Archive for expansion teams

Team in your Future? 10 Questions to Ask First

September 29th, 2021

If you’re thinking about joining a team, prepare your interview questions so you know what you’re getting into.

Are you thinking about joining a team? It may seem like the best answer to launch or re-launch your career. Maybe–maybe not.

As a three-decade real estate owner and manager on the firing line, I’ve seen some teams thrive and many others fail. You want to join a thriving team. Here are 10 questions an agent should ask before joining a team, from my new book, Launching Right in Real Estate: What They Won’t Teach You in Pre-License School.

Questions:

How many leads are distributed to a team member per week? Per month?
Am I expected to generate leads for the team? How many a month?
Let me see your vision and mission statements. What are the values you expect your team to uphold? (You want to match the vision and values).
If I want to leave the team, how will you help me transition to my own business?
How will I be held accountable? (meetings/reports/CRM input)
How much turnover there has been on the team? Describe reasons.
Can I can sell and list houses outside the team—and how much the rainmaker will charge you if I do.
What is your experience as a leader? (courses, jobs, etc.)
What are the systems you use? See the specific systems and checklists the rainmaker will use with his team to assure consistency (listing/buyer systems, CRM, etc.). Lack of systems means the team will not operate as a team, and you will be left trying to figure out how to take action on your own.
What is your commission structure? Read the contract the rainmaker asks you to sign. Be sure you understand the consequences of your involvement. Evaluate how good a leader that rainmaker is.

Interview tip: Do not lead with a question about commissions! As a manager, that was a red flag to me. I want to see if we are a ‘fit’ before we talk specifics about pay.

Great Salespeople; Lousy Leaders

Some rainmakers are great salespeople, but lousy leaders. As a result, their team never jells. Most team leaders ultimately expect their team members to generate their own leads in addition to team leads. If you cannot meet the rainmaker’s expectations, you are terminated. Be willing and ready to take the responsibilities of team membership seriously.

Starting Over: When you leave the team, you are generally starting again as a new agent, since you have not generated your own leads (unless you have worked for an exceptional team leader who has helped nurture you so you can transition successfully into your own business).

What questions did I leave out that are important to ask?

What’s your experience being on a team?

If you’re thinking about real estate as a career, or thinking about joining a real estate team, Launching Right in Real Estate is a must. From self-analysis to reveal whether you will love real estate, to choosing the right office for you, this book gives you the answers you need to make the right decision for you. Check it out here: eBook or paperback.

Categories building team, expansion teams, Launching Right in Real Estate, mega-agent, New Real Estate Agents, pre-license, Real estate as a career, Real Estate Sales, Real estate systems, selecting team member, team
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Should You Join a Team? Pros and Cons

by Carla Cross

April 18th, 2019

Should you join a real estate team? Here are the pros and cons. This question is one newer agents always ask. But, it’s not all sunshine and roses. Here are the upsides–and the downsides of joining a team.This blog is excerpted from my 10 critical trends new agents (and all agents) need to know to thrive in this fast-moving real estate community.

These trends are from my 5th edition of Up and Running in 30 Days.

{Click here to see the updates in my fifth edition of Up and Running in 30 Days.}

What is ‘teaming’?

It is affiliating yourself with a “rainmaker” agent, an agent who will deliver leads to you, for which you’ll pay a portion of your commission. You’re teaming up with that agent to do the work that the rainmaker agent doesn’t have time to do. First, teaming doesn’t mean partnering—two agents working together. If you join a team, you are working for that rainmaker agent.

Generally, agents who grow teams have been in the business at least a few years. They’ve developed a large business. To grow their businesses, they need to “duplicate and delegate.” So they hire assistants and buyers’ agents—agents who work with buyers the rainmaker agent has generated. Many times they hire new agents and train them in their methods.

How Joining a Team Can Help a New Agent

Teaming helps agents obtain leads as they start up business. While agents earn the most in commission dollars when they generate their leads themselves, a new agent may need to pay for someone else’s lead generation to begin to develop business. There is a downside to this approach, however. Agents can become complacent and sit and wait for leads. They won’t generate—until they get tired of paying for someone else’s leads.

If you’re thinking of joinng a Team: Here are 6 big Questions to Ask the Rainmaker

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1. How many leads will I get per week?

