There’s one thing for certain about the real estate industry–there is no shortage of gadgets, downloads, software tools, or marketing services targeted to brokerages. And as a broker, it’s easy to get distracted – you’re afraid you’ll be left behind if you don’t take advantage of the latest and greatest thing out there. At Weichert®, we call this “The Shiny Penny Syndrome”.
Essentially, this occurs when a company jumps to chase a shiny, new opportunity, service or product instead of focusing on mastering the basics of running a business. Often, these products and services offer to make your lives easier by saving time, helping to maximize efficiency, effectively marketing your brokerage, getting more listings or even helping your business survive the latest economic crisis. It’s important to learn to navigate this minefield, if you are a broker looking to grow in a challenging housing market. There are so many shiny pennies out there that it’s easy to end up jumping from one promising new real estate tool or marketing idea to the next in an increasingly rapid and costly cycle, while the core elements of the business like how to recruit, write an effective business plan, maximize agent production and monitor key performance indicators get less attention than they deserve. These shiny pennies are marketed so well and with such urgency that brokers often forget to ask pivotal questions like “How will it fit in with my current business goals?”, “What real results will it bring?”, “Where will I go for support?” and “What operational changes will be required in order to actually get the benefits of the product?”. Most Brokers know they must adapt and innovate to stay current and effective in an ever changing landscape. The real challenge is knowing how to balance innovation with the basic activities and systems needed to run a successful brokerage and build a business. Innovation With Purpose A key to successful innovation is to focus on the benefits to your core customer and core operations, rather than innovating for multiple seemingly attractive, trendy options. Important questions to ask when considering a new product, technology or marketing service include:
Strategic growth through planned and proven marketing for brokers One of the things an affiliation with a credible Real Estate Franchise Company can provide is a guide who can steer you to the best of real estate innovations while keeping your business plan on track. The Weichert System gives you proven, productive systems, technology and activities to implement for nearly every aspect of your real estate business, including real estate marketing, selling systems, recruiting, a lead system and business management. With comprehensive training, ongoing support and expert coaching from our real estate professionals and a parent company with first-hand brokerage experience, you’ll feel relieved knowing you have people in your corner. You’ll never have to go it alone again. Our support staff will work with you to map out a road to growth. At Weichert, we’ve already paved a road for success. All you have to do is take it. Visit us today at https://www.weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-broker-marketing/dont-let-brokerage-get-caught-shiny-penny-syndrome/
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As a real estate broker, you are no longer directly responsible for leading buyers and sellers through the complexities of real estate transactions. Instead, you are now charged with the responsibility of successfully leading your team of real estate agents to reach their potential. While there are many traits and skills that make up what most would consider a successful leader, there are a few that serve as the cornerstones for every broker. As you strive to become the best leader you can be for your team and your business, focus on the development of these must-have traits.
Authenticity The greatest leadership wisdom taught in lofty places like Harvard has to do with being authentic. Authentic leaders are said to value input and feedback, are positive, truthful, and open. They build trust and generate enthusiastic support that improves both individual and team performance. Consider that a career in real estate can feel like a roller coaster, full of ups and downs. For some real estate agents, the downs can lead to doubts in their abilities and fears about their future. As their broker-leader, you can help shoulder those burdens by being an authentic leader who has both empathy for their situation, but whose enthusiasm and positivity helps them stay focused and motivated. Being an authentic leader, also helps creates the authentic culture in your brokerage that will minimize turnover and help improve production. Recognition There is nothing more demoralizing than having those you look up to ignore your strengths and accomplishments. As a leader, it is your job to give recognition to those agents that perform well and showcase exceptional talents. If you hold team meetings, you may want to consider regularly giving out awards or tokens of recognition to worthy individuals. Certainly top performers should be recognized, but there are many things you can recognize people for. In the spirit of being authentic, just make sure they are recognized for real achievements. If you look hard enough, everyone has something meaningful they have achieved that you can hold up for your team. Humility Everyone makes mistakes. The difference between an average joe and a successful leader is that a leader is humble and willing to admit their mistakes. This is another attribute of the authentic leader, the willingness to admit mistakes. In fact, as a real estate broker, you have a special opportunity to use your hard earned knowledge to save your agents from wasting their own time, money, and resources in the same ways you may have as an agent. By exercising humility and openly