So, you want to start a real estate team? Or maybe you already have a team and are now questioning that choice? Perhaps you already have a team that’s performing at a high level and are simply looking for a boost?
Well, when it comes to real estate teams, I’ve seen it all, including:
- Starting a team too early
- Starting a team for the wrong reasons
- Starting a team without a straightforward value offering
- Starting a team with no or poorly written team agreements
- Letting your team and performance become stagnant
In the most successful teams, the leader assumes the CEO role of the team and always leads with revenue. The teams that are performing at a high level also understand that a system will produce what a system will produce; nothing less, nothing more.
If you’re considering whether to start a real estate team, here are a few thoughts to consider regarding team leadership.
Do you have a clear and compelling value proposition?
- Will you be a lead provider?
- Will you be a coach, trainer, and mentor?
- Without a clear value, turnover will be the challenge you face.
Are you on target or ahead of your production goal?
- Bringing additional team members aboard is not just a big responsibility; it’s also taking on a serious expense.
- If your income cannot support additional team members, you only set yourself up for failure.
- Get your house in order first, and then consider taking the next step.
- Lead with revenue first.
Do you have multiple successful pillars of lead generation?
- You have solid influence strategies (referrals) in place or control strategies (online leads) in place.
- You’re tracking and measuring all your leading indicators, right? If not, you’re not ready for a team.
- When you look at your lead sources, are you producing multiple sales per month from at least four different pillars?
- The key here is to ensure your business is diversified sufficiently to support additional sales agents on your team.
A compelling value proposition, multiple successful sources of lead generation, and consistent delivery of your own production are critical factors to success.
Many team leaders struggle with the value proposition. If you’re struggling with the same, answering the questions below, which can be the starting point for a general framework to create your unique value proposition, could help:
- Problem: You know how….
- Solution: This is how we uniquely solve this problem…
- Social Proof: Here is the proof it works with real-life examples…
The problem should be compelling — and one your ideal prospects face. You have a track record of solving the issue, one that can be expressed in a way that resonates with your ideal customer.
From there, the next step is to create a rough draft of your value proposition with your team. Run it by some trusted advisors and even a client and a prospect or two.
Consider this: With all the plans, strategies, goals, innovations, business practices, and culture
that make up your team, you are getting the exact results your business systems and
processes are currently capable of producing. Nothing less, and nothing more.
Looking to focus more on outcomes? You must improve the design and execution of your business systems and processes at the detail checklist level to get better results. The law of cause and effect governs all business outcomes. To change an effect or result, you have to
change the cause.
Do you have lead follow-up systems in place to ensure a high level of service?
- Are your systems in place to the point in which you can say you’ve operationalized your business?
- If not, it’s not a total deal-breaker. However, you should know that developing systems as you grow your team will steal precious time from dollar-productive work. Can you afford that?
Do you have a daily accountability structure in place?
- As a team leader, you need a built-in system that holds you accountable to your schedule, the systems you have in place, and others on your team.
- This accountability structure starts with you and should extend to all who join your team.
- If not, you might want to work on your discipline a bit before putting yourself out there as a role model.
- Let’s say you’re not sticking to a morning schedule and setting that example for others. In that case, it will be difficult for you to expect team members to perform with the necessary daily discipline to succeed.
Are you on a mission to grow your leadership skills and serve your team members?
- Face it. Some of us just don’t want to “manage” others — or handle all that it entails.
- If you are not into people with a decent EQ level, you might want to consider options like a sales or operations manager who can handle those things.
Solid follow-up systems that create raving fans, a solid accountability structure, and leadership are all critical factors. Yet the one factor I’ve seen produce the biggest results is to increase you and the team’s level of daily accountability on the critical key performance indicators.
Aside from upping your accountability game, here is a practical list of questions to ask yourself in order to validate and check the work you’ve been doing in this series:
- Why do you – and your team – do what you do?
- This may sound like an odd question, butt one example could be whether you are in the real estate business (I sell real estate) or the problem-solving business? (We help consumers navigate the complex process of buying, selling, or investing in real estate with ease, transparency, and less stress.) See the difference?
- How are you different or unique?
- And does that matter to the typical consumer?
- Who is our ideal client?
- And how do you reach them in relevant, consistent ways?
- Are you hyper-local? If so, are you constantly working to become a hyper-local expert?
- The portals and national chains can never be the hyper-local expert.
- When it comes to growth plans, what is your vision?
- If you are in one city, do you want to expand into other cities or even another state?
- How will you make your vision come to life each day?
Answering these questions and institutionalizing them into your business will serve you well. To get better results, you must improve the design and execution of your business systems and processes at the detail checklist level.
The law of cause and effect governs all business outcomes. To change an effect or result, you have to change the cause.
Mark Johnson is an author, speaker, and business partner in Recruiting Insights, a real estate recruiting solution.