RRR Concept in Real estate Recruitment, Retention & Rewarding
Recruiting @ Real Estate
In any industry, finding the right people is one of the most important keys to success. In real estate, signing top producers to your real estate company or team is one of the most important factors to sustain long-term growth.
Why? Because the best agents are committed to building a healthy pipeline, closing transactions, and maintaining a robust network of happy clients.
Even more, top-performing agents offer specialized knowledge and extensive experience that enables them to create the conditions necessary for hassle-free closings, valuable referrals, and repeat clients.
Without these top producers and extensive professional experience, companies may struggle to keep production high and their clients satisfied.
But just like winning clients or closing a deal, attracting the best real estate agents requires thoughtful strategic planning. Commission splits, tiers, and plans aren’t everything. Top-performing agents are increasingly motivated by flexibility, mobility, and opportunities for professional development. In response, any successful recruiting strategy must be able to fulfil these expectations to attract and retain the best talent in the real estate industry.
Recruit real estate agents before they start looking.
The best agents are always employable because they bring success with them. In response, the best real estate agents are rarely in between jobs.
In other words, the right time to start recruiting is now, and the right time to stop recruiting is never. That means you’ll be actively recruiting agents working for a company, but it also means you’ll be top-of-mind when they make the switch elsewhere.
Keep an eye out as well for new real estate agents at competing companies who are making a quick name for themselves. You can often cultivate that relationship and offer even more support, coaching, and opportunity—especially if they’ve signed up under less than favorable commission terms.
Retaining @ Real Estate
It’s an Ongoing Process Continually invest in your company brand.
It’s much easier to recruit real estate agents when you’re a market leader and not a market challenger. Sure, there are benefits to both, but being the market leader with brand recognition comes with some great perks. Prospects recognize your company name, logo, and brand—and with it, they quickly understand a strong value proposition.
Consider investing in paid ad campaigns, social media marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO) tactics that will help evaluate your company name. The results of these efforts extend beyond gaining new clients—it garners the attention of the area’s top-producing agents and agent teams.
Know what others are offering.
The most successful companies will actively recruit real estate agents before they’re even looking. These agents are one of two types of jobseekers: Active and Passive job-seekers. Knowing what to pitch and how to negotiate with an agent is critical to nurture ideal prospects.
The primary reason that passive job-seekers switch companies are for more money. In other words, those agents who aren’t looking for a new company, they’re likely happy and content, but making more money under the same conditions is certainly favourable. However, agents actively looking for a new company, often want better opportunities or a healthy work-life balance. For these job seekers, consider offering a different way of working (the remote culture), or better ways for them to improve their skills and grow their income.
Diversify your recruitment pipeline.
Utilize social media to extend your company’s reach beyond a website or word of mouth. While these are often critical, there are other great ways to promote your real estate business and offer.
Utilize your brand channels, including ads, SEO, and video-based marketing efforts, or consider bonuses for agents who refer a new agent that signs up with the company.
Whether it’s within real estate or most other industries, people get excited about working for a company that they’re familiar with. Consider hosting events that seek to build these types of relationships.
Find new ways to retain top producers.
Business owners know it’s cheaper to maintain customers than to acquire new ones.
The same rule holds for recruitment as well. In fact, not only is keeping your real estate agents more cost-effective than investing in finding more, but they can also help you find new agents at a cheaper cost.
Empower your current agents to help recruit. Invite them into the process as a decision-maker, and you’ll often find that they will find new ways to improve the process and close the deal on the best new talent. Keeping your top producers with your company also enables you to highlight more stories of success, growth, and accomplishment—almost free social proof initiatives for marketing and brand awareness.
Rewarding @ Real Estate
Offer commission structures that motivate.
Companies generally offer some pretty standard commission structures to agents: splits or a flat fee.
It’s essential to consider your commission structure and evaluate whether it motivates agents to perform.
For example, higher than typical traditional commission splits can encourage agents to continue investing in finding new clients as every sale will grow their income.
For top agents with deep client bases and long rosters of experience, flat fees can be even more motivating because your agents will keep nearly the full commission earned on every transaction.
Keep in mind that when recruiting new real estate agents, the flat fee is less appealing because the fixed cost is a certainty, while production is not.
Offer attainable commission plan incentives
A great way to help recruit top agents who are seeking ways to increase their earnings is to offer incentives. For example, some companies will offer different splits based on the lead source—something that top agents love. Another tactic, whether you offer splits or a flat fee, is to provide a commission cap where the agent will earn 100% of the total commission or where the fee is waived.
This also works well for high-producing teams because you can offer the team lead 100%, while other agents remain on a commission plan that splits the commission with your company.
Highlight and recognize your real estate agent's success
Consistent recognition of great work is another way to build an influential company culture that new agents and top talent want to work for. Consider shout-outs on social media, annual events to highlight the top producers, and rewards for productivity.
Do the same for the new real estate agents who are quickly making a name for themselves or who have shown meaningful initiatives to get better.
You may also consider changing the relationship with agents deserving of recognition. Give them a leadership role in the office, ask them to help direct and coach new agents, or pay for learning opportunities outside the company.
Support Your Agents
Becoming a successful real estate agent, company, or team is challenging. There’s a ton of competition, and many of those competing agents have years of experience or a strong brand behind them.
One of the best ways to improve your company culture is to establish a process to support all of your agents—no matter how experienced or new they are.
Meet with them to discuss their needs, what’s working, and what’s challenging. Help them improve what they do well and overcome the challenges they encounter.
Genuine and authentic help says a lot about your company, and it’s one of the most powerful ways to increase word-of-mouth referrals.
In addition to personal support, consider offering tools, software, and reports that can further enable and support agents’ success.
