Two Team Builders Share Their Secrets

By Gabriella Filisko

One day, five of Gary Keller's top 10 salespeople walked into his office and said that they loved working for him but that a 100 percent company had opened down the street. If Keller would rent desk space to them for a flat fee, they told him, they'd stay. If he wouldn't, they'd leave.

"I couldn't figure out how to run the company on the lower amount of revenue they were offering me," says Keller, head of the three-office, 280-salesperson Keller Williams Realty in Austin, Texas, and chairman of the board of the Keller Williams Realty franchise, with 55 offices in 11 states.

So Keller and the salespeople parted company. "I went home that night and told my wife, 'I didn't win, because I had a tremendous amount of money walk out the door, and I don't think they won, either, because they wanted to stay, but I couldn't figure out how to do it.'"

Keller's response to his loss was to call his top 12 salespeople in and talk to them about reinventing the company so that they'd feel good about what they did and Keller could profit as well. "We reinvented the company," says Keller, "building it around the team concept."

In reinventing the company, Keller and his salespeople created what Keller calls a "limited democracy," allowing salespeople to make many company decisions. Salespeople at Keller Williams also share in the company's profits on the basis of the overall monthly production. "In one year," Keller says, "we grew from 33 to 120 salespeople."

Keller recently joined Carla Cross, president of Carla Cross Seminars, Issaquah, Wash., in a national audiotaped telephone discussion, sponsored by the Real Estate Brokerage Managers Council, on managing sales teams. Keller and Cross discussed the challenges of team building and offered tips on how brokers can create a team atmosphere at their company.

On how teams help managers and brokers . . .

Cross: It's a lot easier to get feedback and to facilitate various small groups than to try to handle a great big animal you don't know. You can also use teams to test market ideas so that when a new idea comes out of the shoot, you get salespeople's feedback, and people are less likely to criticize the idea. That's super protection for the group and for the manager.

On the biggest hurdle to creating successful teams . . .

Cross: When I started my team, right down the street from me was a 100 percent company, where all salespeople are really on their own. The real basic driver of people is the desire to make a difference in somebody else's life, and that's a higher goal to shoot for than just money.

But the money will drive people in the short term. So what was so difficult for me was to hold on to my belief that we were better together than alone and that, in fact, the team concept was the only way I was going to build the office.

Keller: The biggest problem is the behavior of the team leader. If the sales manager is the best team player in the office, you're in trouble. Sales managers have to find people and clone themselves so that they've duplicated or even exceeded their team play and leadership capacity. That's when your company really takes off.

And when the person running the office isn't a leader or team player, that person can't bring people in who are team players or leaders, because they'll look at the person running the office and say, "There's nothing new here."

On getting teams started . . .

Keller: First, decide that you're going to have a team environment, understanding that immediately there'll be people who won't agree with you, but that's OK.

Second, define what team play is. Everyone has a different definition, so you have to bring words and standards or concepts to the way your company will approach teamwork.

Third, design a small team to make some initial decisions. Base the team strictly on annual production--the top 5, 10, or 20 percent producers. It doesn't matter what percentage you use; just get enough people.

Fourth, upgrade that group by teaching team play and decision making. Take small decisions--the dress code, how you'll handle listings--and work through them with the group. Start small and build from there, rewarding the group for success in making great decisions.

Finally, constantly upgrade the personal productivity of the people in that group. When you do that, those people begin to associate their personal and career growth with the group. That's when they become evangelists for team play.

To order a cassette tape of the discussion, call the Managers Council's Services Department, 800/621-8738; $20 for MC members, $15 for nonmembers.

Looking for Team Players?
Salespeople who've had some experience with teams will like working on a real estate team, says Carla Cross, president of Carla Cross Seminars, Issaquah, Wash. The trick is finding those people. According to Cross, you can determine people's feelings toward team play by asking certain questions in interviews:

*Have you ever had fun and accomplished a lot with a group of people?

*Have you ever played a musical instrument or participated on a sports team?

Gary Keller, of Keller Williams Realty, Austin, Texas, on the other hand, uses a more formal method of determining recruits' team orientation. His managers administer behavioral assessment tests that may offer clues about recruits' personality traits.