Industry leaders are always looking for ways to take their businesses to the next level. Scaling a successful real estate team is an obvious choice for many. The challenge comes at the intersection of maintaining individual production while coaching and developing team members toward the greater goal. How can this be done successfully?
The grit, determination, and perseverance that drove the success of being an individual top performer will drive the motivation necessary to build out a team, but the skill sets needed to be successful are completely different. If not approached from a business mindset, building a team can become both a financial and time drain. Creating a business plan that outlines the parameters of your success before you begin hiring is key.
Here are some things to look for and get in order when you’re ready to scale your business and welcome new team members.
Understand why you’re setting up a team
If you feel like you’re running short on time and energy, your life/work balance is probably in need of some, well, balance. A team can help restore that balance by helping you answer calls, respond to clients, show houses and improve your overall client service and retention.
Also, you might be feeling that it’s time to focus more on management rather than sales. Part of setting up a team is understanding your strengths as a leader as well as your skills. As a team leader, you’ll need to be a good people manager or be able to hire one. When you’re putting together a job outline for yourself, make sure to be honest with yourself: what is it you really love doing in your industry?
Get the basics dialed-in
Master the core skills of your real estate business before you begin delegating tasks to your team members. In essence, before you bring on a buyer’s agent, make sure that you understand what goes into that skill set and role. From buyer presentation to buyer agency agreements, if you’ve never done it, then what makes you think you can start delegating for that role and see consistent results that lead to revenue growth?
Put systems in place
When you bring on new team members, you want to ensure you have a defined strategy for your business. This helps make things easier when they are trying to figure out what to do and how to work under you. This is very important when you’re working with employees either virtually or out in the field. Remember to document these processes. This will ease the onboarding as you continue to grow.
Some business owners might take on the mindset that they can adapt later on and try to systemize everything as they grow. That can end up causing major frustration for not only themselves but also their team members and their bottom line. From client care to prequalification, closing to staffing, it’s important to have order your team can depend on.
Many people throughout the industry ask how we at HomeSmart service so many people with so few employees. How can we be so efficient? The framework is the same as above. Define and understand the why of the basics, build and document the process, put systems in place through automation and technology, build on each person’s strengths, and remember to lead toward the vision while executing the immediate strategy.
There are many items to consider when you want to scale your real estate team. Follow these recommendations and build on them for even better results.