We practice our phone conversations. We practice our listing and buyer presentations. We practice overcoming objections and challenges throughout the transaction. One of the most overlooked areas that we could be practicing is with our CRM.
No, it’s not as exciting as pretending to be a frustrated house-seeker on the phone, but ensuring that your team knows how to effectively use the database will accomplish a lot. It will help you keep your data integrity high so that everyone can know exactly where each lead is in the process. It will prevent leads from falling through the cracks. It will help you identify areas for improvement so that you can better coach and inspire your people to achieve their goals.
By keeping the basics in front of your team regularly, it allows them to have short reminders of what they should be doing and avoid a major overhaul by letting things go for so long that no one is rowing the boat in the same direction anymore.
Use our curated playlist to help you cover these basics with your team by reserving a spot on your sales meeting agenda for training and watching one of these videos together as a group!
Success isn’t just about transactions in our industry; it’s about fostering a positive and collaborative team culture that drives growth and prosperity. You can’t retain talent to grow your business without a healthy team culture, and this often-neglected subject plays a pivotal role in shaping high-performing teams.
A positive team culture sets the tone for how your team interacts, communicates, and collaborates. A thriving culture breeds motivation and productivity, leading to better client experiences and increased revenue. Research shows that companies with strong cultures outperform their competitors, so putting effort into something that has such a tangible impact on the bottom line is a great use of your time.
Creating a healthy, positive team culture takes time and dedication, and for best results, you should build it into your everyday practice as a leader. Yep, “practice.” Good leadership isn’t an exact science, and none of us nail it every single day, myself included. But by building into practice efforts to consistently build and reinforce your team culture, you will see rewards for many years to come, regardless of what the market is doing.
Ways to Practice and Develop a Positive Team Culture
🎙️Clear Communication Open and transparent communication channels lay the foundation for trust and collaboration within your team. Encourage honest dialogue, active listening, and feedback loops to foster a culture of respect and understanding.
👓 Shared Vision and Values Align your team with a common purpose and core values. When everyone is working towards the same goals, it creates a sense of unity and collective accountability. Discuss core values often and celebrate those who embody them while addressing those who do not. Core values aren’t effective if they aren’t strictly adhered to by everyone on the team.
💪 Empowerment and Autonomy Empower your team members to take ownership of their work and make decisions autonomously. Providing autonomy fosters creativity, innovation, and a sense of ownership, driving individual and team success.
🏆 Recognition and Appreciation Celebrate achievements, big and small, and acknowledge the contributions of each team member. Recognizing and appreciating efforts boosts morale, strengthens team cohesion, and reinforces positive behaviors.
👩🏫 Provide Opportunities for Growth and Education Invest in the growth and development of your team members through training, coaching, and mentorship programs and opportunities. A culture that prioritizes learning fosters personal and professional advancement, driving long-term success and by creating career advancement paths you will empower your team to reach their full potential and stay engaged in their roles.
🥰 Foster a Supportive Environment When team members feel valued, respected, and supported they will not only want to stay in your organization, but they will encourage others to join as well! Show empathy and compassion by understanding their individual needs, challenges, and aspirations. Demonstrate a willingness to listen and provide support so that you can foster trust.
👂Regularly Solicit Feedback Ask regularly for suggestions to improve the team culture and working environment. Actively listen to their suggestions and concerns and take proactive steps to address any issues or areas for improvement.
👔 Encourage Work-Life Balance Respect boundaries, encourage time off, and support flexible work arrangements when possible. A balanced lifestyle leads to happier team members who are better equipped to perform at their best.
😇 Practice What You Preach Here are a few totally random, made-up examples to illustrate what happens if you do not practice what you preach:
If one of your core values is honesty and your staff regularly catches you lying to them, it quickly erodes trust and confidence in both you personally and the business.
If you promote work-life balance, texting your staff before or after hours or on weekends sets the stage for never being able to step away from work because it is constantly being brought to attention.
