Are you a successful real estate agent with more work than you can handle? It may be time to consider building your own real estate team or agency.
It takes a strong leader with a sense of purpose and clarity of vision to build a winning team of agents and support staff. A successful team that delivers results consistently takes time and patience to develop. And you’ll certainly make mistakes along the way.
Hiring mistakes can be costly. The wrong candidate can literally ruin your business and your reputation. If you’re seriously considering taking the next step to recruit and build a top real estate team, be prepared to have patience and go slow.
Research online to find out how other agents have built their team and adopt their advice based on your own specific needs. Use the steps and tips in this article to help you make the best choices.
Here are the 4 crucial steps to building a real estate team:
Step 1: Audit your current operations.
An operations audit is designed to reveal a clear picture of your daily routine and productivity.
Before hiring your real estate team, list all the tasks you perform daily and track how much time you spend on each. Prioritize these tasks and separate the strong ones from those you would like to improve.
Are there tasks on your list that could be delegated to someone else? This would give you more time to focus on other priorities. Perhaps there are tools or apps that would streamline your workflow.
Step 2: Evaluate your resources.
Once you’ve identified the most time-consuming and least productive tasks, you’ll want to examine your current resources. List the tools and apps you are currently using. You may already have a tool on your desktop or tablet that can help improve your efficiency.
Gmail is a great example of a resource that is often underutilized by agents. Are your emails driving leads, building rapport or simply wasting time? Do you spend more time reading emails than responding?
If you’re spending a lot of time on emails, there are additional features in your Gmail account that could help you become more productive. Perhaps you just need to unsubscribe some of the newsletters you’ve been piling up or clear your inbox daily to reduce clutter.
Step 3: Set goals and targets.
Now that you have a clearer picture of where you are losing productivity, you can consider the additional staff you’ll need to build your real estate team. What is your monthly sales target? How much monthly website traffic do you need to achieve your monthly revenue goals?
Establishing these figures will help you determine how many staff you need. The more aggressive your revenue goals, the more staff you may need. If you know how many employees you need, you’ll be able to invest in the right tools to maximize their productivity.
Step 4: Define your offering as an employer.
Good candidates have a lot to offer, but what do you have to offer besides a paycheck? How will you support the growth and development of your staff?
Even if you can’t offer a competitive salary, there are plenty of other ways you can compensate employees. Consider what incentives, benefits or resources at your disposal might help employees reach their career goals.
Step 5: Determine the organizational structure of your team.
Map out the structure or your organization. Will you have managers, supervisors or team leaders? Think about how many departments you want or need.
Candidates will want to know the plan for growing your business and what opportunities will be available to them in the future. If you have a plan for the structure and organization of your real estate team, it can serve as an important selling feature to potential hires.
Roles To Consider For Your Real Estate Team
We recommend you consider these roles for your team:
Administration
An office administrator is often the first point of contact for many businesses, including real estate teams and agencies. You’ll definitely need someone who can field inquiries, organize files, order supplies and maintain the office.
A good office administrator is more than an assistant. They are your right-hand, working closely with you to support your constantly changing needs. They should be flexible, personable and have a can-do attitude. Seek out candidates with a minimum of 2 years experience in this role.
Operations
Depending on the size, your real estate team may need someone who can manage the daily workflow, tasks and departments towards a common goal. They should have at least 5 years of operational experience from working in an office environment. Strong verbal and oral communications skills are also vital qualifications for any candidate in an operations role.
Buyer Specialist
A dedicated buyer specialist focused on stocking your CRM with potential buyers, will free you to focus on creating other business opportunities.
Listing Specialist
Seek out a listing specialist with proven success at selling homes in order to build your inventory. Agents who specialize in a single property type or region can help your team access markets you haven’t explored.
Marketing & Lead Generation
Even with a staff of specialized buyer and listing agents, a marketing specialist with expertise in lead generation can generate consistent leads for your team each month. A marketing expert will also help you assess the ROI for your advertising, PR and any other prospecting efforts.
Be sure to seek out candidates with digital marketing experience and graphic design skills.
Social Media Coordinator
Posting regular content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and your other social media profiles is a time-consuming task but still necessary for today’s agent. Hiring someone to manage your social media channels will free up more time in your schedule. A social media coordinator will also support your marketing efforts and generate additional exposure that drives traffic and leads.
Content Writer/Editor
If you own a company blog, hiring a content writer to produce thoughtful and engaging posts will significantly boost your website’s organic traffic. By hiring a content writer to focus exclusively on your blog, you can build authority online while increasing your brand’s online visibility.
A content writer for your blog should have expertise in marketing and SEO, as well as strong writing skills. Experience in real estate isn’t necessary if your writer is a strong researcher.
Hiring a poor writer, however, could get you sued for plagiarism or penalized by search engines for duplicate content. Check out blogs or local bloggers you enjoy and consider approaching the writer as a candidate.
Human Resources
Last but not least on our list of hiring suggestions is a human resources manager or administrator. As your real estate team grows, maintaining diversity, safety and a respectful working environment will become increasingly difficult. Employee onboarding, resolving disputes, documenting performance issues and even recruiting can all be handled by a competent HR professional.
Compliance with the HR guidelines in your state is important to the integrity of your business. Investing in HR is a positive sign that you value the well-being of your employees and respect their rights.
An HR manager should have the highest ethical standards. They should be thorough with an eye for detail and updated in their knowledge to keep you legally compliant.
The Hiring Process
Hiring the right candidates in the right order will have a huge impact on the success and growth of your real estate team. The roles you decide to add will depend largely on your resources and needs.
Administrative Roles
Free your schedule by hiring an administrator first. With more time, you’ll be able to review and assess candidates more carefully.
Operations Staff
Once you have the administrative support you need for your daily tasks, you can begin recruiting other members of your operations: a listing specialist, buying specialist and a manager.
If you hire strong candidates, you can develop them into leaders within your organization. For example, your listing specialist could eventually become the manager of the entire listing agent team.
Creative Team
Once you actually have the ball rolling, you can seek to fulfill marketing and social media roles last. The members of your creative team could eventually include a videographer, graphic designer and photographer. Assessing creative ability can be more challenging than trying to assess sales or organizational skills, so give yourself plenty of time to explore candidates in-depth.
7 Hiring Tips For Building Your Real Estate Team
Don’t forget these very important tips for recruiting the right candidates:
- always check references
- use a personality test to gain insight into a candidate’s motivation and behaviour
- be clear about your business culture to avoid personality clashes
- define your expectations and the role in writing
- ensure you comply with all standard HR regulations for your state or municipality
- maintain up to date documentation on all your staff
- create incentives to reward performance and encourage loyalty
Summary
If you’re ready to make the leap from solo agent to team leader, building your real estate team will be a challenge at first. Set clear goals and a vision for the team you have in mind, as well as the culture you want to build.
Auditing your daily operations to determine your specific needs is a good first step. Consider the roles you need and the resources at your disposal before you invest in recruiting. Make use of the resources you already have, then research possible solutions for streamlining and automating tasks.
Hire the right people in the right order and your team will grow steadily. Provide employees with a safe and respectful environment. Finally, seek out innovative ways to compensate, reward and incentivize your staff.