leveraging your mistakes into lessons, your entire team can work smarter and will have deeper respect for you as a leader. Empowerment One of the first things you had to learn to do as a broker was to stop selling homes yourself. Now the next part is actually empowering your agents to do the selling and make them as good at it as you were. Don’t be a broker who swoops in and personally fixes everything, whenever a deal hits a rough spot. Instead give your team the training they want, the advice and support they need, and the encouragement to be successful. Agents who feel empowered and supported, and who are not micromanaged, will take more initiative and over time will develop into more productive and motivated sales associates. Accountability If you strive to lead an all-star team, you must lead by example by being accountable for what you say and do. This really means getting back to some basics like saying what you will do, and doing what you say you will. Since the buck stops with you, some things will naturally float up to your level, and when agents see that you will jump in and handle the big challenges, their confidence in your leadership will grow. Accountability is actually one of the important skills Weichert teaches its brokers through the Weichert Management Academy. The academy, open to Weichert owners, brokers and managers across the country, teaches attendees all the important elements of building a successful team and managing a successful business. In this training the behaviors that constitute accountable leadership at every level are discussed. Being accountable means employees will feel your organization is solid, and that they are both well supported, and empowered to move their business forward. There’s Always Room To Be A Better Leader As a real estate agent, you successfully developed your abilities as a salesperson. As a broker, your focus shifted to being an effective leader. If you think you could benefit from leadership coaching and training programs, as well as a collection of production boosting tools and systems for your agents go to weichertfranchise.com or call 877-746-2067. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/undeniable-traits-of-a-successful-leader/ Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K Smith, author of The Wisdom of Teams, observes, “There is virtually no environment in which teams—if done right—can’t have a measurable impact on the performance of an organization.” This statement is true for your brokerage, too. Building and keeping a team of agents who share your brokerage mission is the starting place for building a culture of support and fostering a common drive for success. Your ability to communicate and lead is critical to motivating the team and getting positive results that are greater than the sum of their individual parts.
Recruit Right the First Time As you know, creating a solid team of both veteran and new agents is crucial to your brokerage. Skills, ethics and motivation are always important factors to consider, but you also need to determine if each agent has a vision and drive similar to yours. All it takes is one bad personality to ruin an otherwise good team of agents and lower your credibility. Take the time to recruit the right agents and you will have no regrets. Be a Leader Building a real estate agent team means you’re in charge; so be a leader. Believe in your agents and your purpose. You should know the strengths of all your agents to determine how you could best to use them to elevate the brokerage. Then encourage them to take on certain roles based on their strengths. This will help reinforce teamwork, while still allowing them to be independent. For instance, perhaps one of your agents is skilled in contract writing and agrees to teach a few classes a year for your agents or help new agents write their first contracts. Or maybe younger agents can provide older agents some social media tips and tricks to make them more comfortable using that medium. Mentor wisely, as being a leader means allowing everyone to grow personally and professionally, while encouraging them to care about each other’s well-being. Consistently Strengthen Your Brand While your agent team may continually change, there are a few things that should remain constant: all agents should align with your basic brokerage values, all should have clear goals and a path for success, and all should follow a level of consistency in how they represent your brokerage as a brand. Building a brand is especially important for the independent broker who does not have a recognized national brand to leverage. Let each agent know how to present your brand in the sales process and on listing appointments so that your competitive advantages are really highlighted. Consistency here will create local awareness and a strong brand for you and your agents to stand behind. Katzenbach and Smith believe that leaders must communicate the “purpose, meaning and performance implications of visions”. By sharing and articulating your goals to your team and asking for their help and participation, your agents will feel invested and empowered to achieve them. They will want the plan to succeed as much as you do. Benefit From a Culture of Sharing It’s a natural inclination for a team to want to win. Agents in the brokerage must share an eagerness to ask questions, try new approaches, learn from results and take responsibility for making change happen. They should be able to do this in a safe environment, where mistakes are not overly criticized, but treated as coaching opportunities, and new thinking is considered an asset. If your agents succeed and feel like they are an integral part of the growth and success of the organization, you’ll have happier agents, strengthen your bottom line and drive a positive perception of your brand in the office, which projects itself into the market. Who doesn’t want to