If you are the reason why your party gets asked to leave a popular restaurant, people inside and outside your company will question your business practices and professionalism, and think that kind of behavior is acceptable to repeat on future occasions.
A fit person typically has a fit business, so recognizing that you set the tone for professionalism and what is appropriate for the team is crucial to building a strong company culture that will support your entire team for years to come. Without this last element of practicing what you preach, most of your other efforts will be wasted.
It begins with us. Take a moment to do some real self-reflection and then get to work! You can do it!
Whether it is a bombshell NAR settlement agreement, market fluctuations, regulatory shifts, or a global pandemic the landscape we navigate can be tumultuous and ever-shifting. Since change is the only constant, it is crucial that we not only adapt to these changes but also lead with confidence and resilience to develop our businesses so that they can withstand any conditions. Use the strategies below to ensure you provide effective leadership to those who count on you when they need it the most.
📰 Stay Informed, Stay Ahead Dedicate time weekly to learn about the latest industry trends, market conditions, and regulatory changes. By staying informed, you can anticipate potential challenges and proactively develop strategies to address them. As RuPaul says, “You don’t have to get ready if you stay ready.”
📱 Communicate Transparently, Early, and Often When things seem uncertain, open and transparent communication is paramount. Communicate with your team early, even if you don’t have all of the information to fully form a path forward. When you don’t communicate, it’s common for those you lead to fill in that absence with their thoughts and guesses as to what is going on and they will often assume the worst.
Stay ahead of this by offering town hall-style meetings where your team has a forum to express their thoughts and concerns openly. If you don’t feel comfortable yet answering their questions: let them feel heard, document their thoughts, and share your response with the entire team once you’ve had a chance to marinate on the new information. If it is a sensitive topic, create a path for them to anonymously have their questions asked and answered.
Being transparent and forthcoming with information will also help you navigate big shifts and retain your talent. If your team is lacking information and clarity, they will turn to outside sources for leadership and their trust in you will erode.
⚖️ Focus on Core Values Remind your team of the values that unite you and reinforce the importance of staying true to those principles. Upholding integrity, professionalism, and a commitment to excellence can instill confidence and trust in your leadership.
🧘♀️ Embrace Flexibility Encourage and coach a mindset of adaptability among your team members. Empower them to embrace change and seek innovative solutions regularly so that when circumstances demand it of you, it will be muscle memory and not a new strategy to learn on top of everything else. By fostering this culture of flexibility, you are positioning everyone to thrive regardless of the environment.
👔 Lead by Example Oh, man, this is so important. Demonstrating confidence, calm, and resilience in the face of adversity is a must for leadership. Your team is looking to you for guidance and inspiration and if you don’t practice what you preach you won’t be able to instill and cultivate these qualities in others. If one of your core values is honesty and your staff regularly catches you lying, they aren’t going to respect you…or stick around. You’ve got to walk the talk and practicing this in all areas of your life will give you a huge leg up in developing your leadership skills.
👩🏫 Don’t react, Respond This one is a game-changer. When you receive information, it’s best to assume that you know less than half of the complete story. Instead of jumping to a decision, ask for a recap of what happened from the other parties, and look at records or research yourself on the situation or topic. Then, after you have a more complete view, respond with your opinion or a directive on what should be done next. I promise you, it can wait until you have more information.
❤️ Foster a Supportive Community Encouraging collaboration, mutual support, and camaraderie will help your team to feel comfortable expressing their suggestions and concerns. While no one likes to hear complaints, learning about others’ points of view is a fantastic way to learn. Embrace this to build a strong support network within your team and the sense of stability and reassurance they will receive will ensure that your business thrives for years and years to come.
I’ve been in sales for the past twenty-two years (“Gasp! How could that be? She looks so young!” they all whisper,) …and you would be surprised how many sales meetings I’ve sat in where “sales” is never mentioned, let alone the discussion of sales strategies. It’s an insane number of them. But as I grew into leadership roles I saw how easy it was to get caught up in the red tape of everything (waves hands) and use the meeting time for housekeeping and reminding of policies and procedures and discussion of upcoming events instead of the things that we all needed to do to grow the business.
