Moving in the Same Direction

Molly Butler
Broker/Owner
RE/MAX Leading Edge
St. Augustine, Florida
www.teamleadingedge.com 

Region served: Northeast Florida
Years in real estate: 10
Number of offices: 2
Number of agents: 180

Talk about RE/MAX as a brand and how it may help add to your success. 
Everything RE/MAX Headquarters does is geared toward supporting the agents, which is why RE/MAX attracts many of the higher-producing agents. Then there’s our technology. Our applications work seamlessly together, not only providing agents with the most innovative tech available, but, in turn, our clients also have access to excellent tools and consistent communication.

How do you go about hiring the right people? 
I have the most incredible team of people. Our chief operating officer is amazing, and our staff members are gifted. In order to get the right people, we are very slow to hire. Once someone joins the team, they are given a personality test so that we can best leverage their strengths while also offering growth in weaker areas. Our goal is to always have our entire team moving in the same direction.

What steps do you take to maintain a positive office culture? 
When it comes to our mission, vision and values, positivity is the most important. There is no room for drama. We just want everyone to be nice. We’ve succeeded in creating a positive office culture in large part because of the fact that we work hard at being collaborative. With the understanding that real estate is an art form, ideas can be shared freely with teammates, knowing we all put our spin on things—and the stronger we are as a team, the more successful we can be as individuals. Collaboration is a big part of our office culture.

When it comes to hiring and retaining agents, what is your No. 1 piece of advice? 
We don’t want to break up with them, so we do a lot to keep our agents and clients engaged. Not only do we frequently host events, but we also offer phenomenal training. We recently launched an educational program for new agents and also offer professional development for our seasoned agents and brokers. Another thing that’s very important to us is asking our agents for feedback. We want to know what they see and where they may need help.

What would you point to as the biggest change since the beginning of the pandemic? 
Our business model was already established to work remotely and have relationship-based agents. In fact, long before the pandemic hit, we were hosting meetings regularly on Zoom and using Matterport. When COVID hit, we simply doubled down on what we were already doing.

For more information, please visit www.remax.com.

Lesley Grand is a contributing editor to RISMedia.