Growth in your real estate brokerage creates opportunity on many levels, the most obvious being greater sales. So it’s important to continually strive for forward motion. Yes, this can also be the challenge. Growth requires consistent hard work, patience, and dedication. There’s no secret way to surpass other businesses in the industry or achieve immediate success without putting in the sweat equity.
To succeed on your path toward growth, it helps to take time out at least once a year to give serious thought to where you are, where you want to be, and how you’ll get there. Going through this exercise can help you think big and take a more organized and strategic approach. This can help to ensure that your efforts ladder up to your objectives, and that every step you take is purposeful and impactful.
Here are a few essential tips from the Weichert® team to help you set your growth plan of action:
Identify your growth phase. Ask yourself, where are you in your business’ journey? Are you just starting out? Are you ramping up for your next evolution of growth? Understanding the overall trajectory of your business’ growth and the sweet spot where you are right now will help you identify the immediate challenges and opportunities ahead.
The Hartford, a leader in property insurance, identifies the four stages of growth as startup, growth, maturity, and renewal or decline. Think of them as an interconnected grouping within a cycle. Knowing where you are in the cycle can help you make the best decisions to propel growth.
Plan to manage your growth. Think of a pot with a plant that’s been growing. Repotting that plant into a bigger space is going to allow it room to blossom to its full potential. Same idea holds true for business growth. Plan ahead to give yourself space to grow. For example, an upgrade to your CRM system may help you manage the uptick in leads from increased marketing efforts. You can also assess your team. Do you have the right agents in place to meet the demands of potential new customers? Do your agents need additional training to pivot in parallel with your brokerage’s growth? Plan ahead of time so your efforts, people, and systems can keep up with your spikes. There are tons of tips to help you. Focus on the ones that resonate with you most and commit to putting them in action.
Shore up your “A” team. This can be one of the fundamentals of your real estate brokerage’s future success. Think about roles and the strengths of the people who are in them. Go bigger than “recruiting an experienced agent.” For example, if your growth plan includes leveraging geofarming, make sure you have at least one agent on the team who knows the area like they’ve been living and breathing these zip codes forever.
You can also strategically target your future rockstars. While recruiting is always top of mind, end of year is the perfect time to double down on your efforts. People are typically more reflective and thinking about opportunities in the year ahead. Read our top tips for agent recruiting.
Leverage your existing clients. You already have an audience that knows and trusts you and sees the value in what you and your agents bring to the table. Keep tapping into that pool of people to grow the business. Provide the proper training, tools, and resources to help your agents effectively stay in touch with past clients. Set up incentives for those who refer new business to you. Even something as simple as a gift card to a local coffee shop can go a long way in nurturing client relationships. Use your CRM to stay connected with your clients on a consistent basis.
Keep sharpening your saw. To grow your business, plan to also grow the talent on your team, and that starts with you. Sign up for networking events and sessions. Assign yourself some insightful reading, such as industry newsletters or books to coach and inspire you. At Weichert, we are constantly sharpening our saw through informative, collaborative events for our brokers/owners throughout the year.
Our national retreat is just one example when we—the entire Weichert family—come together for information, collaboration, inspiration, and fun! As one family under one big yellow umbrella, we are constantly growing and helping each other to be better at what we do. One of our recent sessions featured a panel of some of our most successful Weichert franchise owners. The consensus was: Weichert works if you work Weichert! Real estate broker Monica Riga, co-owner of Weichert®, Realtors – Southern Coast, Myrtle Beach, SC, knows firsthand the importance of having a “bigger pot” in place to help with business growth. When asked about the resources she’s valued most over her 18 years with Weichert, Monica said, “It’s all of the tools that help us stand out, such as training, the listing presentation, and myWeichert with kvCORE.” Remember, tools keep things sharp.
Plan for growth with Weichert. You don’t have to go it alone. Weichert has the right solutions and the best people to support you through any growth phase. So, whether it’s a tech stack to give you and your agents added capacity, sales tools to help your agents look polished and professional against the competition, or the coaching and support to help you and your agents stay on top of best practices, Weichert has the blueprint to help you reach your real estate brokerage’s growth goals.
What are your growth goals for the new year? Reach out to us today. We can help!
