RISMEDIA, September 15, 2010—Great managers are defined by how they can grow an office’s bottom line—especially in these tougher times. Classifying your existing manager(s) is as easy as ABC—“A” managers grow an office’s net revenue by holding on to the top and mid-level producers, while at the same time recruiting experienced, productive agents that have an immediate impact to the bottom line. “B” managers maintain the status quo and are good at recruiting new agents into the business—all of whom take a great deal of investment to actually find the few who will actually, someday, turn into productive agents. “C” managers do their best to hold onto what they thought they once had and accept new agents that are referred to them.
Prior to 2008, real estate companies could overlook “B” and “C” managers because even their offices were making more money each year, but today, the hard reality is that every company needs “A” managers at the helm of every office if they expect to thrive again. And the “A” manager’s top priority has to be recruiting experienced, productive agents. Managers who are successful will commit 20, 30 and even 40% of their time to their recruiting program, and the rest to managing and mentoring to hold onto their producers.
Recruiting experienced agents is a lot more work than recruiting new agents, which explains why there are so few “A” managers. It’s a process that can take weeks and months of effort and commitment. “A” managers work hard at building and managing a solid recruiting pipeline that yield new recruits every month. They are dedicated to their recruiting program because they know it is the only way to grow their bottom line, and their own pay package.
So how can you help turn your “B” managers into “A”s and help your “A” managers be even more successful at recruiting?
By partnering with recruiting experts who can; do the heavy lifting of making the thousands of phone calls required to fill your managers’ recruiting pipelines; train your manager(s) on telephone and interview techniques and recruiting best practices; manage your manager’s weekly recruiting pipeline with detailed reporting and; help your manager(s) close the agents on transferring their license by conducting in depth, follow up interviews to gain honest feedback on the meeting, learn more of their issues/needs/wants and coaching them on overcoming their fear of change/confrontation.
Passive marketing—e-mail campaigns, direct mail and website information work to recruit new agents into the business, but to be successful at recruiting experienced agents requires direct contact—calling agents on their cell phones over and over again until you speak to them is the only way to identify agent prospects for your recruiting pipeline. A target list of 1,000 experienced agents will require 3,500+ phone calls to speak directly with 80% of them. Of the 800 agents we talk to, we always identify between 10-14% as agent prospects for our broker partners, which is 8-12 times as effective as passive marketing efforts.
But the calling itself is only step one in a multi-step recruiting process and we’re the recruiting experts that can help your manager(s) build their bottom line every step of the way.
It’s as easy as ABC!
Todd Shyiak is President of Cogent Step Recruiting (CSR), a leading expert in Outsourced Recruiting. Contact Todd at www.cogentstep.com or 250-682-2961.
