Running a real estate brokerage or team is a 24/7 business. There’s so much going on: transactions, agent questions, legal requirements, mortgage, title and other vendor relationships, technology changes, upgrades and challenges, and the constant need to put out fires.
As a result, executives and team leaders face constant distraction and struggle to focus on where they want their company to go and how to get there.
Based on T3 Sixty’s work with hundreds of real estate brokers and teams in the T3 Fellows program and one-on-one management consulting, T3 Sixty has uncovered 10 essential growth strategies that real estate leaders can apply to consistently get results.
These detailed strategies are designed to fit different business models, personalities, and opportunities each real estate leader faces. They are listed below.
Assess your strengths and weaknesses
If you are going to grow, you need to take a hard look at what you have, and determine where you’re strong, where you’re weak and your biggest needs.
Ask yourself the following questions: What does your company currently look like? Where do you have gaps? Where do you have advantages? What is missing, needs work or is really working? To help find better answers, closely examine the following components of your business:
- Company profit-and-loss statement and balance sheet
- Support staff
- Marketing materials
- Brand
- Systems
- Website
- CRM
- Recruiting funnel
- Onboarding process
- Management team
You can’t do everything all at once, so it’s important to map what you have, then make a broader plan that will enable you to execute on priorities.
Define your outcome
Reflect on where you want your business to go. Ask yourself how you will get there and when you want to arrive. You must know what you want, and design a plan to get where you want. This sounds straightforward, but it requires honest analysis and perspective from others with experience.
Set specific goals
How you set goals will often determine whether you can make it to the finish line. Measure your progress by going beyond sales numbers. Include goals that cover other areas of your business, such as recruitment, individual agent production, marketing and public accomplishments.
Know the competition
If you are going to grow, you need to know who your local competitors are, what they offer, and how you stack up against them. Research them, analyze them, study them, and understand them. Very few brokers do this, but it uncovers insights that help you better compete.
Agents certainly comparison shop, and so should you. When you know your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, you can lean into messaging and services that set you apart and attract the agents you want.
Craft a unique, authentic pitch
Create a quick, easy-to-understand, and unique brand story that tells agents and consumers what you are all about. Ditch the cut-and-paste marketing, and tell your team members and prospective recruits how and why you are different. Successful companies are built on great stories. Determine which of the 12 story archetypes your brand may be (it could be more than one), then craft a story that aligns with your particular mix.
Know your recruits
By creating recruiting personas—archetypal representations of your ideal agents—you can get a clear picture of the types of agents that will best fit your organization. This clarity drives marketing messaging, the recruiting funnel, positioning, and the company’s agent offering.
Build a recruiting process
Just like any sales process, you need a top, middle, and bottom of a sales funnel for recruits. When you put the entire process in place and make it systematic, you will always have a stream of potential recruits. Here are the 10 recommended steps in the recruiting process:
- Sourcing and prospecting
- The call
- Relationship-building meeting
- Follow up
- Needs analysis meeting
- Craft your offer
- Present your offer
- Closing
- Handling objections
- Onboarding
Create a system to generate business
Agents want and value help growing their businesses. Design ways for your agents to find and win more business, so they can rely on your company to help them consistently bring in revenue. There are many ways to do this, including internet lead generation, sphere marketing programs, and referral systems.
Hire great people
Hiring is often one of the hardest yet most critical elements of growing a business. If you invest time in hiring and developing great leaders and staff, you can free yourself up to focus on more strategic activities. Great businesses are run by great staff, so build yours.
Tell your story to the world
Nobody will know about your company if you don’t have a plan to get media exposure and public recognition. By developing media and PR relationships, winning awards, and creating unique accomplishments, you can create awareness for both potential recruits and customers. Many real estate leaders miss this step.
Takeaway
Building a successful company that creates strong, steady growth requires a consistent application of the core strategies we outline here. While they are simple, they are not easy.
You can go through these steps yourself, lean on others you trust, or you can accelerate forward with a proven T3 Fellows program. In the program, T3 Sixty and a cohort of peers and mentors collaborate to hold you accountable. More info at T3 Fellows, or reach out to me at dean@t3sixty.com.