When you’re looking for someone to do business with, you’re looking for people who will be an integral part of your world. Because of this, you need to make sure you develop a savvy team-approach to your business.
This was the powerful message delivered by Lisa Archer in the most recent Secrets of Top Selling Agents webinar, “Team Building & Accountability.”
Archer, a licensed REALTOR® in both Carolinas, and COO of Live Love Homes with Keller Williams, used the webinar to talk about things such as building teams successfully despite different personalities in the office, systems available to hold team members accountable and the best practices needed to create clarity and balance on a daily basis.
Working in the Same Sandbox
One of the big lessons of the webinar is Archer’s belief that a big component of successful team building is creating one with people of different personalities who can work as one cohesive unit.
“I don’t really think that the different personalities matter so long as everyone can play on the same team,” Archer says. “People learn how to work with other personalities. We all can’t be the most important person in the room. We can’t all be the star.”
Archer gives an example of basketball’s biggest star, Michael Jordon, to stress her point, saying the legendary player had great people around him who were able to give him assists, making him look even better.
When interviewing people to join her team, even vendors or clients, Archer says she looks for people who want to grow with the team. She warns against hiring people who are too worried about compensation up front. She shares the importance of creating a goal for your team to work towards, rather than pushing them to focus on their compensation—”We are very opportunity driven and team-minded.”
Creating Vision
Another component of success is to create a vision and chase the vision instead of the money, as the money will end up following you. “Keep your eye on the prize and mission at hand,” Archer says.
It’s important that everyone involved with the team understands what the vision is. It can be problematic when leaders may think their team knows the vision, when in reality they don’t. Archer suggests walking into a meeting and asking everyone what the vision is. If each person can’t give you the same answer, there’s likely a misunderstanding about the vision.
“Never take for granted that they know it. It’s really easy to create a vision and let everyone on the team know what it is all the time,” she says. For example, at Archer’s office, the company vision is on the cover of a “secret” Facebook group that is available only to people who work for the team. Team members constantly see the vision and it sticks with them. Other suggestions are to include the vision in correspondence, email signatures and reinforcing it at each team meeting.
The 411
Real estate guru, Gary Keller, likes to talk about the 411 of defining your goals, describing it as setting up goals for four weeks, one month and one year. “It’s not a to-do list, but a have-to list,” Archer says. “You need to do this to cement your success for the year.”
Archer prefers to use the word “achievable” rather than “accountable” when discussing goals, making sure her team members are holding their actions achievable. This allows her to show her team members that it’s not personal, but that certain actions achieve the desired results.
When helping your team create their “have-to” list, first, suggest they think about what matters most—earning more money, spending time with the family, taking more vacations, etc.—and set their goals thinking about how to get there. Ask them how many contacts they need to reach out to in order to achieve their goals, and focus on completing this by time blocking each day.
In Archer’s opinion, time blocking is pivotal and must be completed daily. Once it becomes a part of your day-to-day routine, you won’t be able to skip it. She adds that making this time with yourself should be non-negotiable if you’re going to achieve your goals, noting that, if you skip your time block, you’ll have to add it in somewhere else later.
Holding Teams Achievable
At Archer’s office, they use Pipeline Wizard to help hold teams accountable. Through this program, agents can see where they are in relation to the goals they set with a Track, Measure, Profit setup. For goals, she suggests listing annual, monthly (no more than 5-7) and weekly (no more than 8). You should spend at least three hours a month refining your goals to be sure you are realistic in your reach. As Archer states, “Achieving weekly milestones works towards those monthly ones and those monthly goals are in direct correlation to the big ones. Masterminding with similar professionals is an excellent way to hold yourself accountable. You cannot measure what you are not inspecting.”
To learn the rest of Archer’s team-building and accountability tips, watch the full webinar. For more free real estate education including best practices, visit Secrets of Top Selling Agents. Be sure to sign up for the upcoming webinar, “Build a Big Business,” featuring Wendy Papasan on Wednesday, September 30 at 1 p.m. ET.