work with a happy, successful office? Create a Shared Purpose. Celebrate Successes. Do more with your current agents and hire new agents with your vision in mind. Everyone has a strength. Use those strengths for the betterment of the brokerage, while fostering an agent environment of communication and teamwork. Have actionable goals for agents to work toward as a team, such as a certain number of listings and a certain amount of open house traffic each month, so everyone gets a chance to contribute. Keep the individual in mind, too, to reward key players who go above-and-beyond to help other agents. For instance, those who bring in the most listings in a given month or close the most transactions. Continually lead in new ways that bring out the best from all agents. Together, agents can help each other overcome obstacles to growth while learning along the way. Build team of positive-thinking individual agents and by motivating each other, you’ll watch as they gain prosperity and happiness, while your brokerage triumphs in productivity. Team Dynamics Can Be Tough To Get Right You know how to run your business, but everyone can use a little help sometimes. Having a resource that provides you with the systems and the coaching to help grow your business can make it easier and help you reach your goals faster. As a Weichert Affiliate, our mission is to see you succeed and our service teams are always there to help, so you never feel like you have to go it alone. That’s the power of We. That’s the power of Weichert. If you think your brokerage could benefit from becoming a Weichert franchise, call 877-746-8807 to learn more or go to weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-agent-recruiting/fostering-collaborative-spirit-in-your-brokerage/ When competing for a listing, every Agent wants to maximize their commission. However, in an age of discount brokerages and easily-accessible online information, clients are often left wondering whether they are getting the best value. “What exactly am I getting for my money?” they may ask. This is where having a solid listing presentation can be as good as gold. By clearly demonstrating to your clients the services you will be providing, outlining a clear marketing plan for their home and the expertise you bring to the transaction, any questions in their mind over the commission go away and the only question left is “where do I sign?”
But having a good listing presentation shouldn’t stop at your own listings. Creating a solid listing presentation is an important tool to have in your brokerage to be used by all your agents. Not only does it avoid each agent having to recreate the wheel, but it ensures all the agents within your brokerage are communicating a consistent message to the clients in your market and gives you something to provide brand new agents to help ensure their success. So how does your listing presentation stack up? The Keys to Overcoming Objections It is up to the listing agent to present themselves in a way that makes it clear that there is a world of service a client gets with a full-service brokerage. There is also a world of things that can go wrong with companies selling properties on cut-rate commissions. It is up to your agents to really lay it out for them. Here are some ideas to incorporate into a listing presentation template that clearly show the client all your agent brings to the process:
Agents appreciate having a listing presentation template that incorporates this type of information to help sell their services and is packaged in an easy-to-follow, attractive format. At Weichert, one of the most highly regarded tools used by its affiliates is the DOORS listing presentation. The Weichert presentation can be easily customized online and creates a powerful visual presentation that showcases a client’s home through photography, outlines all the support resources from the brokerage available to support the seller, provides a comprehensive plan to market and promote the home online and in the community and more. In addition, it promotes the agent, demonstrates their value in the process and helps them maximize their commission. The agent can have the presentation bound or present it electronically depending on what will be best received by the client. When put up against competitive listing presentations by other agents, the Weichert agent walks away with the listing more often than not. It’s a big step in getting potential sellers to understand what a full-service brokerage is all about. Maximize the Agent Commission. Maximize Your Brokerage’s Bottom Line.Sellers want a deal, but they also want to make sure their biggest asset is in the best hands. Give your agents the tools to give them confidence in their worth by demonstrating extraordinary market knowledge and the ability to provide high-quality service. By helping your agents maximize their commission, you help your bottom line. It can be difficult for you to find time to develop the right tools for your agents, such as an effective listing presentation. As a Weichert Affiliate, you get access to a suite of proven marketing and sales tools which are always being refreshed, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. This leaves you with more time to manage your brokerage. If this sounds like something your business could benefit from, find out more. Call 877-567-3350 or visit weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/demonstrating-value-the-power-of-a-good-listing-presentation/ Online retail giant Amazon is searching for another location outside of the Northwest to build a $5 billion facility and hire up to 50,000 employees. While many would be hired from the direct vicinity, others would come from nearby regions or even out of state, making a move necessary for a percentage of employees. Could you capitalize on this influx of home buyers or renters if your town or city was chosen?