2. How do you manage the team?

3. How will you train me?

4. How much turnover has the team had?

5. Can I sell homes from my own leads, and what will you charge me?

6. Do you expect me to generate my own leads? How many?

Positives of teaming:

You may be able to jump-start your career with leads given to you.

Watch out for:

Be careful to choose a rainmaker who really has enough good leads to distribute to you.
Sit in on her team meeting to see how she manages the team.
Find out if and how the rainmaker will train you. Find out how much turnover there has been on the team.
Find out whether you can sell and list houses outside the team—and how much the rainmaker would charge you if you did.
Read the contract the rainmaker asks you to sign and be sure you understand the consequences of your involvement.

Is he or she a leader?

Evaluate how good a leader that rainmaker is. Some rainmakers are great salespeople but lousy leaders, and so their team never gels. Most team leaders ultimately expect their team members to generate their own leads, in addition to team leads. If you can’t meet the rainmaker’s expectations, you are terminated. Be willing and ready to take the responsibilities of team membership seriously.

* Big Idea: If they aren’t your leads, you’re starting the real estate business all over again when you leave the team.

Question: Have you thought about joining a team? Or, if you joined a team, how did it work out?

Are You Using the Best Start-Up Plan to Launch or Re-Launch?

Does your plan have the detailed, prioritized checklists needed to assure a great start? Does it have built-in inspiration and motivation? Does it have dozens of tips to control the attitude? If not, you need Up and Running in 30 Days. Just out in its 5th edition, it’s the most successful book for new real estate agents ever!

Click here to see the updates in my fifth edition of Up and Running in 30 Days.

Categories expansion teams, Experienced agent, mega-agent, New Real Estate Agents, Real estate as a career, Real Estate Sales, Real estate systems, real estate team, selecting team member, team
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Building your Team? Use the Post-Interview Package to Impress

by Carla Cross

November 7th, 2018

Building your team? Here’s what you need in your post-interview package. This month, I’m focusing on recruiting and selecting systems, to help you work faster and better and recruiter winners.

Remember the Chinese water torture? Drip, drip, a drip at a time. That’s the key to recruiting successfully. Here’s another drip you’ll want to provide your candidate after that first interview. This is another package with the information you think the candidate will find useful. Here’s why:

We remember only 10% of what we heard three days later!

Unfortunately, candidates don’t remember much of what we discuss in the interview. Or, they remember it wrongly. It seems easy to us, but, it becomes a muddle to them when they interview five companies in as many days. So, take the time to assemble what I call the after first-visit package or post-interview process. In it, you’ll reiterate important points, and again differentiate yourself and your company.

Systemize Like you Do In Your Agent Business

Great agents assemble these packages for sellers and buyers. You are modeling the behaviors you want to teach the agent. You can explain the parallels in the interview process. This is a very strong recruiting strategy. The old adages

We believe what we see, not what we hear

and

Do as I do, not as I say

are true, as we know in real life. So, put these to use in your post-interview package.

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In Your Post-First Visit (Post-Interview) Package

Here is a sample list of the materials you may include in an after-first visit recruiting package. Note that some of the material is duplicating your pre-first visit package. Also, sometimes you won’t have the opportunity to provide a pre-first visit package. Of course, you’ll always have the ability to customize each package. However, it’s much easier to do this from a prepared package than to start from scratch each time.

Letter from the manager explaining what’s in the package

Training calendar (you do have one, don’t you?)
Training brochure
Company/office/manager/ team leader story
Attractive company/office/manager statistics
Articles featuring company/manager/team leader
Costs of affiliating with explanations–of appropriate

Bottom Line: You’ree Proving your Competency to Each Candidate With Every Recruiting Process You Do

Well-assembled packages reflect clear thought processes. Merely putting these together will clarify your recruiting and selection story. It will help you figure out and communicate your culture and values. It will provide you differentiation and memorability. It says to the candidate, I prepared for you. Your time is valuable. I am here to dedicate my skills and talents to help you develop your business.

You will recruit more and better team members, you will save time, and you will be able to delegate or clone yourself by hiring a manager or recruiter when the need arises.

Want to avoid re-inventing the wheel? Check out my recruiting resources here.

Categories buyer's agent, communication, expansion teams, Interviewing, manager, mega-agent, New Real Estate Agents, presentations, Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Success, Real estate systems, real estate team, recruiting, selecting team member, selection
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Expanding Your Team? Avoid This Big Selection Mistake

by Carla Cross

November 1st, 2018

Expanding your team? Here’s how to avoid a big selection mistake.

