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You joined your brokerage for opportunities to grow your business, but what happens when you and your team start feeling like your brokerage is becoming less and less like a perfect fit?
When your brokerage fails to support your team, you can’t force yourself to make something that’s so clearly not working work. Here are three signs that it’s time for your team to move on to another brokerage.
1. An environment of fear
It is absolutely crucial for your team’s brokerage to have an environment of abundance versus an environment of fear, which will keep you complacent.
A common side effect of an environment of fear is finding yourself wanting to cut absolutely every cost out of your budget, with your fear rationalizing these decisions for you. As I mentioned before in a previous Inman article, “Fear will tell you to build a shelter, hide in it and make sure you stay in there until the sun comes out again.”
If your brokerage environment is operating from a place of fear, you’ll be too slow to pivot yourself and your business for success. This creates problems that you will have to find the solution to alone without your brokerage.
2. Outdated and ineffective training methods
The training materials your brokerage provides can really make or break your business. We all know that the real estate market used to be a one-level market. Agents are still being taught as if this is our current reality — but it isn’t.
The market is no longer only between brokers or agents and the buyer or seller. It’s time for your team to move on to another brokerage if it’s still approaching training methods with a one-dimensional mentality (which has now been proven irrelevant).
This one-dimensional training is based on methods that are outdated and don’t work anymore. Technology is so much more advanced than the outdated training you’re being taught. Your brokerage needs to be more agile and to lean into changes in technology instead of fearing them.
Another training “uh-oh” is the infotainment-style training. This style, in the context of our industry, is a training method that presents information in an entertainment style or setting.
Entertainment without action is just entertainment. The world may want training turned into a Vegas of learning with consistent social media-speed endorphin hits and bright lights, but that just does not work. In this type of training, there is no tension, no learning and very little action.
This is a problem. We often perceive information with our senses, and it’s in our human nature to retain information based on the tension with which it’s presented to us. If it’s presented without tension, we need some aspect of accountability and measurement of growth.
The more we’re faced with infotainment as the main style of training in this industry, the more we move away from professionalism, and the caliber of knowledge we can learn and then bring to this industry.
3. Compensation
It is absolutely crucial that your brokerage’s compensation model reflects the added expense and volume of a well-run team. The team is a subset of the team leader, who typically works to expand on their platform, name, sales and skills.
If your brokerage doesn’t work with your team to ensure profit and team growth with the appropriate commission and compensation structure, that’s another sign that perhaps, it’s time to leave.
It’s time to find a brokerage that is “pro team” — one that will strategically support your team with specialized training and planning for your team’s security, as well as championing your growth and helping you achieve your goals.
- 5 telltale signs it’s time to pick up and move your team
- Thinking of moving your team? 5 critical points to consider
Kathleen Black is the CEO of Kathleen Black Coaching and Consulting in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Connect with her on Instagram at @kathleenblackcoaching or through her website ItTakesa.Team.
