It happened, you were able to set a recruiting appointment.

Now what do you do when you’re going to meet someone for the first time at coffee or lunch? Do you immediately launch into your pitch?

That’s the worst thing you could possibly do in your first meeting with a potential recruit.

The first thing you need to do is build rapport and trust. One of the best ways to do that is by understanding who you’re talking to — doing a deep dive and some intelligence research on the agent before the meeting.

What does that look like?

Obviously, you can Google them. You can look at their social media accounts. You can talk to other people in your office about what they might know.

But here’s an easy strategy most recruiters miss: dive into their current inventory.

Look at their listings. See how long they’ve been on the market. Look at their price points. Where are they focusing? Go back and look at the trajectory of their business. Are they up or down compared to last year at this time?

If you’re a real estate broker or team leader, I’m sure you’re experiencing what I’m about to describe. I call it the 80/20 rule, and it’s not the 80/20 rule you’re thinking about.

The 80/20 rule we usually think of is that 20% of the agents do 80% of the business. It’s probably closer to a 90/10 rule now, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about is the 80/20 rule when it comes to the deployment of the technologies, tools, and services you provide to your agents.

As a brokerage owner or team leader, you invest in all this tech and all these tools, and then 80% of your agents don’t use them. You’re spending thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of dollars, and you’re thinking, “This is crazy. Maybe I should just stop providing this stuff.”

That’s a mistake.

First, you have 20% of your people who are actually using these tools, and those are usually the people producing. If you stop providing the tools, you’re hurting that group.

But there’s another reason you shou...

Why do agents stay at a company rather than leave and go somewhere else? Forty-three percent of agents report the number one reason they're loyal to their current company is not their compensation plan. In fact, only 13% rate their compensation plan as the number one reason they're staying.

Forty-three percent rate the culture at the company—the culture, the vision, and the leadership of the company they're working at—as the number one factor for sticking around and staying loyal. So think about that from your perspective as a brokerage owner or team leader.

What’s your culture like when somebody comes in? How do they feel about working in your environment or office space? Does it feel like a family? Does it feel like you’ve got esprit de corps, you're having fun, you're energized? Is it a fun place to be with a shared vision of what you're trying to build? Or do you not have that?

If you don't have that, you're at risk of losing people to other firms that have a better vision, bett...

As a brokerage owner and team leader, I have a question for you: when’s the last time you fired someone?

That’s a big one, isn’t it? Have you ever actually fired someone, or do they just leave on their own? A lot of brokerage owners and team leaders don’t have the strength to say, “This person isn’t working here anymore.” But avoiding that creates roadblocks for recruiting.

Sometimes one agent creates what I call the “bad apple syndrome.” They’re so difficult—dramatic, gossipy, toxic—that potential recruits won’t join your company because they don’t want to work with them.

Think about your roster right now. Maybe everyone is fantastic. But maybe not. Maybe you’ve got someone with barnacles—someone others don’t want to work with.

And here’s another question: how many people on your roster haven’t closed a deal in the last year? You might have five, six, eight, even ten agents producing nothing. Why are they still on your roster? They’re dragging down your company’s production number...

Brokerage owners and team leaders — I have a question for you: What problem are you solving for agents?

If you're not solving a problem for them, there's no reason for them to come work for you.

The number one problem you can solve is helping them unlock the door to more transactions. Most agents are struggling here, so giving them a roadmap, tools, strategies, and techniques to close more deals should be your top priority.

But there are other problems we often overlook. Maybe they’re struggling with time management, technology, client management, building out a CRM, or having a reliable way to evaluate potential listings.

Agents have many challenges, and if we’re not addressing them, we’re giving them no reason to join our company.

All great businesses — especially industry disruptors — solve problems.

Think about the great companies you do business with today. They’ve solved a problem.

You need to be the problem solver.

Take a moment to reflect on your market. What are four o...

If I were to sit down with you today and talk about why an agent should join your firm, what would be the top five reasons?

I do this all the time—teaching live classes and coaching brokerage owners and team leaders. This is a conversation I love to have. Often, I'll hear things like, "We're a family-oriented organization, we have a great culture, we do a lot of social events, we're really engaged with the community, and we're hyper-local. Staff is great, we have an open-door policy."

Those are all great things… But these are centered around what I call “soft value.”

Soft value is what keeps agents at your company. It’s important for retention—and trust me, you want to retain agents.

But if you’re going to move agents from one company to another, you need a different conversation, one focused on “hard value.”

Hard value moves agents, soft value keeps them.

So, what's hard value? It’s anything that helps me close more transactions in the next 12 months. When I'm sitting across fro...

When we talk about targeting for recruiting in your market, who would be your number one target?

I’m going to share an opportunity you may not have considered yet: Who’s the most likely to move?

NAR did a study on how often agents switch companies, and they found that the average agent stays at a company for about five years. So, agents move about every five years on average. But there’s a group of agents who move more often—agents on teams.

Agents on teams don’t move every five years; they move every three years, making them much more likely to make a move.

Why?

In my experience, the number one reason is their splits. Team members are often on lower splits, maybe 50%, 40%, or even 30% when all is said and done. They're typically earning around 30-50% from a transaction, and they’re often doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

The issue is that they start to look at their team leader and think, "The team leader isn’t working as hard as I am." They don’t always see the full picture—how...

Here's an interesting question I was asked recently:

What is your unique genius in the real estate industry?

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, I really want you to think about this. What's your unique genius? What sets you apart? What are you exceptionally good at? That specific thing is what you should lean into when it comes to recruiting and building your company.

Maybe you're great at investments and have built a large investment portfolio. Maybe marketing or social media is your strong suit. Perhaps you're an expert negotiator or a fantastic listing agent. Whatever it is, figure out your unique genius in this market and industry.

Then ask yourself: How can you leverage that strength to inspire others to join you?

What you're doing is creating a category of one—something you're so good at and so different in that people want to model it. This helps you create what Seth Godin calls the "purple cow." A purple cow is someone doing something completely different from eve...

How many agents have contacted you—called, texted, emailed—in the last 30 days to say they want to work for you? If that number is four or five, or even more, congratulations! You're in a position where you're attracting agents to your company. That’s a rare position to be in, and not many offices can say the same.

But if you're not attracting a lot of people, the question becomes: why not? There could be many reasons, but the number one thing we need to focus on is building a company that is attractive.

It sounds simple, but it's not. There are many factors involved. Agent productivity, the training and education you offer, and how your company appears from the outside all matter.

Do you have a great culture?
Are your agents engaged in the community?
Is your company active on social media?
Do you have a YouTube channel?
Do you have a great office environment?

Being a visible leader in the MLS and the market helps too. Your agents should be out there, talking positively about your ...

Hey guys, as a team leader or brokerage owner, there's one key metric that defines your success:

Per agent productivity.

This metric encompasses every aspect of your role as a brokerage leader. It includes your recruiting plan, retention plan, marketing, branding, technology, training, coaching, mentoring, staffing, and location.

Essentially, everything you do at your brokerage is reflected in what your agents produce on a per-agent basis.

When I come to you and say, "Let's open up the hood of your company," we'll look at the average agent production over the last 12 months. What does it look like? If your average agent is closing six deals, seven deals, eight deals, three deals—whatever the number is—you'll have a starting point.

Our goal is to raise that number over time. The higher we push that number, the more likely you are to attract more agents to your business.

The number one way to attract agents is by demonstrating that your system drives higher sales than your competit...