Relocation Clients Matter Of course, other companies don’t just start up in a new state, but transfer employees from an office in one location to an existing office in another state, sometimes due to mergers and acquisitions. The most recent movement trend research from the Worldwide Employee Relocation Council indicates that 49 percent of transferees were relocating for the first time due to a promotion or lateral move. First-time relocation clients require extra help navigating the ropes from selling their current home in one city to purchasing or renting a new home in the perfect location in another city. Create A Specialty In Relocation As a broker, you should be looking at all revenue sales streams for your brokerage. Making relocation a specialty taps into this lucrative market where few tread, providing you with valuable and consistent leads any time of year. Relocating buyers and renters want someone who knows the area well and can educate them on all the local amenities, services, schools, eateries and entertainment with an over-all knowledge of what makes the area tick. The challenge of course, is understanding how that business works and then getting the relationships with the corporate entities that do most of the relo in your area. These relationships are often under contract to other national real estate companies and it can be difficult for independent brokers to make inroads into this market. That’s where an affiliation with a large national real estate brand can be particularly helpful Weichert Workforce Mobility for instance, is Weichert’s national relocation company, responsible for managing relo services for companies large and small around the world. These opportunities feed our qualified local Weichert brokers in markets all over the country, providing yet another lead funnel in addition to Weichert Lead Network. Serving relocation clients requires some special knowledge and training. These clients require a reliable and stable brokerage they can trust with what, for many, is a daunting move. As a broker you must provide agents or teams who are interested in this section of the market with training to gain relocation designations or recruit those already relocation designated that have valuable experience in this field. Be The Go-To Relocation Brokerage Depending on your location, you can position your brokerage as the relocation authority and create messaging in your marketing materials—from advertising to social media—with that in mind. Work with various moving companies, house cleaners and other services to provide clients a streamlined transfer experience to reduce the high stress of making a big move. This way your brokerage is always the area go-to for organizations or referral agents with client relocation needs. This is a labor-intensive process and an additional expense at first, but will pay off in time. The Inside Track To Relocation The easiest way to get up and running is to join forces with a company that’s already in the business. Weichert Affiliates, for example, have the opportunity to qualify for leads through Weichert Workforce Mobility, a leader in the relocation business. If this is something you are interested in for your brokerage, maybe it’s time to take a look at a Weichert franchise. Call 877-533-9007 or go to weichertfranchise.com to learn more. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-agent-recruiting/tapping-relocation-market/ LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” As a broker, isn’t that essentially what you want, too? To ensure that your brokerage and your agents are more productive and continue to be successful? For your brokerage to thrive, quality recruiting is an essential element of growth. You know that acquiring talented agents who are hungry for sales form the lifeblood of your brokerage.
Think of the agent search as lead acquisition. Do you want to make Facebook friends or gain business leads? With its more educated and wealthier demographic compared to other social networks, LinkedIn is a viable social media platform for lead generation, so it makes sense to use it to search for quality real estate agents as well—new or seasoned. Plus, its smaller and more focused social platform is a prime place to showcase your brokerage and its needs. Use Free Features Your LinkedIn profile speaks volumes about your professionalism and business model and is what most agent candidates will review to vet brokerage prospects. Make your headline stand out from the crowd, as that’s the first thing members see right under your name. Take the time to review your profile to ensure your message is correctly portrayed. Directly messaging certain first- and second-degree connections is one way to interact with potential agents and make them take notice of what you have to offer, but there are additional options. With a basic LinkedIn membership, there are a few ways you can recruit at no cost: through posts and articles. These recruiting features use general targeting and may take some time to get results. Play To Your Uniqueness LinkedIn supports two kinds of content: Posts and articles. You can think of them as short form and long form content, respectively, and they each have a place in your LinkedIn marketing plan. You want to create post items on a more regular basis that highlight the uniqueness of your brokerage—specialized trainings, online resources, sales mentors, prime location—and describe why it’s such a great place to work as opposed to your competition. Quotes from other agents, photos of employees, or the maybe the fact that you bring on veterans that became successful agents are some suggestions. You can also syndicate links to other content from Realtor.com or other real estate sites that you know that may be of interest. This is called “curated” content and can sometimes be easier for the busy broker or their associate to accomplish vs. writing original content. Articles are different than posts and should be used to highlight areas of interest to agents seeking a first or new brokerage, such as “10 things every real estate broker should provide