If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, one thing you might be missing is building out your culture. And culture is incredibly important. One of my good friends told me years ago: "Culture beats strategy every day of the week."

Here's what that means:

You can have amazing technology, great coaching, strong leadership, solid systems, excellent staff, a great location, and competitive commission plans... but if people hate coming to work every day, none of that matters.

You need a culture where people are excited to show up, love the work experience, have work-life balance, and enjoy being part of the team. So the real question is: How do you build culture?

Culture doesn't happen by accident. It's intentional. You have to invest time, effort, and energy into building it.

One thing we do at our company is host social nights—sometimes during the day, but we call them social nights or events. We aim to plan one every 6 to 8 weeks. These events can be anything from go-karting, atten...

Let me tell you the number one mistake rookie recruiters make when they're first released into the field. They've just been given the job of becoming a recruiter, and they think, “Okay, I better get out there and start making things happen.”

So they go to a REALTOR event—could be an MLS meeting, a board meeting, maybe a training or education event—and they jump into full-on “mayor mode.” They’re shaking hands, kissing babies, acting like the VP, president, or CEO. They’re working the room.

And then they make the classic rookie error:

They start trying to recruit in public.

Professional, high-level recruiters never recruit in public. Ever.

We build relationships in public. But we always recruit in private.

Why? Because if you’re seen recruiting openly at a public event, people will run from you. They’ll think, “I need to get away from this person before anyone sees me talking to them.”

Nobody wants to be seen as the agent who’s being recruited, and you don’t want to be the recrui...

If you're running a great office meeting, and hopefully you are as a brokerage owner or team leader, you should be hosting these at least once a week. These meetings should be inspirational, motivational, and educational. Something people actually get excited to attend.

If you're doing that, I want you to start thinking about using your meetings as a recruiting opportunity. If you have strong relationships with co-op agents at other firms, why not invite them to your office meeting? Worst case, they say no. But you could say something like:

"Hey, we love working with you. We'd love to have you join us and check out our company. Just come experience an office meeting. I know we haven't closed a deal in a while, but if you want to see what we're all about, we'd be happy to have you. By the way, we invite co-op agents all the time. You can even pitch one of your listings or a buyer need—no pressure, just a chance to connect."

Another approach is if you have a guest speaker - a lender, ...

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, I’ve got a question for you:

What drives market share? When you look at a ranking report of your company or team against others in your market, what drives that market share higher?

If you want to go from 1% to 2% or from 5% to 10%, the number one driver is your ability to recruit experienced agents. Here’s why: As you recruit these agents, their production gets added to your team’s numbers, and your market share will rise.

But what we often forget is that when you pull an agent from Company A to your company, Company A's market share goes down, and yours goes up. So, you get a double whammy—Company A goes down by 1%, and your company goes up by 1%. That means the spread grows by 2%.

By focusing on recruiting experienced agents, you grow your market share that much faster.

If you want a path to start doing this and dive into recruiting experienced agents, head over to our website at eRealEstateCoach.com. Check out the new webinar I creat...

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, what do you think agents are thinking about right now? Are they more nervous or less nervous than they were a year ago? Do you think they're feeling more emotional turmoil or anxiety than before? I would say yes, and the reason is the ongoing trade war, stock market turmoil, and what's happening with the overall economy.

There’s definitely some anxiety out there, and this is a great opportunity for us. I want you to see this as one of the best opportunities of the year for recruiting.

These agents want to be rescued.

They want leadership.

They want someone to tell them, "Hey, I’ve got a plan for you. We have a plan that can help you move from A to B, from B to C, and from C to D—helping you grow despite the market conditions. Our organization is not a market-driven company, but a strategy-driven company.”

If you can convey that passion and give examples of agents who joined you in the last 12 months and found success, your ability to rec...

As a brokerage owner or team leader, you have a tech stack, right? We all have a tech stack of some kind, the technology we provide to our agents and teams to help them operate effectively in the local market.

But here's the question: Are you eating your own dog food? Do you know how to use your tech stack from top to bottom, inside and out? More importantly, are you using it every single day? Are you fully engaged with all the bells and whistles so that your agents see you actively using it?

When your team sees you texting out of it, video texting, using it for social media, and running drip campaigns—fully immersed in the CRM—they take notice. They follow the leader. If you're not leading from the front, why would they adopt it?

If you find yourself not fully understanding your own tech stack, it's time to dive in. Use it daily, attend all the training, explore the help sections, and go through all the tutorials. Learn it because you likely invested tens of thousands of dollars in...

If you're a recruiter for your company, a brokerage owner, or a team leader, there's something important you need to understand: you have to recognize the strength in every weakness and the weakness in every strength to succeed.

We can't be all things to all people in real estate. You might have a large brokerage or a small one, a great physical office or none at all, be part of a franchise or independent, have top-tier technology or limited resources. The key is not to get hung up on what you don’t have. If you use it as an excuse to avoid recruiting and prospecting, you’re holding yourself back.

Instead, ask yourself: what's the strength in the weakness? What's the weakness in the strength?

For example, let’s say someone tells you, “I don’t want to work for a competing broker.” That’s a valid concern. If you are a competing broker, you need to be prepared with the right response.

You could say:

"I totally understand where you're coming from. But can I share why being a competing...

Let’s talk about the Primadonna agent.

We’ve all heard the term, but what does it mean? It refers to someone—hopefully not in your office—who believes they hold power over the broker or staff. They might wield this perceived power by being verbally aggressive or abusive, saying and doing things that are completely inappropriate. They think they can get away with it because of their production level or tenure in the office.

So, what do you do with a Primadonna agent? Here’s the unspoken fear many office and team leaders face: If I get rid of them, I’ll lose money. Maybe they’re a top producer, and you’re thinking, “I can’t afford to lose someone like that.”

But when you let this fear control your actions, it gives them even more strength—and their behavior gets worse over time. Worse still, having this kind of toxic person in your office impacts your recruiting. Potential recruits may avoid your office entirely, even if they don’t say it outright. They may think, “I’d join, but I can...

When you step into the role of recruiter for your team or office, you have to shift gears. You likely came from production, where you were a top agent and a confident salesperson. Talking to buyers and sellers felt natural.

But then you put on the recruiter hat, and suddenly making that first call to a potential recruit feels daunting—like the phone weighs a thousand pounds. It feels awkward and uncomfortable. Why is that?

It’s because you don’t have the skillset yet. Confidence comes from competence, and competence comes from learning and practice. The good news is you can develop those skills by getting coached and learning from others who’ve been where you are. We’ll share some tips and tools to help with that in a moment, but first, let me give you something to think about.

If you’re serious about growing your team or office, you need to commit at least one hour a day to recruiting. Without that, your business is at risk.

Here’s where many people get stuck: they think they can ...

You might’ve had a call where you had a great conversation with a potential recruit—someone you thought would join your company—and then suddenly they went cold. They didn’t join.

What happened?

Well, it’s not about your offer. It’s not about you, what you said, or didn’t say. It’s about their timing. Timing is unique for every agent. Every agent has a runway—that is, the time it takes for them to join your firm. Some have a short runway, some a long one, and others a really long runway.

It’s not about your timeline; it’s about theirs. And here’s the key: the fortune is in the follow-up. But you don’t want to apply pressure.

Here’s what the worst recruiter does: “Jim, we’ve got to get you over here. Let’s make it happen!”

That approach is all about your needs, not theirs.

People often have legitimate reasons they can’t make a change right now. They may have things going on in their world—deals, listings, personal matters—that make it logistically impossible. If you make it about ...