As a Broker/Owner are you Leveraging Your Brands Training Platform?
Every brokerage I have ever hung my shingle at had some kind of training platform.
Whether that was in-house with agents willing to sit down and help train the ‘new guy’ or if it was provided by the franchise.
It’s part of every brokerages value proposition, at least it has been in my experience.
If you’re a broker/owner reading this then you know, when you sit across from an agent looking to join your brokerage you’re selling them on the benefits of the training program.
What’s Your Brokerage Pitch?
I have to say, that was a big part of the pitch when I was recruiting between 2017-2019 where we grew our brokerage from 9 to 105 agents.
I have to ask though, and this is a tough question to answer because you either don’t know the answer or you don’t.
“How many of your agents are bought into and taking advantage of the training being provided?”
This should be pretty easy to track, poll your agents and ask them.
Here’s the follow up…If the numbers are low, how do you get buy in?
Before we get there though, let’s talk about why buy in is so important. It’s dollars and cents really, the more deals your agents do, the larger the bottom line.
Productivity Coaching, Training and Mentorship
Do you think coaching helps to increase agent productivity? If it didn’t, agents would hire coaches.
If you have a brokerage of 100 agents and your training, coaching and mentorship program can get one more deal per agent, per year, how does that expand your profitability?
Getting your agents to buy into the training that’s being provided is a win all the way around. They do more deals which means more revenue for them AND for you.
Relevant Training for Your Market and Your Agent
Part two of this is getting your agents to BELIEVE in the training being provided and part of that is having trainers that know the business inside and out. Trainers and coaches that have built businesses so that there is not just theory being thrown about but real world, practical application.
Ok so that’s a major part of it, the right butts in the right seats. But how do you get your agents to attend the training? Not just that but how do you get them to implement what they’ve learned?
Two big questions, let’s unpack number 1 first.
Make the training relevant for the market and relevant for the agent. In a hot market would you be, as an agent at your own brokerage, attending a training on open houses?
Probably not.
Would you attend a training on how to ensure that each client is touched monthly to ensure that when the market shifts that they still have a business while everyone around then struggles?
I would.
You also can’t cater your training to the newbies, the Realtor that’s been licensed and practicing for 20 years won’t need to attend a training on presenting offers effectively.
Segment Your Real Estate Training
Your training should be broken out to appeal to different segments of your agent community. Think of the University degree system, Bachelor, Masters, PHD, you have to walk before you can run.
Now that you’ve separated out your training, the content is relevant to the market and your agents are attending, how do you get them to execute at a high level?
There are a few different things you can implement, here are some ideas:
Trainings are Workshops: There’s ACTIONABLE homework. Real world home work.
You, as their leader, keep them accountable by checking in on them weekly to make sure they are implementing.
Each training has a mastermind component, taking the ideas and setting up a schedule to execute
Create accountability cohorts with each training session and group. Have the agents and their colleagues hold each other accountable
An idea will always be just that, an idea, without execution.
Your job is to help your agents do more business at a higher level and to create raving ambassadors for your company. You keep retention high and the recruiting takes care of itself.