to its agents” or “what to expect as a new real estate agent”. Content should resonate with sales associates looking to make a change or just starting out. If articles rank high, recruits will be at your door. Take Advantage of Targeted Data You can up the ante and get more recruits by capitalizing on LinkedIn’s vast member information data—pulled from over 500 million members—and use it to specifically target interested candidates. Better results and less work for you, but a paid premium membership is required to unlock the features of both job posts and career pages. As these talent acquisitions are so focused, the price paid now should increase brokerage growth quicker and with better-qualified agents than previous methods. Post A Job Unlike other job boards, posting a job on LinkedIn is highly directed to your needs. Skills, qualifications, education and more are used to get your job in front of candidates that fit your specifications. This feature boasts of real-time analytics, so you can see how your job posts are performing, as well as easy candidate review and contact methods. Add A Career Page The LinkedIn paid Career feature boosts your visibility and functions like your very own website within the LinkedIn platform. You can showcase lots about the everyday work environment, interesting trainings or speakers, fun office facts or agent quotes, office layout and much more in words, images and videos. You can post more than one job opening—agents, office manager, marketing specialist—without paying for each job post. To easily assess your recruiting goals and determine how the Careers page is working, use the handy analytics tool provided. Recruit on Multiple Channels Don’t forget that LinkedIn compliments your current recruiting efforts, it won’t replace them. One of the major focus points of the Weichert team in coaching new Affiliates is, of course, Recruitment, and our process emphasizes a multi-channel approach that creates the right exposure and buzz around your brokerage in your local market. Our process gets great results but it’s not by doing one thing, it’s doing many. From having the materials to help attract recruiting candidates to the training to get them up and running quickly to be successful, having a system in place is critical to recruiting success and growth. The team at Weichert understands better than most that recruiting and retaining the best people is what will make you truly successful. If finding a successful recruiting plan is something you’re interested in for your brokerage, call today at 877-533-9007 and see how the Weichert tools and processes can give you an edge. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-agent-recruiting/use-linkedin-recruit-quality-real-estate-agents/ There’s one thing for certain about the real estate industry–there is no shortage of gadgets, downloads, software tools, or marketing services targeted to brokerages. And as a broker, it’s easy to get distracted – you’re afraid you’ll be left behind if you don’t take advantage of the latest and greatest thing out there. At Weichert®, we call this “The Shiny Penny Syndrome”.
Essentially, this occurs when a company jumps to chase a shiny, new opportunity, service or product instead of focusing on mastering the basics of running a business. Often, these products and services offer to make your lives easier by saving time, helping to maximize efficiency, effectively marketing your brokerage, getting more listings or even helping your business survive the latest economic crisis. It’s important to learn to navigate this minefield, if you are a broker looking to grow in a challenging housing market. There are so many shiny pennies out there that it’s easy to end up jumping from one promising new real estate tool or marketing idea to the next in an increasingly rapid and costly cycle, while the core elements of the business like how to recruit, write an effective business plan, maximize agent production and monitor key performance indicators get less attention than they deserve. These shiny pennies are marketed so well and with such urgency that brokers often forget to ask pivotal questions like “How will it fit in with my current business goals?”, “What real results will it bring?”, “Where will I go for support?” and “What operational changes will be required in order to actually get the benefits of the product?”. Most Brokers know they must adapt and innovate to stay current and effective in an ever changing landscape. The real challenge is knowing how to balance innovation with the basic activities and systems needed to run a successful brokerage and build a business. Innovation With Purpose A key to successful innovation is to focus on the benefits to your core customer and core operations, rather than innovating for multiple seemingly attractive, trendy options. Important questions to ask when considering a new product, technology or marketing service include:
Strategic growth through planned and proven marketing for brokers One of the things an affiliation with a credible Real Estate Franchise Company can provide is a guide who can steer you to the best of real estate innovations while keeping your business plan on track. The Weichert System gives you proven, productive systems, technology and activities to implement for nearly every aspect of your real estate business, including real estate marketing, selling systems, recruiting, a lead system and business management. With comprehensive training, ongoing support and expert coaching from our real estate professionals and a parent company with first-hand brokerage experience, you’ll feel relieved knowing you have people in your corner. You’ll never have to go it alone again. Our support staff will work with you to map out a road to growth. At Weichert, we’ve already paved a road for success. All you have to do is take it. Visit us today at https://www.weichertfranchise.com. Originally posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-broker-marketing/dont-let-brokerage-get-caught-shiny-penny-syndrome/ |
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