A Broker’s recruiting strategy if done well, should attract some experienced real estate agents, but much of your agent growth is likely to come from agents who are brand new to real estate or who have little experience. Your goal with these new associates is to get them up to speed and make them productive as quickly as you can.
After decades of coaching and training brokers and their agents, Weichert understands the most common challenges new agents have. As a broker, you can provide the coaching and training these agents need in order to avoid the common pitfalls associated with learning our industry and make their entry into the real estate world more rewarding and productive. Here are three of the most common mistakes that new real estate agents make and how you can coach them through.
1) Giving Up Too Quickly
In the movie “Cool Hand Luke”, Paul Newman’s character famously utters the line: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” He wasn’t talking about new real estate agents, but he could have been.
New Agents often take the words “not now” or “in the future”, as indications that there is no sales potential there and they let the contact simply die. But experienced agents and brokers know that lead nurturing in real estate can take weeks, months, or even years to come to fruition. And if you’re not front of mind when a customer is finally ready to move, they will move without you. Successful agents have built a solid lead funnel and steady book of business by leveraging years of consistent follow-up and outreach with their contacts and their local community.
It may seem obvious in 2019 to mention that social media can be one of the best ways to follow up and stay front of mind. Despite the current generation’s comfort level with web 2.0 and technology, new real estate agents still generally need coaching on what tactics on these portals will help them build their personal brand without seeming overly spammy. Follow up on social media also has its own set of rules, often depending on the platform you are using. But one rule applies to all of them: no outreach should be ignored or neglected. These little interactions, done in a timely manner, are the bricks they will use to build a real estate career. As author Jim Rohn wisely observed, “The fortune is in the follow-up”.
2) Forgetting to Make It Personal
New agents have such a comfort level with all things digital it can sometimes be hard to get them to fully understand and embrace the power of the personal. The power of the personal is at the core of the Weichert philosophy, from our network of owners that know and help each other to our recipe for a successful real estate agent.
New agents need to make sure they build and nurture their personal brand in both online and offline activities through both personal and digital interactions. As a broker your job is to give them the tools that they need to develop their brand while being consistent with the message and brand of your brokerage.
While digital tools are great to efficiently stay in touch through social media, email and texts, encourage them to get out there and be nose to nose with potential clients. Door knocking, phone calls, open houses, participation in community events and seminars. These are all ways for new agents to have their face seen, make eye contact, shake hands, have real conversations and be memorable. Keeping it personal should be at the core of you and your agents’ communication philosophy.
3) Not Using A CRM System
There is no reason why new agents can’t get right into the habit of using the brokerage CRM tool to its fullest potential. An effective real estate CRM can be a big help with staying front of mind, helping new agents organize their contacts and keep in touch with buyers and sellers and other real estate professionals in their ever-growing sphere of influence. Conversely, it’s important that you offer this technology to your agents to help them be as productive and efficient as possible. The Weichert CRM system, for example, provides a central location for storing current and prospective client information and advanced tools for planning and follow-up on open houses ensuring you make the most of those contacts. Other elements include marketing automation that allow agents to send branded emails to select contact lists with minimal time and effort. The mobile app extends this convenience even further, allowing for updates and notifications to happen wherever they are. As a new agent builds their database in the CRM, all sorts of marketing tools and templates will be at their disposal. The work they do now to build these lists, will pay dividends for years to come.
Effective Agent Coaching Is Key
The best way to make sure your new agents are productive as quickly as possible is to have a proven training system in place that coaches them past these and many other initial pitfalls. Perhaps the single strongest benefit of being a Weichert Franchise are the proven systems we provide to brokers. These have been developed and refined over decades, so you don’t have to develop them yourself. All you have to do is plug in. Becoming a Weichert Affiliate gives you access to effective coaching programs, marketing tools, and a CRM system that supports lead generation. As a Weichert Franchise you have a complete, turnkey system that provides your brokerage with the tools and training that leads to growth.
For more information about how affiliating with Weichert can help build your brokerage, call us today at 877-567-3350 or contact our team online.
