FOR BROKERS: Recruitment and retention
BY ROBERT FREEDMAN
What can I do to recruit rookies?
How can I help rookies succeed?
What can I do to recruit experienced associates?
What are experienced associates looking for?
Why do associates leave?
How can I make associates stay?
Today’s new recruits: their strengths and weaknesses
Attracting and keeping the best
There are more people trying to make it in real estate than ever before—NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® membership now stands at more than 1 million. The sheer volume can make it difficult to find the most promising recruits and keep your sales force happy. REALTOR® Magazine asked eight residential real estate brokers how they’re filling their ranks and keeping good associates in the fold.
Meet the eight brokers and recruiters who contributed to this article.
What can I do to recruit rookies?
Give them the chance to earn licenses quickly. We offer new recruits courses that prepare them to take the state licensing test in 18 days. Getting into the field quickly is attractive to downsized professionals looking for a second career, new college grads, and others hoping to jump into real estate while it’s hot.—Larry Matos
Tell them what to ask. When they’re starting out, they don’t know what questions to ask brokers during an interview. When they come to us, we provide them with a booklet of questions—What is E&O insurance and how does it work? What is relocation and how does it work?—they should ask us. When they’re finished with our interview, I feel we’ve educated them and I encourage them to use the questions if they interview with other companies. They appreciate that.—Jacqi Giordano
Try the Real Estate Simulator. Use this online test to attract pre-license candidates, get a sense of what personality traits and skill sets prospects would bring to the table, and whether people will fit in. It’s found on many company Web sites and can be used to document the type of recruit who does best at your company. For pricing and a demo, visit www.realestatesimulator.com.—Carol Johnson
Target direct mail to a neighborhood where you don’t have an associate working. Announce that you’re looking for someone to represent your company in that neighborhood. The technique has netted both some new and experienced associates.—Jack O’Connor
Contact new licensees immediately. Send recruitment letters to contacts on your state’s list of new licensees as soon as the latest roster is available. Follow up with personal calls, notes, and interviews. Hours can make the competitive difference.—Johnson
Rely on your associates. Ask them to assist you in recruiting people in their own image. Good people attract good people.—William Baker
How can I help rookies succeed?
Get them to a closing within 60 days. The longer it takes for that first sale, the more likely they’ll drop out of the business. If they can close quickly, their confidence soars. Make it easy for recruits by finding them a neighborhood to work where they’re comfortable and are positioned to meet people casually. And make sure you or a sales mentor is ready to help them bring the deal to fruition.—Richard Cosner
Let them pick their manager. We encourage new recruits to interview the managers of our offices until they find one they click with.—Giordano
Offer mentoring. New recruits hone their skills with the help of experienced associates. Our veteran associates always include the rookies on their listing appointments.—Baker
What can I do to recruit experienced associates?
Take away their business. Nothing grabs competing associates’ attention faster than losing listings to your company. When our associates’ For Sale signs start popping up in competing associates’ territory, they’re very receptive to us when we call to tell them we can help them achieve the same success.—Cosner
Know more about their performance than they do. Be familiar with competing associates’ MLS stats, cooperative transactions, Web sites, and market niche when you call to introduce yourself to them. When you know more about their production details than they know themselves, you can bet their managers aren’t providing them with the statistical support they need to leverage their marketing strategy.—Johnson
Make personal contact. Calling great-performing associates to let them know they’re the kind of people you want associated with your company is still the best way to make an impression. It’s effective even if the timing isn’t right for them to leave because when that time comes, they’ll call you.—Steve Brown
Take them to a movie. We asked each of our associates to invite 10 colleagues from other brokerages whom they most like to work with to a movie outing. This gave the other associates a feel for our corporate culture first-hand. It also helped create cooperative relationships.—Jeanine McShea
Invite them to your productivity seminars. Don’t limit your speaker seminars to just your associates. Give other salespeople a chance to meet your team, learn about your company, and improve their business. It’s a favor they won’t quickly forget.—Giordano
What are experienced associates looking for?
Individualized coaching. They aren’t looking for training. There’s plenty of that available to them through NAR and other sources. And they’re not looking for a few percent more in their split. They’re looking for a company to help them build a strategy—based on their skills and knowledge—to take them from 30 to 50 sales a year.—Cosner
Management systems. To get to the next level of productivity, associates are looking for brokers who have the resources to help them root out and manage leads quickly and effectively. Management systems are especially crucial to mid-range producers who lack the skills and resources to handle prospecting and follow-up on their own.—Johnson
Ownership opportunity. We were launched in 1999 as an associate-owned company, with 26 partners; today we have more than 100 partners out of 265 associates. Clearly, not all associates seek to become partners, but the option to own is attractive to many veteran associates because it enables them to grow along with the company, helping them build a nest egg for the future. They can also become a partner in our title and escrow businesses.—O’Connor
Technology. Associates with advanced technology skills want to move up the technology ladder, not down. They won’t fall for false technology promises made by managers who aren’t fully conversant about the specifics of the company’s technology support offerings.—Johnson
Why do associates leave?
