If you're a broker, owner, or manager, here’s a key question for you:

Are you benchmarking your agents?

What do we mean by benchmarking? It means drawing a line in the sand—looking at what an agent has done over the past 12 months and what they want to accomplish in the next 12 months.

We call this Per Agent Productivity.

Start by measuring your entire office: What is your average per agent productivity?

Let’s say the average agent in your office is closing 6 transactions per year and doing $3 million in production. Once you know that number, and you must know that number, you can set a growth goal.

Now, based on that, figure out how you can push the envelope and go from 6 to 7, 8, 9, even 10 transactions per agent? What’s it going to take to make that happen?

It comes down to two things: recruiting and retention.

From a recruiting standpoint, your goal should be to help new agents outperform where they came from. This is another layer of benchmarking.

When an experienced agen...

As a brokerage owner or leader of a real estate company, you probably remind your agents every week that the best way to grow their business is by engaging their Sphere of Influence (SOI) and consistently asking for referrals.

But are we holding ourselves to the same standard?

We should be asking our own agents for referrals and recommendations about who we should be talking to in the marketplace.

Questions to ask regularly:

1. “Who are the top agents you’ve worked with in the last six months that would be a good fit here?”
2. “In that last transaction, how did Bob do? Would he be a good fit for our company?”
3. “Is there anyone I shouldn’t talk to—any red flags in the marketplace?”

By engaging agents consistently and requesting their generosity, they start to understand the importance of referrals—just like our clients do when we ask.

Agents aren’t conditioned to send referrals unless we ask. The best time to ask is right after you’ve helped them like after:

• Solving a problem
• H
...

I want to give you a strategy to start using every day in your office.

As you're walking through the halls and having conversations with your agents, follow those conversations up by asking, "How’s your pipeline?"

You’re communicating to your team that you care about their performance and want to help them reach the next level in their business.

By asking those magic words—"How’s your pipeline?"—you’re going to unlock a lot of meaningful conversations.

People will say things like:

• "I wish I was doing better"
• "I feel like I'm underperforming"
• "My last listing just sold"
• Or "I’ve only got one escrow left and I’m worried about paying the bills"

You’re going to hear a lot of that. And that’s exactly what you want.

Don’t avoid those conversations… go straight at them.

Because if you’re not having that talk, someone else is... and that someone is likely trying to recruit your agents by offering them a solution.

You are going to be that solution.

When an agent shares a challe...