New professionals are the backbone of all industries and the same holds true for the real estate business too. It does not matter whether you are running a successful and established brokerage or whether you are a broker who is looking to set up his or her independent real estate brokerage house, you are required to invest considerable time and efforts to recruit the best in terms of real estate talent.
If you are not sure from where to begin this process or are wondering how you could improve your real estate recruiting process, then read on to get a clear idea of how to go about this vital process of your real estate business.
Attracting The Best Real Estate Agents
Understand The Motivation Of Real Estate Agents Recruitment
As successful real estate agents there is a tendency to go by a script for everything. From converting clients‘ leads to cold calling/emailing, but to attract agents is one area where we would advise that you forego the script.
The traditional real estate agent recruitment script always pitches the commission split. True money is an important motivating factor, especially when starting out in the real estate business; however, there is a need to acknowledge that today’s young professionals are looking for benefits beyond attractive income prospects.
Try to identify those additional factors, such as resources, training, cultural organization, and long-term personal growth prospects. These factors drive today’s millennial real estate agent candidates. Highlight these in your recruitment drive.
Maintain An On-Going Recruitment Drive
One of the major mistakes a successful broker or an expanding brokerage does is to wait until the last moment to recruit new real estate agents. We understand that the priorities in the real estate industry are given to generating new leads and successfully converting them.
However, if you wait until you are swamped with clients, then you are barely going to have time to focus on attracting new hires. Remember, it takes time to hire, provide training, and expand teams of a brokerage.
As such, you should give the same importance to recruitment that you give to lead generation. It is an ongoing process, as you must invest time and effort and have five fixed goals to have a fixed number of new hires in a specific duration.
Having this process in your organization will help you in case of any sudden changes in your teams. You will have capable and trained new hires available to fill any gaps created by any absences.
Define Your Team’s Unique Culture
One of the top motivational factors for potential new hires is the organization’s culture. Now, this culture could cover a wide range of aspects from the training provided, to sales responsibilities given, the overall manner in which teams function, and even the office atmosphere.
In order to attract new talent, you must invest time to define your organization’s culture and brand. Then use these in your marketing for the agent recruiting process. Candidates are looking for local brokerage teams which are a good fit for them, have a reliable brand, and have best practices in place.
Recruiting Real Estate Agents
Always Stay A Step Ahead
Do not wait until you need agents on your team to start looking at potential candidates. Always have an idea about the new and upcoming top-performing agents. These are your potential new hires.
In many cases, good candidates get recruited on employment terms that are not exactly favorable for them. Chances are high that these candidates may be soon looking at other local real estate brokerages to make a switch.
Do try to establish contact with these agents. Do not try to immediately recruit them. Simply keep them informed about your business, brand value, and personal growth prospects offered by your organization.
When such high-performing agents do eventually decide to switch brokerages, your brokerage team should be the first thought in their minds.
Keep An Eye On Other Brokerages
Always be aware of what your competing brokerage houses. Have a fair idea of the terms they offer new candidates in terms of commission split, tools, and training provided. Identify any gaps in your offer to potential new hires and try to fix them.
You do not have to change your organization’s culture and business practices, but in order to attract talent, you do need a business that offers them more opportunities for success and growth.
Recruit Through Multiple Channels
Do not solely rely on the traditional model of recruitment. For instance, one of the most popular recruitment channels, LinkedIn, has close to 94% active recruiters; whereas there are only around 36% active candidates. You can see the level of competition to attract new candidates.
So, our advice is to diversify as much as possible when it comes to recruiting new hires. Sure, go ahead and use the traditional methods, but along with them, try and incorporate your company website and social media too. How about posting a short and attractive recruitment video on your company’s website and social media pages? Or you could consider hosting events, such as an open mixer for agents in your local area.
That is a great way to widen the contacts for new candidates and inform them about your company and its success.
Retaining The Top Performing Real Estate Agents
Monitor Their Performance
Once you have got a robust real estate team in place, then you should invest efforts to retain your candidates. You could utilize multiple approaches in this regard. Start with strong reporting and a monitoring system for sales.
Have a clear idea of how all the agents in your teams are performing. Identify the ones who are struggling and offer them the necessary solutions, such as additional tools or training to help them achieve their growth prospects. Similarly, give additional and attractive benefits to your top performers. Do let them know that their success has been observed and appreciated. It is integral for talent to be aware of their value to the company.
Offer Technological Assistance
Most new-age professionals prefer to have an extensive set of technology-enabled tools at their disposal. They want the ease of workflow in order to concentrate more on their job. For instance, Dorrmat, a market leader in online real estate platforms, offers an excellent Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, which allows the agents to work the data to their advantage.
These backend applications, accounting software, and other office administrative tools which provide solutions to scan, sign, and digitally upload documents would ease the workflow for the top real estate candidates.
Summary
This guide to recruit and retain new agents in your team should be handy whether you are looking to set up a new team or looking to spruce up your company’s recruitment process. It takes effort to get talent to join your teams.
Our tips should give you an overview hire the best new agents and help them grow in order to ensure the success of your brokerage. As we said at the start, your team is the backbone of your company, so it is well worth the efforts to ensure its long-term growth.
