Office management

Premise: Let your goal be for your agents to become independent of you and, ironically, they will rarely leave you

In short, Isaac Newton was right… “Every action” does have “an equal and opposite reaction.” The thing that Newton did not fully explain to us in his writings though, is that this principle also applies to many aspects of human behavior. I call this “The Law of Opposites.”

One of your main objectives as a leader should be to develop the skills of your team members to the point where they become highly knowledgeable and potentially ‘independent’ of you. In other words, help them to think like business people and to become self-sufficient, highly competent professionals. This may sound wrong or backwards to some real estate leaders because they believe that this degree of knowledge will cause agents to leave them. However,  please stop for a moment and just think about it.

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As leaders, we hold a very formidable position in directing our people’s professional lives. Leaders exert great influence over and impact the success or failure of their sales agents and staff whether acting as a CEO, a branch office leader, or any other position whereby we touch business lives.  It took me five or six years of running a real estate operation to fully understand the degree to which I represented the voice of influence to my sale agents.

This realization is the beginning of true growth in leadership skills. In other words, if you believe that you will influence the outcome of individual business lives, then you will. Conversely, if you lack belief that you can influence outcomes, then get some coaching on that issue first, before attempting to implement change.

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Posted by Nicolai Kolding

On July 3rd, I proposed three floorplans for a residential sales office.  I’ve taken all of the comments that followed into consideration and would like to offer up just one more plan:

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Posted by Wendy Forsythe

Whenever I meet with a manager or broker to discuss their growth plans and objectives, I always ask what their talent attraction strategy is. I often get a blank or somewhat confused look. Most brokers and managers are former agents, and one thing we are not known for is our diligent business planning and strategizing. So, it is no surprise that we carry that trait over into our growth plans when we become managers or brokers.

Here are some questions I ask to get them thinking: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Nicolai Kolding

I think it’s well past time for the layout of the “traditional” real estate office to change.  As a customer, I see woefully little that is designed around my needs.  As someone with a vested interest in the success of this industry, I see wasted costs galore that make my stomach churn.  As I’ve written before, I believe we can do much more with much less.  I can’t imagine a better time to move forward with revolutionary designs.

With that in mind, I recently challenged myself to draw up some floor plans.  A few ideas were floating in my head but I needed to get some real measurements to make them useful.  So I casually paced out floors of all kinds of different business I thought we could borrow designs from.  I sized up office furniture with my trusty tape measure.  I played with a snazzy interior design program.  I mumbled to myself a lot.  And, in the end, I opted for old-fashioned pencil and grid paper so I could free-form away when the mood struck.

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Dear brokerage owners and managers:

I know times are awfully tough right now and, believe me, I’m not trying to kick you while you’re down. But I have a nagging question I need to ask: have you considered the possibility that you may never make more money than you are today? I’m not even thinking about what you made, say, in 2004 or 2005. I’m talking about never earning more than you are right at this very moment. Think about that possibility for a minute. What if this is as good as it gets?

No, I don’t think the housing market is doomed. Quite the opposite; I’m bullish long-term. Home values and transaction sides will increase again. In some places, this is already underway. In many others, the turnaround appears near, even if the pace could be only moderate. Despite this, I still believe few brokers will see any real gains because too many are betting the ranch, so to speak, that these two drivers alone will whisk them back to profitability. Too few are thinking realistically about that most critical of revenue drivers: their percentage take per transaction (also known as broker commission rate or BCR).

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Posted by Wendy Forsythe 

Question: Do you want to recruit agents to your office, or do you want to attract the best possible talent to your organization?

I’d debate the view point that you want to attract the best possible talent to your organization. We’ve been telling each other for years that this is a relationship business and you don’t recruit relationships–you attract and build them.

In preparation for our launch, we’ve been developing our talent attraction and selection programs (what is normally called “recruiting”). One component of this is videos for the “Careers” section of our consumer Web site. We’ve created three different personas representing different people at different life stages, who either are currently in real estate or considering a career in real estate. Check out McKinsey & Company to see a great careers site.

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