Plan on Filling Your Recruiting Funnel – By Phone!
RISMEDIA, August 27, 2009-Recruiting experienced, producing agents can significantly impact a broker’s bottom line and increase the excitement level and credibility in their office. Building and executing a consistent and effective recruiting strategy will drive sustainable business success for years to come.
Once a broker has established a goal of recruiting a certain number of experienced agents, they then need to lay out a plan to achieve that goal. And just as the broker will tell their agents; “To achieve your goals, you need to break it down to activity-what are you going to do every week to achieve that goal?”-It is no different for the broker’s recruiting efforts.
The first questions a broker asks an agent when breaking down their daily activities is typically; “how many buyer and seller prospects will you need in your funnel to achieve your goals?” and “what are you going to do every week to fill your funnel and keep it full?” Recruiting experienced agents requires the same type of commitment from the broker-to recruit 10 experienced agents, a broker may need to have 50, 60 or even 100 ‘interested’ prospects in their funnel. The broker’s brand, office location, available training and technology, private office availability and so many other factors (including their own individual ability to recruit) will play into establishing their value proposition locally. Agents can take months to make a decision to move and many ultimately either stay where they are or move to a different company.
The question then is ‘what is the most effective way to fill your recruiting funnel?’ Many brokers have tried the marketing, or ‘passive’ route-drip e-mail, direct mail and a website page on their site. This can work for ‘newbie’s’ just getting into the business and may even result in a handful of experienced agent prospects. Typically, extensive and continuous (passive) marketing efforts yield less than a 2% response rate of ‘interested’ agents.
Contacting experienced agents on their cell phone repeatedly (leaving a message only after trying 5 times, at different times of the week/day) until you actually speak to them, is much a much more effective way to identify those agents in your market that; a) may not be entirely happy where they are today; or b) may be interested in learning more about what your office can offer them. Of the 75-80% of the agents we actually get through to and speak with, for example, 9-12% are categorized as ‘interested’ and are forwarded to the broker as recruiting prospects.
Building your funnel of ‘interested’ agents by phone will also ensure the highest number of actual meetings and will provide the added benefit of creating a lot of positive ‘buzz’ within your market about your commitment to growth and establish the momentum to achieve your recruiting goals.
Todd Shyiak is the President of Cogent Step Recruiting.
For more information, visit www.CogentStep.com or e-mail Todd.Shyiak@CogentStep.com.
