Brokerage owners, team leaders—I know that you're recruiting every day because you're supposed to do that to build your business. I know you're doing it.

And when you're doing this, and you're setting aside one hour a day for recruiting, who are you targeting? Well, who you should be targeting is the people that are going to be the most receptive to your message.

And often, we just target the top producers in the market, or we target a certain group of people that has done this much production over this number of years.

But let me give you another target: “Gap Agents.”

What's a gap agent?

This is an agent who has not closed a deal in the last 90 days.

They have closed deals in the past. Maybe they've been a top performer. Maybe they were a consistent 3 or 4 or 5, 6, 8, 9 top producer.

But for whatever reason, in the last 90 days, they have not closed a transaction.

These folks will be much more receptive to having a conversation with you because they're looking to be rescued. T...

My brokerage owners and team leaders out there, I’ve got a question for you.

Have you ever thought about your business as having a hole, a gap, an area where your weak?

Maybe you’re not strong in riverfront property. Or maybe it’s multifamily, commercial properties, land, or condos—some area of the market where you’re underperforming in this category.

How do you fix that, and how do you fix it rapidly?

I’ll tell you the number one way to do this: Recruit into the gap

You can do this by identifying the top 10-20 agents in that niche in your market area. Then you give them a quick call or a text and say something like the following:

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“Hey, I was doing some numbers this morning. I saw that you’re the number one condo salesperson in this area for the last two years—congratulations.”

Or, “You’re in the top 20 of agents who signed the most land in our county last year. It’s incredible.

“And the reason I’m reaching out is because I want to develop that niche at our company. I feel li...

Hey guys, do you have a client party scheduled for spring or summer? If you don't, you're missing an opportunity. Why? Because the best agents in America generally are doing at least one client party a year, and a lot of them are doing two—the best times to do a client party: spring/summer and fall/winter. So those two types.

And ideally, I would say spring and fall are the absolute best times. Now what's the benefit of doing a party with your clients?

Well, first of all, the benefit is that you're going to treat them as friends. Remember: Friends do business with friends, and friends refer friends. And when you break bread with people, when you have a drink with somebody, when you relax in a relaxed environment, you become friendlier.

You have more conversations that aren't always business related.

So I'm going to give you a couple of tips, two or three ideas, about creating your best event possible.

First tip I will give you is this: it's not about the event size, it's about the...

In my career, and teaching the ABR® class, the Accredited Buyer Representation class, one of the biggest objections you'll get from a buyer is, "hey, I think I'm going to work with the listing agent directly. I think I can save a few dollars, and I'm pretty tight on my budget, so I think I'm going to try to do that."

What do you say to that? What's your response to that?

Well, it's a valid concern, especially in today's buyer agent world where buyers may have to write a check. Of course, we know that's not super common today. It might be in the future, but in today's environment it's not super common.

So my response to that is very simple. I would say:

"Hey, listen, I totally understand. If that's what you want to do, more power to you. But can I ask you a question—other than the commission, do you see any other benefit from doing that?"

Most people say, well, not really. And that's where you follow up with this:

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"So I just want to plant a seed for you. I want you to think ab...

If you're a real estate agent, I've got an idea for you.

And the reason I got this idea is because it just happened to me. I'm a rental owner, and I got a letter in the mail from a local real estate agent, but he had partnered with a local property management firm. I thought this was a brilliant strategy.

They co-branded the letter, and the letter said something like this:

“Hey, I'm a local listing agent who specializes in working with investors. If you're in need of real estate services, on the buy side or sell side, I'd love to work with you. And by the way, I partner with a local property management firm who would love to work with you on the property management side.”

And it was a brilliant strategy. On the bottom, they had both the logos.

Now, from each company's perspective, they're ancillary and complementary to each other.

They've taken their mailing costs and cut it in half. Think about that. Instead of it maybe being a dollar 50 or a dollar, now it's half, and they can ...

The question for you brokerage owners and team leaders out there:

Do you know your numbers?

And when I ask this question, people say, “Oh yeah, I know my numbers.” And then we test it and see if they really do know the numbers.

I'm going to test you right now. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions about your market, and I want you to be able to tell me if you know your numbers.

When I say your market, I'm talking about your agents that work within your company. That is your local market, by the way.

And here are the questions:

1. What is your average pending price with your agent body? What is your average listing price with your agent body? What is your average close price with the agents that work for you today?

2. How does that compete with the rest of the market versus the MLS? Are you higher or are you lower? Where are you at?

And then I'm going to go deeper than that. I'm going to ask you this really tough question:

3. What's your average agent's productivity based ...

Hey guys, have you ever thought about how you're interacting with your Sphere of Influence on social media?

Now, obviously we need to be really smart about this, and every single person that's in our Sphere of Influence, we need to make sure that we're connected with them on Facebook and Instagram and all the other possible places, maybe LinkedIn. And that should be maybe a spreadsheet or a checklist that we're checking that box off.

But let me give you one more idea. It's from a top producer I recently saw and thought it was brilliant:

What this agent did is he built a closed Facebook group for his, what he called VIPs—people that have sent him business or done direct business with him. So referral partners, people that have sent him referrals, or people that have done business go into his closed VIP Facebook group just for them.

And by doing so, he does all kinds of fun things. He runs contests in there where he rewards people for sending him referrals or doing direct business wi...

Hey guys, we're coming into Spring, and this is a great time of year to offer your concierge services to all of your clients.

What is your concierge service?

You want people to think about you when they think about anything related to their house — whether that's putting a new roof on, new carpet, refinishing the floors, needing an electrician, needing a plumber.

You want to be the first point of contact when they have a need related to their house. But you've got to say it out loud.

You've got to reach out to them. This is a great text, a great call, a great email where you say:

“Hey guys, a lot of times this time of year, coming into Spring, is when people like to do home improvement projects. If that's you and you need a contractor of any kind, reach out to me.

I've got relationships with the best contractors in the market. They give my clients great service and great pricing, so please reach out to me.”

Now, here's how I'm inserting value: I'm saying they're going to get whi...

As a real estate agent, you have something in common with every single business owner in your community. Everybody from carpet cleaners, to candy store operators, to toy store owners, to clothing store owners — every one of you has something in common.

Here’s what you have in common: you all want to do more business.

As a small business operator, what you can do is tap into that. What I would suggest to you is you go through your entire sphere of influence today and you take a yellow highlighter out — maybe print it out — and put a highlight next to all the small business owners that you know. You know more than you think.

When you have that highlighter out and you highlight all those folks, the next step is to call them, reach out to them, text them, or stop by their business if it’s convenient and appropriate, and say this:

“Hey, you know what? I want to support a local business every single week, and I’d love to do a collab with you if you’re interested.”

A collab — what’s a co...

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?