Above all else, a real estate brokerage is a team. That means that you don’t just have a responsibility to stay in touch with your agents, they have a responsibility to stay in touch with each other.
If you’re a broker, you’re probably thinking: Do I really want to add more to my list of responsibilities? But keeping in touch with your agents is an area where you should always make the effort, because when you consistently connect with your agents, they’ll be more likely to remain at your brokerage for years to come.
We asked some successful, RISMedia Real Estate Newsmakers how they stay in touch with their agents. Here’s what they had to say.
Talk face to face
The brokers we spoke with agree: Nothing beats in-person conversation for fostering connections with agents. If that’s your goal, you need to offer incentives for them to come back into the office; simply mandating they come in could be counterproductive.
David Serle, broker/owner of RE/MAX Services in East Boca Raton, Florida, said:
“We try and have at least one event exclusive to our agents a quarter. Between myself and our staff we talk to most of our agents at least one to two times a week. We believe in and have doubled down on brick and mortar and we continually push in person trainings and incentivize the agents for coming into the office as it brings energy and great morale for the office as a whole.”
Ennis Antoine, a managing broker with Compass based in Georgia, recommends scheduling both one-on-one meetings between yourself and an agent and larger team meetings. Such meetings are useful check-ins and business debriefings.
Get to know them
Robyn Erlenbush, broker/owner at ERA Landmark Real Estate in Bozeman, Montana agrees that face-to-face meetings are invaluable. “I still believe in ‘managing by wandering around’…always prefer impromptu face-to-face.”
However, what you talk to them about is just as important. Take a genuine interest in both their business and them as a person.
“I take the time to stop, ask about their family and be ready to listen…Never need a reason to just say, ‘How are you, been thinking about you, is everything ok?’ My favorite is probably, ‘How is the deal going on 6 Hitching Post, anything I can do to help?’”
Ask these questions and your agent will feel appreciated for their work and valued as a person.
Keep everyone connected
Luckily, teamwide communication is easier than ever before thanks to text-messaging group chats.
Antoine lists Slack and Microsoft Teams as his recommendations: “These platforms are great for sending quick messages, sharing files, and keeping the team informed.”
For Lisa Nguyen, team leader of the International Group at RE/MAX, WhatsApp is her preferred module:
“Being the International Group at RE/MAX Professionals, we use WhatsApp group chat to share real-time information so that anyone traveling anywhere in the world at any given time is seeing the group message. We can also easily add and remove members. We find this to be the fastest, most efficient way to deliver information to everyone at once.”
Visit agents’ listings
Brokers also recommended personally visiting their agents’ open house listings. Doing so will naturally lead to face-to-face time and show personal investment in their success on your behalf. Actions speak louder than words, after all.
Erlenbush described such visits as a group bonding ritual for her team: “We still tour our listings after our office meeting on Tuesday. Nothing beats “face-time” in the homes on tour.”
Antoine also checks in on his agents’ listings as a way of offering “personalized support” – “I also visit them at the agents open house on weekends and post on social media to increase the visibility (of the listings).”
Celebrate milestones
Did your agent close a big sale? Did they get that super-competitive listing? Then congratulations are in order! If you want to go above and beyond, don’t just congratulate them personally, make an event out of it, like an office happy hour.
Celebrations won’t only be a good moment to get face-to-face time with your agents, they’ll also incentivize success. If an agent knows their accomplishments are noticed, they’ll want to do more.
Erlenbush always calls her agents to congratulate a pending sale or a closing–consider doing the same.
