Broker Owners: How to Recruit Agents from Competing Brokerages (2 Proven Strategies)

One of the things I'm asked as somebody that specializes in recruiting is how does it impact your recruiting strategy when A) you're going after an office where there's a competing broker, and B) what if you’re the competing broker in your market?

So let's start with a question: what if I'm going after an office where there's a broker that's out there still selling real estate? And that's very, very common. In fact, the vast majority of brokerage owners in the country still sell.

So here's the trick. When you're looking at those companies, when you're looking at the overall agent productivity of that office, you've got to break out the leader, because the leader is inevitably the top producer in the office.

And when I break their production out, it will bring all those other agents' production down. So I'm having a meeting or a conversation with somebody, I can say”

“Hey, I took a minute and I looked at your overall office productivity. Looks like you had a pretty good year. But when I broke out your office leader, who looks like he's competing, actually the agent numbers aren't so great. How do you feel about competing with somebody in your office that is actually the top of your company? How does that feel for you when you get into those conversations?”

There's going to be a little bit of jealousy, there's going to be a little bit of an issue with that, and it's going to be intuitive to say:

“Well, the average at your office is an average of eight closings per agent. But when I take out your broker, that drops all the way down to two. How are you feeling? How would you like to increase your productivity in the next 12 months?”

You can see how the conversation just changes. The dynamic changes dramatically.

Now let's go to the B side of this though.

What if you are the broker and you are competing with your agents because you have to to pay the bills?

If that's the case, here’s how to reframe this:

“Well, I am a competing broker. I'm going to be really straight upfront with you and honest. But can I tell you why I think that's an advantage and not a disadvantage?

I think it's an advantage because I have boots on the ground. I'm using every system that I'm asking you to use. I'm actually generating leads like I'm telling you to do lead gen. I'm hearing objections like you are. I'm dealing with financing issues, appraisal issues, inspection issues. We're working shoulder by shoulder, side by side.

That's different from working for somebody that does not have any contact really with the marketplace other than through their agents. You see, I'm literally working with this, with you in the trenches every single day.

And I have the ability to hand off some leads. I have overflow leads that I can give to you, which I think can be really powerful.”

Now you can see you can play with both sides of the fence.

You just have to understand there's a strength in every weakness and a weakness in every strength. We got to figure out where our strengths are, where our weaknesses are, and play to those things..

It's important to understand how you're competing and what your value proposition is.

If you really want to dig into what your value prop is and how you're presenting yourself in the market, sign up for a discovery call below.

We’ll cover your value prop and you’ll learn how I can help turn you into a recruiting master in your market. It's not hard and it doesn't have to do with whether you are somebody that is a people person or you're somebody that is really good or you're the loud person at the parties—that's not what recruiting is.

What recruiting is, is being somebody that can have a conversation with somebody and talk to them about their business. And every one of us can do that.

Let's talk about what your goals are for your company in 2026 and 2027 and beyond.

=> Sign up for a discovery call here

One more tip about this:

My goal for you personally is to move you out of production. If you're in production now and you're having to sell real estate to support your company, what would it feel like not to have to do that anymore?

We can get you there. So have a conversation with me. Let's have a call. Have a great day. Good selling.