Are you talking too much in the interview?

A lot of recruiters/interviewers think that, if they’re great talkers, they’re great recruiters (same as agents think talking equals selling…..)

You’re an agent who wants to expand to a team–or expand your team. You want to get winners in that recruiting seat. You pride yourself on being a great talker. (A manager once told me he just talks them to death–until they say they’ll join the company–what a great screening method-not!) But, too much talking is just old-style hard ‘selling’–and that’s certainly not the bulk of an effective selection process.

Ask, Don’t Tell

Instead of muscling a sale or a ‘yes’ from a recruit, ask questions. Lots of questions.

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Probe to find out more. Keep finding out more until you’re really sure you know what they mean. Let me give you an example:

The recruit says, “I want a deal.”

Do you jump to a conclusion because you know what a deal means? Don’t. You may be surprised. Instead, ask questions at what does a deal mean to that recruit? When you know exactly what the recruit means, you can proceed to find what he really wants–instead of what someone else told him he should ask for!

A Pre-Screening Process for a Candidate to Save you Time

Ask some questions before you spend time and money chasing candidates who don’t meet your standards. Click here to get my knockout factors on the phone for agents that I want to recruit. Make your own questionnaire based on who you are recruiting for a particular position.

Use In-Depth Questionnaires to Discover Real Needs

Besides using these preliminary questions, always use written in-depth questionnaires so you’ll know

The benefits to the features/needs stated
Hidden objections you may not discover until too late
Motivations to buy that not even the buyers realize they have

Ever heard the term “buyers are liars”? I think that’s not really the case. I think that we don’t ask the right questions to help buyers (our recruits) clarify what they really want. Most ?buyers of services don’t know what they really want. They think they want a better commission split. But, what they’re really looking for is the motivation provided by secrity. That means different things to different people. Find out what’s really motivating your candidate, not just what he says to your basic questions.

Ask the Right Questions in the Right Order and You Won’t Have to Close

Finding the motivators of your buyers (recruit/candidate) is key to helping them make the right buying decisions for themselves. All you have to do to close is to remind them that this product fulfills their needs. And, how do you get there? By creating and using the right questions in the right order.

Don’t forget to grab your pre-screening process–knockout factors to ask on the phone: click here.

Want to streamline your selection process and recruit more winners? Check out Your Blueprint to Selecting Winners. It’s completely digital, so you get all the information right now. Includes an 11-step proven process to interview successfully. Do you have a process or do you just ‘wing it’?

All you have to do to close is to remind them that this product fulfills their needs. And, how do you get there? By creating and using the right questions in the right order.

Don’t forget to grab your pre-screening process–knockout factors to ask on the phone: click here.

Want to streamline your selection process and recruit more winners? Check out Your Blueprint to Selecting Winners. It’s completely digital, so you get all the information right now. Includes an 11-step proven process to interview successfully. Do you have a process or do you just ‘wing it’?

Categories building team, Coaching, communication, expansion teams, Interviewing, New Real Estate Agents, Real estate systems, recruiting, selection
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Building Your Team: 5 More Recruiting Mistakes to Avoid

by Carla Cross

October 18th, 2018

Whether you’re hiring an assistant or building a team (or an expansion team), your challenge is the same as everyone in leadership: How to recruit the right people for your team.

In an earlier post, we explored 5 of the 10 biggest mistakes I’ve seen real estate recruiters make–and, admittedly, I’ve made. After all, I started like most of you–here’s your desk, here’s your phone……you know the drill…

So, here’s the rest of my list. What did I leave out? Why are we selecting so many who fail to make it in real estate?

6. Recruiting agents without the necessary skills or motivation to be
successful

There are the agents that fall over at the first objection (and there are many, even though they tell us they’re tenacious!) We keep beating our heads against stone walls recruiting agents who are deficient in the two skill sets we say are most important to real state success: technical (computer) skills and sales skills. We hire them, and then we pour thousands of dollars down a black hole trying to train them to do the things they won’t or can’t do.

Why not hire agents who already have technical and sales skills? In my program, The Complete Recruiter, I ask managers to make a list of the skills and qualities they feel are critical in the agents they hire. Please do that. Then, create questions that bring out whether an agent has the skills and qualities you need.

