Facts about REALTORS
Watch this video Matthew shows Brokers the difference in Gen X and Gen Y and how to recruit them to be successful agents
Watch this video Recruit the right candidates to your company using a profile of desirable characteristics, skills and performance goals.
Watch this video Learn best practices for recruiting agents to your company using target performance and right-fit techniques.
Watch this video Develop a targeted, behavioral style interview for meeting and assessing potential agent candidates for your company.
Watch this video Develop an interview process with multiple phases to learn more about the candidate agent and get input from key stakeholders at your company.
Watch this video Brokers and managers learn to develop recruiting goals before interviewing candidates for their company.
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Here are ten simple phrases managers can work into their recruiting conversations with potential candidates. The agent’s reaction to any one of them should instantly tell you if you have found the right person for the job.

Perhaps the Aflac spokesduck can teach real estate brokers how to avoid quacking-up by the time the housing market turns around.

Real estate is essentially a research industry: trouble is, most agents and brokers think the most important research is about houses, prices, square footage and such. Considering the data that sits in most MLS systems – unverified and incomplete – you’d think they would know better by now. In fact, the best research for any sales industry isn’t the commodity data but the customer specs and competition capabilities. Knowing everything there is to know about the consumer – and the competitors who are trying to beat you to their door – is far more fascinating. And given the state of the housing industry, also more revealing.

Why is it that some things just won’t go change? There, on my doorstep, was a reminder that some companies still don’t get it. Nearly two pounds of absurdity, neatly wrapped in a plastic bag, and personally delivered to to my front porch, was a reminder that the more things change, the more some things stay the same. Absurd, when you think of it: Who uses the Yellow Pages these days?

Yesterday found me on the 15th floor of the New York Times building in Manhattan, part of a trio of industry thinkers including Mike Staver and Steve Harney. Joining us for three hours of  ”ask anything” discussion were some of the city’s finest brokers and managers. The host, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, had brought us together for a second time (the first in Phoenix) in a brainstorming session that had audience and panel each doing equal work. And unlike one of the usual presentations you might attend, the learning flowed both ways, from industry experts both on stage and in the audience. And what learning it was!

Recently we pointed out that the next generation of REALTORS will come from non-traditional sources. As brokers focus more on productivity than body-count, and the recession will ultimately teach them this business lesson. A more rational, performance-based method of building real estate companies will emerge. Traditional “Ponzi” schemes of filling the bottom with as many people with a license-and-heartbeat will fade away. It will become less frequent, not more, than inexperienced sales people will be thrown into the office mix. This positive lesson, while long awaited, will help brokers reconfigure their strategies for the future. But what about salespeople? How will they know whether it’s right for them to join a particular company? Let’s look at the other side of the recruiting question for a change. In the future, real estate salespeople will still be independent contractors; As long as brokers and agents can milk the tax loophole, they will. Whether or not that has any impact on performance, however, is a non-argument. The best agents in the business are the best, not because of their tax status, but because they surround themselves with the right productivity environment. Entrepreneurial salespeople know that the key to their success is to make [...]

A recent quote from Walter Percy Chrysler has been stuck in my head lately: Most people never get ahead in life because when opportunity knocks, they are out back looking for four leaf clovers. These days, it seems like Chrysler’s perspective is particularly appropriate to the real estate industry crisis. In addition to merely waiting around for Uncle Sam, Freddie, Fannie and even China to revive the housing industry, most brokers are busy scurrying around looking for lucky charms to help them survive the downturn. In fact, it’s even worse than usual – beyond burying statues and rearranging furniture – when we see brokers doing the absolute worst possible thing they should be doing right now: Recruiting the agents from failing firms. Did anyone every wonder to ask just why that firm was failing in the first place? History has shown us that good companies gain market share during downturns. Usually, that means they sell more of their goods or expand into new territories. Of course, the real estate industry has never used traditional business concepts to measure success, so for them, having more agents than the competition is supposedly a sign of success. Never mind that majorities of their [...]

When an industry suffers from a problem for decades and still hasn’t figured it out, it’s likely focusing on the wrong issue.  Real estate’s “recruiting and retention” problem has consumed millions, perhaps billions of dollars in wasted time, energy and effort. It’s apparent that all of the “symptom” solutions and snake oil in the universe won’t solve it. So let’s try something else: Challenge the premise. What if there wasn’t a recruiting or retention problem in the future?