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Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian. He believes that business is nothing but a conduit for personal growth and embraces the company’s vision to Love How You Live. When he’s not leading and growing his organizations, you can find Adam either in the mountains or out in nature with his wife and three children.
It’s the time of year when agents are reviewing their year-end results and looking ahead to 2023. Will they stay at their current brokerage? Will they start their own team? Do they want to leave their team and become an independent agent? Will they join a team or move to a different one?
Decisions, decisions.
If you’re a team leader, you are also evaluating your current team members, their production, and your annual profit while making plans for the year ahead. If you have goals to grow your team in 2023, then you are most likely going to want to add more producing agents to your team.
And to do that, you need to know what agents are looking for, whether they are just entering the real estate industry, moving from independent agent to a team, or transitioning from one team to another.
Knowing what they are looking for is Step 1. Step 2 is making sure you have a plan of action. Each component needs a roadmap or playbook for execution, along with assigning a person to drive each initiative. If you are just building your team, that person will often be you.
Here are four things that agents are looking for from a team in 2023, along with some roadmap examples to get you started.
1. A team with a dynamic and effective leader who attracts talent, clients, and business partners and inspires team members to exceed their potential
Talent wants to be surrounded by other talented individuals, and that especially includes the leader of the team they are thinking about joining. Have you checked your leadership lately? Are you leading yourself and constantly growing (studying the market, industry trends, working on your personal growth, emotional intelligence, business acumen, leadership skills, etc.)? You have to be able to lead yourself first for anyone else to follow.
Are you casting the vision regularly? Are you providing clarity, focus and direction to the team on a weekly basis? Are you making high-quality decisions? Are these key leadership responsibilities being shared outside of your team by teaching classes, writing a blog or sending an email newsletter?
It’s one thing to be developing your leadership and working closely with your current team members (which is great). But it’s also important to share what you learn with a wider audience as well. Your vision and message will attract the right agents, clients and business partners to your team. Then once they join your team, you must stay committed to growing your leadership to retain the top talent that joined.
Right now, staying ahead of your competition and ahead of the market means providing transparent, vulnerable, strong and clear leadership. If done well with your current team members, the results will speak for themselves.
Inevitably, more agents will become interested in what you’re doing on your team. But it doesn’t hurt to amplify the message with some strategic marketing and sharing success stories on your own!
Bottom line? Resilient and resolute leadership really matters right now.
When you combine that with high standards, agent accountability and purposeful coaching, agents who join your team will be exceeding their potential before they know it.
Take action
Make sure you have a personal growth plan that supports your self-leadership growth (exercise, journaling, meditation, yoga, reading, etc.).
Set up regular touch-points throughout the week and month with each team member, so you are clear on their personal goals, motivations, as well as their struggles. Intentional 30-minute 1:1 meetings go a long way to helping grow, lead, and retain talent. Teaching classes at your brokerage or online is also a great way to attract talent — weekly market stats for agents to use with clients, lead conversation conversations and how to secure a listing are all great options.
2. A team that can get them into production quickly.
The faster a real estate agent starts taking listings and securing pendings, the faster they get paid. I know I’m oversimplifying it here, but that is all that really matters to an agent who is just joining your team.
Whether they are brand new to the business or have been selling real estate for 30 years, by joining your team, they are looking to you (and your systems and models) to help their business accelerate. The faster you can get them into production, the faster they see results, and the faster you are all winning together.
Agents are joining your team because they don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Make sure you have a clear system, playbook, or roadmap that is very prescriptive. Show and train your agents how to succeed.
Take action
Do you have a written-out process or playbook on how to get agents into production? Is it too complicated? Keep it simple. What are the three to five things your agents need to do every day to win? What does your team accountability look like?
3. A team that invests in technology solutions that convert leads, streamlines workflows and provides leverage
Although many agents are looking to join a team because they want an “easy” button, that’s just not totally possible. Especially in today’s market where we need skilled and committed real estate professionals who are willing to do the work required to get the results they desire. However, you can make it as easy as possible for agents who join your team through technology and leverage.
Real estate technology is a valuable tool — no doubt. But it’s a valuable tool to be utilized by talented real estate professionals, not to replace them. Real estate is still one of the largest and most emotionally charged decisions and purchases that an individual will make in their lives.
A highly skilled real estate expert is still preferred to an app. As the team leader, it’s your responsibility to marry the two to set your agents up for success. Using tech tools that save time, streamline workflows, optimize data, and prompt more customers to raise their hand to buy, sell, or invest in real estate is a must.
In addition, agents will be looking for teams to provide administrative, marketing, lead generation and operational leverage to help them succeed. At the end of the day, most agents want to do more business (whether that’s more transactions or working with higher-priced transactions).
How can you create the best technology solutions and leverage to ensure your agents get into production quickly, maximize their output, and give them back more time in their day?
Take action
For example, what does your client events program look like? How do you warm up leads for your agents to make it easier for them to generate leads from a pool of buyers and sellers with a higher degree of motivation? What do your drip campaigns look like? Are they getting more potential clients to raise their hands?
4. A team that has a culture that aligns with their own
This goes along with No. 1 in this list — you have to share your message clearly and consistently. It’s not enough to attract talented agents. You want to attract driven and highly productive agents who align with your team’s culture and see that when your team wins, they, too, will succeed.
In a recent Inc.com article about Bob Iger’s return to Disney, it said that the “main job of any leader is to protect the soul of the company they lead. Everything else is just details.”
I couldn’t agree more. As a leader, make sure you know what your team’s soul is and protect it. It will attract the right agents to your team.
Take action
If you asked everyone on your team what your culture is, would the answer be the same or different? If different, it’s time to refine and clarify your message and make sure you are sharing it widely and often for both internal team members and potential new agents.
Work on positioning yourself as a thought leader inside and outside your organization so that the culture is clear to everyone and you attract the right talent to your team.
Does this sound like a tall order? That’s because it is. The market ahead is going to demand excellence and a different level of action from real estate leaders.
Agents who are looking to join a team will be looking for strong leadership, a team that coaches them and supports them to get into production quickly, a team that provides technology tools and leverage, and a team with a culture that aligns with their own vision. If you want to grow your team in 2023 by partnering with more agents, make sure you execute these points.
Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian, the author of The Founder & The Force Multiplier, and the host of the podcast, Business Meets Spirituality. Learn more about Adam’s companies and culture here.