7. Talking too much in the interview process

Well, it’s not really an interview process to most managers. It’s actually a talk marathon, where the manager talks to the would-be agent until the agent gets tired and agrees (or not) to join the company. That’s what dozens of agents have described as their “recruiting interview”.

Here’s the right balance for the first interview: The candidate talks 80% of the time; the interviewer talks 20% of the time.

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What are you doing while the interviewee is talking? Asking questions and listening. What are you listening for? Whether or not that interviewee has the necessary amounts of the skills and qualities you want. How do you assure you’ve got the complete story? Probe around that one idea until you’re completely assured that the interviewee has sufficient strength of that trait or skill. The Complete Recruiter has lots of tips on mastering sales skills for recruiting. This is just one of them.

8. Selling all the features and benefits of the company in the same way to each recruit

That’s simply because the manager didn’t ask good questions at the beginning of the process. If he had, he would’ve discovered what needs the agent wanted met. Then, he would’ve designed his presentation to meet those needs.

9. No recruiting plan

A few years ago I was the head writer for the CRB (Certified Real Estate Broker) People Management course. This course includes recruiting, selecting, training, and motivating agents for high productivity. I was excited to teach the course the first time, and was thrilled that there were about sixty managers in the course. I found that most of them had been in the business over ten years.

I wanted to create something where they could share recruiting experiences and a wins, so I decided to do a little contest for best recruiting campaign. I introduced the contest the first morning, and waited for the entries. There were none. At the beginning of the second day I asked the students if it was a dumb contest, or what seemed to be the barriers. They told me that none of them had a recruiting plan, much less a campaign! How could you implement your recruiting moves without a plan of action? We pound into our agents heads the idea of business plans. Yet, we dona’t have plans for the most important of all our activities–recruiting. If you’re among the 95% of managers who don’t have a plan, I’ve provided a simple, straightforward method of planning in The Complete Recruiter.

10. No system for agent follow-up

You’ve interviewed the agent. The agent doesn’t join that day. Now, what happens? In most companies–nothing! You need a contact management system. You need a contact plan. You need materials, and you need strategy. Finally, you need someone to run that plan. Hire a competent assistant and let that assistant engage your plan. This agent follow-up is really a part of your overall recruiting plan. You expect your agents to do it, and you need to do this, too, with your potential recruits. Remember, follow up until they buy or die!

It doesn’t take a masterful recruiter to win all the awards. All it really takes is determination and persistence. And, when you look at the few managers who actively recruit, you know that merely taking a stab at in a consistent manner will win you many recruits. Start now!

How is your Recruiting Plan Working?

Well, shall we be honest? You probably don’t have a plan. At least, that’s my experience in training and coaching thousands of owners and managers. If you don’t have a plan, how do you know what to do each day to find, select, and recruit those you really want? How do you measure how you’re doing? The Complete Recruiter has it all: the plan, the dialogues, the systems. Get it this month at a blazingly good price, too! Find out more here.

8. Selling all the features and benefits of the company in the same way to each recruit

9. No recruiting plan

10. No system for agent follow-up

How is your Recruiting Plan Working?

Leaders with Teams: Avoid These 5 Recruiting Mistakes

by Carla Cross

October 13th, 2018

Leaders with teams: Here’s how to avoid these 5 recruiting mistakes.

If you’re trying to create or expand your team, you’re now in leadership! So, you have to grab the skills leaders use to create great teams.

Isn’t it amazing the number of things a new team leader is supposed to be able to do from day one, even though he or she isn’t trained to do those tasks? Take recruiting, for example. As As a new manager, I was expected to lead generate, get appointments, ask great questions, and select agents who would be successful. But, did I have the skills to perform those tasks with competence? You can bet not!

Even though I was a top-producing agent, I didn’tt take the time to think through, and didn’t know how to, apply the sales skills I had used to attain high sales volume to the recruiting tasks at hand. So, I, like thousands of other new managers, just did it allby ear! Along the way, I had some wins and lots of losses. Through my observations of myself and others, Ia’ve created a list of ten top mistakes, so that you can avoid the pitfalls I and others without training have fallen into.

In this blog, we’ll look at the first five. Also, I’ll add some advice I learned from all those mistakes!