They’re having a bad year. This usually happens when, flush with business, they stop prospecting. Then, when their business ebbs, they have nothing in the pipeline. As their broker, let them know that you know how they’re performing relative to last year or to the previous quarter. That way you can intervene before a problem occurs. We brainstorm with them on ways to get them back into prospecting. Don’t just give them relocation business or a lead, if they ask. That will only help them for a day.—Brown
They’re feeling a sense of isolation. Managers often falsely assume their top performers require little personal attention and instead focus on new recruits. The reality is, even top performers need regular personal attention from their managers to thrive.—Matos
They’re up against bad rules. Brokers can put an unreasonable burden on strong-performing associates if they institute a companywide rule, such as mandatory office time, that’s really just aimed at dealing with one or a few problem associates.—Brown
They’re receiving insufficient support. We work hard to retain, and increase the professionalism of, our support staff so that they, in turn, provide great service to our associates and their clients. Early in 2004, for example, we launched a program in which we’ve made homeownership more attainable for our company’s salaried staff by providing 3 percent of the purchase price, up to $5,000. We also donate 100 percent of any commission we make on the purchase toward the downpayment.—McShea
They’re opening their own shop. They see their broker making gross commissions on the transactions they produce and think the broker is getting rich. Or their entrepreneurial spirit is growing. Some just want to become the next niche broker or franchisee in the area.—Brown
How can I make associates stay?
Instill a sense of loyalty by treating them well. My biggest challenge is to continually remind myself to focus on what I can do to help those I work with. Our office environment fosters team spirit, cooperation, and mentoring between associates. We work at making the workplace fun. It’s not unusual for us to fire up the grill for cookouts. Several of our professional alliance partners (mortgage brokers, computer technicians, soil scientists, surveyors) stop by to join us.—Baker
Idea People
Top row, from left: William (Bill) Baker III, broker-owner, United Country Virginia Realty, Clarksville, Va.; Steve Brown, ABR®, CRB, vice president and general manager, Crye-Leike, REALTORS®, Memphis, Tenn.; Richard (Rich) Cosner, CRB, president, Prudential California Realty, Anaheim, Calif.; Jacqi Giordano, director of recruiting, Star Real Estate, Fountain Valley, Calif. Bottom row, from left: Carol Johnson, president, The Recruiting Network Inc., Schaumburg, Ill.; Larry A. Matos, president and broker, Century 21 M&M and Associates, Modesto, Calif.; Jeanine McShea, vice president of sales, @Properties, Chicago; Jack O’Connor, CRB, managing partner and broker, Prestige Real Estate Group LLC, Englewood, Colo.
Today’s new recruits: their strengths and weaknesses
What value—and challenge—do all the new licensees streaming into the industry bring with them? We asked our panel of industry experts (see page FB6) to report on real estate’s new entrants.
Strengths
Bilingual communication. To a greater degree than 10 years ago, we’re attracting recruits from a rich array of cultures, particularly Asian and Hispanic, and these recruits come with language skills to reach buyers from these cultural backgrounds.—Richard Cosner
Good training from their previous fields. Those with business experience know technology, finance, marketing, sales, and database management.—Carol Johnson
Business organization. Those coming into this business right out of college bring the attitude that this is a business and requires a professional approach. That means discipline, organization, and a business plan. They’re not coming in to see if they can make some money while they decide what to do with their life. Plus, their technology skills are second nature to them.—Cosner
Financial resources. They’re coming over from other fields with money to invest in their career. They’re writing business plans and purchasing marketing materials, coaching, and mentoring services. They aren’t sitting around, waiting to be trained.—Johnson
Strong understanding of law and practice. We’ve seen a dramatic improvement in this area in the last 10 years, thanks to better instruction and more sophisticated recruits from corporate jobs. New recruits are much more aware of what’s right and what’s wrong when dealing with a specific situation than recruits of the past. It used to be you went to school just to pass the state real estate licensing exam. But now instructors walk you through ways to respond to different situations.—Jack O’Connor
High motivation. They want to be in control of their own business success and are asking informed questions in interviews with brokers. They no longer see the corporate world as a source of job security.—Johnson
Weaknesses
One-on-one communication skills. We’ve become such an electronic society that we’ve lost some face-to-face skills. We try to help new recruits in this area by setting up chances for face-to-face or over-the-phone contact with customers in a non-threatening environment. For example, we organized a party in one of our offices featuring wines from 14 countries and various cheeses and encouraged new associates to call and invite our past clients—and talk some business.—O’Connor
Marketing and closing skills. New licensees are coming in knowing the rules of the game but with little knowledge of practical skills such as prospecting, negotiating, and getting to closing.—William Baker
Generational sensitivities. Typical sales associates are in their mid-50s and increasingly buyers are in their 20s. Technology is the biggest barrier between these generations, although that’s diminishing. There are also disconnects between young associates and older buyers and sellers, such as downsizing baby boomers. The key here is creating a culture in which associates treat their customers as partners. That means young associates asking their older customers a lot of questions, operating with integrity, and holding each other accountable for honest interaction.—Steve Brown
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
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