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...
What's the number one motivator for someone to move from Company A to Company B? It's not the commission plan, so get that out of your head.
The answer is this: the reason I'm going to move from Company A to Company B is because I believe Company B can help me close more transactions.
Transaction count is the number one motivator for all agents. Yet, when I talk to most brokers and ask them to list the top five reasons someone should join their firm, the first things they often mention are: "We've got a great culture here. It's a family organization really connected to the community. People just trust each other. We've got a great staff."
These are all fantastic qualities, but let me tell you what that is: soft value.
Soft values are what keep agents at your company. People love to work at places with great culture, a charitable spirit, an open-door policy, and strong support staff.
But soft value isn't what moves an agent from Company A to Company B.
What moves agents is one thing:...
Here’s a question: Of the three types of real estate companies I’m about to describe, which do you think is the most dangerous to own in terms of survival?
Which one is the most dangerous?
For brokerage owners watching this, the answer is the mid-size company.
Here’s why: mid-size companies lack the economies of scale that smaller or larger companies enjoy.
Have you ever lost an agent? I have.
If you're a broker owner or a team leader, you probably have too. At some point, an agent decides to leave, and it feels terrible—like getting punched in the face. It's emotional, and you might wonder: Why did that happen? Was it my failure, or is it just part of the industry?
Here's the hard truth: it often is a failure on our part.
Specifically, it's a failure to understand where that agent was in their career. And that failure stems from a lack of communication with the agent.
Retention—that's what we're talking about here. Keeping agents starts with building relationships. And relationships come from spending time with your agents.
Time leads to relationships, and relationships lead to retention. So, the first step is spending more time with your agent team.
Now, you might say, “Jim, I’ve got a 200-agent office. There’s no way I can spend more time with all of them.” But it’s not about hours of...
Let’s do a quick quiz for team leaders and brokerage owners to test how well you know your agents. This is essential for agent retention. While recruiting is critical, retaining your agents is just as important—if not more so. Retention is all about re-recruiting your agents consistently: every week, every month, every year.
Here’s the key: friends don’t leave, and friends refer friends. Your agents—your customers—need to see you as more than just their leader. They need to see you as a friend. And that kind of relationship only happens when you invest time in them and approach your interactions relationally, not transactionally.
Many brokerage owners and team leaders make the mistake of thinking transactionally. They view agents as numbers in a model—hiring 10 new agents a month and watching eight leave. It’s a churn-and-burn approach that feels like a meat grinder.
That’s not how you build a strong company.
A successful...
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."...
Have you ever had someone in your company say, "Geez, I can't believe how great it is here. I wish I had made the move years ago"? This has happened to me so many times as a brokerage owner. It often took years to recruit them, and once they join, they're like, "This is amazing. Why didn’t I do this sooner?"
It’s frustrating for us as brokerage owners and team leaders, but there’s something we can do about it.
The strategy is called “presuasion”—not persuasion, but “presuasion.”
What does that mean? It’s about taking a more casual approach to recruiting, in some ways, and showing people what they could experience if they joined you.
How do you do that? The easiest way is through testimonials from your agents. But not just from the agents who’ve been with you the longest—the best ones come from those who have joined most recently. When new agents say, "I wish I had joined six months or two years ago," grab that...
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