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In real estate, team-work is essential. Every person on the marketing side to help sell a property should be skilled in their field and knowledgeable about what they’re selling. If you just want to buy an investment home or you need your next rental unit, this blog will walk you through how to find great employees for your team.
“How to compensate structure real estate teams” is a question that was asked on Quora. The answer provided by the author, includes advice on how to build an all-star real estate team. Read more in detail here: how to compensate structure real estate teams.
To develop a successful all-star real estate team, you must be able to get beyond first impressions and assumptions to understand your prospective team members’ abilities. However, there are a few measures you should take before posting your first job ad or making your first hiring to ensure you are ready to be a team leader who can encourage, educate, and innovate.
1. Be Truthful to Yourself
Honesty is the first step in laying a solid foundation for forming a team. This entails being truthful to oneself as well as others. Before you can bring out the best in people who work for you, you must look inwards at your own characteristics and strengths. This is why, before making your first hiring, you should ask yourself a few questions:
- Are you someone who works well with others?
- Can you set your ego aside and inspire people around you?
- Are you an attentive listener? Are you a good delegater of tasks? Do you have a tendency to micromanage events despite giving explicit instructions?
- Will you let people around you rise to the challenge, even if it means they’ll have to work a bit harder?
- Will you listen to other people’s thoughts and views before acting on your own?
- Will you prioritize the needs of others before your own?
If you answered yes to all of the above questions, you’re ready to start constructing your own rock star real estate team. If you answered no to any of the above questions, you should take a hard look in the mirror and admit that you would be better suited operating as a real estate broker on your own.
Despite the fact that I was able to respond yes to the above-mentioned questions, I discovered that I desired success more than some of the members of my real estate agent team. There’s a strong chance you won’t be successful with your initial picks until you form a team and choose your players. Finding the appropriate players to join together and establish a strong and flourishing squad might take some time.
2. Determine the Role You’re Willing & Able to Play
You must wear several hats as a team leader. As if you were the chief chef and bottle washer, you must be ready to step into any job at any moment. You must also be able to multitask, switch gears, solve problems, inspire, listen, be patient, invent, and be both tough and soft at the same time.
The finest team leaders, on the other hand, know that they have both strengths and shortcomings and staff appropriately. I’ve always believed that it’s important to surround oneself with individuals who are brighter and more talented than you are. You will be successful if you surround yourself with success.
This is why hiring people with expertise in business techniques you don’t have or for job responsibilities you’re not qualified to accomplish is the ideal way to establish a high-performing team. This method is not exclusive to real estate agents or licensed agents. For example, you may conclude that you need an Manager of Operations or a marketing expert to oversee day-to-day company operations.
3. Review Your Business & Budget
Before you can form a team, you’ll need to assess your current business strategy and budget to ensure that the jobs you want are supported. When you complete this stage, keep in mind that you will be splitting the profits with your team. Of course, this will have an impact on how current payments are paid.
I mention this because your financial strategy up to this point was probably centered on showing buyers properties and listing sellers’ houses, putting them into escrow, and reaping a greater commission share based on broker agreement. Adding a buyer’s agent, a showing agent, and a listing agent or assistant, on the other hand, means the commission pie must be split.
As a consequence, you must be aware that the presence of a team will diminish the current per-transaction revenue you are used to. As a result, you may find yourself earning less money at first. However, future earnings will be based on volume, with the drop in individual earnings being offset by the team’s increased earnings.
When forming a team, there are also extra costs to consider. You’ll probably need more office space and furnishings, as well as more office supplies, and you’ll also have to spend more money on marketing, advertising, and total sales. Setting a budget for forming a team is akin to remodeling a kitchen. You may plan to spend a certain amount on the makeover, but you should double or cushion that amount to provide for the unexpected.
Check out our post on how to establish a real estate brokerage for additional information on what it will take to make your team financially and legally successful.
4. Create a successful system
An individual contract between the agent and the team leader describing their job description and salary is a critical tool to have in place when building a high-performing team. When there is no uncertainty about what is anticipated, people feel empowered to achieve and make autonomous judgments. As a consequence, it is critical that all parties understand their respective roles, with no overlap or ambiguity.
Your strategy should address the following points in particular:
Lead Generation & Follow-up Expectations
You, as the leader, must decide how you will manage leads. Will you expect your team members to prospect and produce their own leads, or will you use a paid lead generating system like BoldLeads to provide them with a part of exclusive prospects? What are the expectations for follow-up on leads? When everyone understands what construction stones are required to sustain a foundation, a team can operate in sync.
In our post on the finest real estate lead generating firms, you can also learn about various technologies that may help your team produce and handle leads.
Responsibilities in Transactions
Transactions are the foundation of a real estate firm. As a result, you must additionally specify the transaction procedure. Will your buyer’s agent, for example, manage their own file or hire a Coordinator of Transactions after escrow on a house opens? Before passing a new file to a Coordinator of Transactions, all agents on the team, including the listing expert, must understand how to handle a file from start to finish.
Compensation
It’s crucial that your strategy spells out how each agent will be compensated when a deal closes. Prior to signing any contract, the parties’ compensation conditions must be clear, understandable, and agreed upon.
It is critical for the agent to understand how commission splits are established when negotiating remuneration. As the team leader, you must inform the broker of how your current split will be organized. Many agents join a team under the impression that the team leader is “making money,” but in fact, there are many hands in their wallets, lowering their earnings.
You must also have a structure or plan in place as a team leader to refer to in the event that a team member quits. Before an agent leaves, your team needs to know how their database will be managed. Please establish a precedence for who has rights to particular customers up front. Rather of expecting your team to construct their own system of recordkeeping, one solution is to provide them with a client database platform, such as Propertybase, which is geared for increasing teams.