Sales meetings aren’t typically something our agents and staff get excited about and for good reason: They believe that it’s a waste of their time.
If you want to retain and grow the talent that you have, you’re going to want to put a very intentional effort into making your sales meetings more engaging and truly help your agents learn how to develop and grow their book of business.
Teaching them how to practice real estate is what they came to you for and to keep them working with you, it’s wise to take action on fulfilling that promise. Making a plan for your sales meetings is a perfect way to do this and greatly impact those you are mentoring through this wild world of real estate sales.
Click the button below to download your free guide and perform a check on the current structure of your sales meetings. Shift things around so that you are spending your precious in-person time in a way that is going to benefit everyone in the organization. You’re going to be so glad you did!
Putting together a sales meeting twice a month or even weekly can be a challenge! Including a brief training is something that will really help your team get a lot of value from the session together, but it often takes time to research and prepare.
Set aside the time within your meeting for this training, and then let us do the heavy lifting! Use our Follow Up Boss Playlist for agents to supply you with a short training video to watch as a group and discuss during your meeting.
Choose one video from the playlist to cover each meeting and revisit often as we will be continually adding to this to help support you in your quest for building the perfect real estate team.
You might also want to check out our full list of offerings for more in-depth training sessions.
Onboarding your new agents smoothly is not only a key piece of your recruiting puzzle, it’s crucial to create a healthy, growing team or brokerage.
This process is the agent’s first impression of how the organization works and you want to do everything you can for it to go smoothly to show them what a professional, organized, and committed-to-their-success place this is.
In a lot of cases, those new agents are scared. They’ve left salaried positions with benefits or a brokerage that they know inside-and-out and have taken a leap of faith to try something new. Especially those who are new to a commission-only pay structure, this can be a really intimidating thing.
The goal with onboarding is to have them land with you confidently on their feet. If they were to show up on that first day and you say, “Oh, great! Uhh…I didn’t know that you were starting today! Uh…here’s some information for you to read, here’s the wifi password, and here’s some things to read that I just slapped together just now,” that’s going to cause your new rockstar agent to have some immediate job-change remorse. Worse, if mistakes happen down the line, they will say, “I knew it from the first day that this was a bad decision!”
So how do you accomplish this soft yet ready-to-go landing for your new agents? Give yourself a runway of time to prepare. 48 business hours should be sufficient, depending on your process. This way, you and anyone else assisting you with onboarding has plenty of time to get everything prepared before they walk in the door. Agents are READY. TO. GO. and they will become frustrated in having to wait on their basic needs to work.
Create an onboarding checklist to ensure that each item you have identified that an agent needs when they begin is prepared for them. Similar to the results of having a transaction or closing checklist for your clients, you want the process of working with you to be the same for your agents: consistent, thorough, and positive.
Use our guide below (make a copy and save it to edit,) and add every single thing that you do when you onboard someone new. Yes, even the small stuff. As you grow and bring on multiple people at once it will be harder and harder to remember each detail.
Once you’re done, save another copy and name it “Exit Checklist” and update it so that you are turning off and performing all the tasks needed when an agent leaves and nothing is missed on that end as well.
This is all about consistency. If you need to do something to onboard or exit one agent, you will likely need to do it for all of them. Building systems around the regular actions that you take means that nothing will be forgotten, the organization is working efficiently, and there are fewer items to remember and decisions to be made around recurring events, freeing you up to spend time and energy on the business building activities instead.
If you’re going to run your team (or brokerage!) and get results, you need a plan. Setting aside time to think about and map out our businesses is something that we all need to do more often rather than getting stuck doing the work and caught up in the weeds of everyday happenings.
Blocking off time regularly with no distractions to think about ways to improve your business is a great first step, but creating a clear actionable plan is the key to seeing results.
Watch our guide to creating a team (or brokerage!) business plan and use the accompanying workbook to make a plan that you can execute and take your business to the next level.