1. Charge ahead to hire

It should occur to us that we need to sit in a quiet place and think about the kind of people we want to hire before we dive in. But, we are so thrilled that someone is in front of us that it doesn’t occur to us that they bring with them their values and ethics. So, if we haven’t thought out our values, our beliefs, and our perspectives first, we run the risk of hiring people who will then dictate what the company values become. Before you start interviewing, decide what you will and what you won’t stand for. Write out your values and your beliefs. Then, when you interview, check to be sure that agent carries those same values and beliefs into your office. Someone’s got to be the leader, and it better be you!

2. Recruiting to old-style management strategies

I know, I know. Just go make those calls and you will get some recruits. Yes, that’s true. But, wouldn’t it be better if you built a company or team that stood apart from the others because of its attractors? The greatest attractors today to a company are twofold:

Values: Does the company/your team have values and beliefs that the agent can live by and agree with?

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Focused on success of its agents: Does the company focus its energy on the success of the agents or on itself?

If you are still trying to recruit to an old-style dictatorship, or, if you’ve given up leadership. Find out what participative management is all about. Find out how to build a team. Figure out how to help each agent reach his/her goals. Now, you’re on the right track. Re-tool your business structure so you’re attractive to the entrepreneur of today and tomorrow.

3. Trying to recruit on the team/company features

“Our company is the largest around.” Well, guess what? If you’re a branch manager, and all your branch managers say the same thing, you’re not going to differentiate yourself that way! You must make yourself a magnet. What about your background provides a benefit to a new agent? To an experienced agent? For example, I was a musical performer and teacher. That taught me performance skills, and how to teach others performance skills. You can see the benefits to agents. I’m able to help an agent reach his goals through greater skills.

4. Not differentiating the feature from all the other companies that have the same thing

“We have a great training program.” So says every company out there. What’s so great about your program? You’d better be able to tell ’em and show ’em. For example: “Our training program has a 90% rate in our agents making a sale in the first thirty days they’re with us.” No one else in the area has success figures like that. Here’s the brochure about our program. It spells out the comprehensive five-step program for new agents. Do you want a program that assures you make money fast?

5. Trying to attract agents through price wars

We in the real estate industry just love to hire agents through the bidding wars. We either provide a lower desk fee, better commission splits, or more trinkets and trash. Guess what? That’s the chicken’s way out. In reality, price is never the best recruiter. But, if you don’t have a great company organization, if you don’t help agents meet their goals, you’re going to have to compete on price. It’s all you’ve got. Now, work hard to provide real value. After all, consumers pay 10% more for products and services they believe are of quality.

Recommendation: Read Drive–The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink. The motivators have changed, but no one has told real estate professionals!

So far, what have I left out? How do you assure you find and hire the right team members?

Get The Insights You Need to Hire with Confidence

You work so hard to gain those interviews. But, do you have planned interview process that assures you pick winners? (And assures the candidates are impressed with you….) Your Blueprint for Selecting Winners, with new information about what desired agents of today are looking for, is a guide to create your unique attractors, how to put together a powerful presentation, and a completely new video showing exactly how to craft the best ‘crystal ball’ type of questions. Learn more here.

Categories building team, expansion teams, expectations, Experienced agent, manager, mega-agent, New Real Estate Agents, Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Success, Real estate systems, real estate team, selectcion, vision
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Archive for expansion teams

Team in your Future? 10 Questions to Ask First

Should You Join a Team? Pros and Cons

Are You Using the Best Start-Up Plan to Launch or Re-Launch?

Building your Team? Use the Post-Interview Package to Impress

Want to avoid re-inventing the wheel? Check out my recruiting resources here.

Expanding Your Team? Avoid This Big Selection Mistake

Building Your Team: 5 More Recruiting Mistakes to Avoid

6. Recruiting agents without the necessary skills or motivation to be successful

7. Talking too much in the interview process

8. Selling all the features and benefits of the company in the same way to each recruit

9. No recruiting plan

10. No system for agent follow-up

How is your Recruiting Plan Working?

8. Selling all the features and benefits of the company in the same way to each recruit

9. No recruiting plan

10. No system for agent follow-up

How is your Recruiting Plan Working?

Leaders with Teams: Avoid These 5 Recruiting Mistakes

1. Charge ahead to hire

2. Recruiting to old-style management strategies

3. Trying to recruit on the team/company features

4. Not differentiating the feature from all the other companies that have the same thing

5. Trying to attract agents through price wars

Get The Insights You Need to Hire with Confidence

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6. Recruiting agents without the necessary skills or motivation to be
successful