brokerage where I have low fees, very little interference, and a broker that I like/respect. As an experienced agent, I don’t need training, free stuff, and lots of oversight. I just need a place to hang my license so I can get to producing.

The reason you should check out this blog post is not just for the post. You need to read this blog post because of the discussion that this started among other real estate agents. There are 17 comments at last count about what an agents looks for in a real estate brokerage, how they choose a real estate company, and what kind of recruiting method worked on them.

Go over there and get some insider info. Find out how to recruit real estate agents directly from the real estate agents.

Related Posts:

The greatest single question you could ask an experienced real estate agent recruit

Goals: Your real estate agents, not yours

5 ways I have never recruited an experienced real estate agent