Four Key Areas Where Outside Guidance Can Immediately Impact Your Performance
Brokerages invest a significant amount of time, money and energy toward giving their agents the tools to succeed. Whether through soft skills or technical expertise, management aims to provide not only a platform through which agents can excel, but also specific guidance because you have proven methods that will help agents sharpen their skills and achieve maximum results.
What is often overlooked is that he same is true for management teams, so you should consider the benefit of hiring an outside consultant to help your managers improve key performance areas within your company. A skilled management consultant can provide new, proven strategies and a fresh perspective to help your management team operate at a more effective and profitable level.
Here are four key areas where an outside consultant has the greatest impact:
Recruiting: Keeping this pivotal activity at the forefront of your managers’ minds is imperative for continued growth. An experienced consultant will help implement a system for your managers to follow to set recruiting goals, implement a system for outreach and follow-up, and give strategic guidance on specific steps throughout the recruiting process.
Profitability: Do all of your managers know how to read a Profit and Loss (P&L) statement? Do they review it regularly and keep themselves accountable? To put it more bluntly…are each of your managers earning their pay based on their office’s profitability? Bringing in a consultant that is familiar with the dynamics of real estate can help refocus your managers on their performance from a net profit perspective, and can be the impetus for having some of the hard conversations that are often avoided within an organization.
Driving Sales: This is an area where a management consultant can have a huge impact on an organization. For instance, one of the most common areas that I address when working with clients is sales meetings. Many managers do not purposefully use this time for its most effective purpose: driving sales. Meetings get derailed by administrative information and camaraderie—both of which are important, but are not what the focus should be. A consultant will work with your team to ensure that sales meetings, one-on-ones and other activities properly maximize your managers’ impact on maximizing sales by your agents.
Leadership Development: There are many areas of leadership development that a consultant can assist with. Depending on the size of your organization, it may involve identifying future managers, developing regional executives or working with upper-level executives regarding overall company vision, management and communication. When engaging someone for this type of consulting, it is important to make sure that they truly understand the issues facing executive leadership. Choose someone who has been there, and that has worked with other similar companies so that you know that the input you are getting is the most valuable.
Consulting engagements can be structured in many different ways. You can hire someone for a one-time workshop; engage them for a 3, 6 or 12-month period to teach and implement new management programs; or you can retain them permanently for a continued involvement with your team, allowing you make them an ongoing part of your success while still retaining their outside perspective and expertise.
Now is a great time of year to consider consulting as a tool for management success moving forward. Implement this into your business in order to see your best results in 2021 and beyond!
To set up a one-on-one call with Sherri Johnson to discuss management consulting possibilities to maximize your company’s production and profitability, click here.
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour and the Official Real Estate Coach for McKissock Learning and Real Estate Express. She is also an RISMedia 2020 Real Estate Newsmaker as an industry Influencer. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching strategy session or visit www.sherrijohnson.com for more information.