More tools to help you simplify operations and make your future team more productive may be found in our post on the best real estate software for brokers.
5. Assemble a real estate team
You can finally start constructing a team that meets your demands after you have a strategy in place for what systems you’ll use and how you’ll pay your team members. The benefit of this phase is that you may establish new jobs or customize job descriptions to fit your company strategy. However, here’s a rundown of some of the most frequent responsibilities on a real estate team, along with some recruiting tips:
Buyer’s Agent or Buyer’s Specialist is a term used to describe a person who represents a buyer.
In 1999, when I was just starting out in real estate, I was lucky enough to be employed as a buyer’s representative by a seasoned listing agent. A buyer’s agent or buyer specialist’s job is to analyze a prospective buyer’s demands or wish list and locate them a home. The buyer’s agent fills out a detailed questionnaire for the buyer and organizes the loan approval procedure in order to ascertain the sales price of the house the buyer can afford.
As a buyer’s agent, you have the opportunity to get to know the buyers personally throughout the process. You’ll be able to establish a long-term connection and potentially get a lifelong friend and customer. During the homebuying process, you may also display your abilities by assisting the buyer in obtaining a loan, advising the client during inspections and disclosure reviews, and, most significantly, celebrating the home’s close. During the transaction, demonstrating your concern, expertise, and care will establish the chance for future recommendations.
When looking for a buyer’s agent, seek for someone who “has the hustle.” This agent must show that they are ready, willing, and able to take on any work or prospective customer that you assign to them. When a customer need attention, the agent must be there and accessible. Right from the start, one must display a willingness to work. If the agent lacks these characteristics, you must cut bait, fire them, and locate a new candidate.
Assistant for displaying
When having the opportunity to show buyers homes, there are a lot of moving parts whereby a Assistant for displaying could be quite beneficial. A Assistant for displaying can set appointments for showings, review the buyer’s criteria and match it with potential listings, send emails and texts, and return calls to the client. It is always best to have a licensed Assistant for displaying since they would also have the opportunity to show property, hold open houses, and discuss the price of a property if requested. If the Assistant for displaying is unlicensed, they are not allowed to quote pricing, show homes, or hold open houses.
Please be aware that many licensed Assistant for displayings naturally become licensed agents who may want to become a buyer’s agent in order to advance and produce more income.
Listing Specialist or Listing Agent
When a real estate agent becomes a Listing Specialist or Listing Agent, it is most important for that agent to have a good concept of different neighborhoods, various floor plans, the features of a home that will help it sell, a great understanding of the workflow and steps in listing a home (from going on the market to the closing of escrow), how to explain the math calculations of the sale and what the seller’s proceeds could be.
As previously said, many of these characteristics are taught via the purchasing process while working as a buyer’s agent. You will be able to learn the procedure “on the job,” rather than through a book. The finest instruction is always hands-on.
Care and concern, listening, reading and comprehending contracts and disclosures, computing a proceeds seller’s balance sheet, and outstanding bargaining abilities while analyzing an offer are all qualities that the listing agent must possess.
When your seller’s house closes, it’s critical that you maintain contact with that client. Please consider adding that customer to your database and staying in contact whether the seller remains in the region or moves out of state. Remember that even if the seller has moved to another town or state, they may still keep in contact with pals from their prior residence. Continue to inquire and seek out chances for referrals.
Assistant to the Listings
A Assistant to the Listings will assist the listing agent when posting property listings, filing, answering the phones, and helping with the property closings. The Assistant to the Listings could also have the opportunity to prepare the listing documents, coordinate repairs or services at the listing, and monitor the showings of the home to request feedback from the showing agents.
Once again, it is important to recognize that a licensed Assistant to the Listings will be able to assist more by addressing pricing and opening the property if needed.
Coordinator of Transactions
One of the most important people to have on your team is someone who can keep all the paperwork of an escrow organized and processed. This dynamic individual, who juggles so many tasks during an escrow, is a Coordinator of Transactions. Many Coordinator of Transactionss are handling multiple files for multiple agents. The talent it takes to switch gears from one file to another is impressive. With modern technology, the Coordinator of Transactions is handling a paperless file that is easily accessible by all parties inside and outside of the office. Many agents like myself use a cloud-based system called Dropbox so as to be able to access a file at any time. All parties are kept up to date on the progress of a file if needed at the same time.
A Coordinator of Transactions needs to have the ability to work with multiple agents who may have many different personalities and work styles. Timelines are crucial when documents need to be signed as soon as possible and disclosures and contracts need to be processed immediately.
Your Coordinator of Transactions is worth every penny you pay them. You need to stay in timely contact with your coordinator. It is most efficient if you touch base with your coordinator every morning to review the day’s files and to answer any questions they may have. It is important for you to return calls, texts, and emails to your coordinator so that they can continue to move an escrow along.
Another idea is to lavishly pamper your coordinator and make them feel special. Small expressions of praise and acknowledgment will urge them to keep up the good work.
Manager of Operations
To be able to have all of these systems work well together, you need an Manager of Operations who can see the whole picture of how each intricate part plays a role in successfully running the real estate team. The Manager of Operations needs great organizational skills, motivational skills, negotiating skills, and superior communication skills. When systems are created, the Manager of Operations is responsible for the success of implementing those systems.
Specialist in Marketing
When you have created a rock star real estate team, you want everyone to know about it. The Specialist in Marketing is the individual who makes “the magic happen.” They are responsible for creating campaigns to market a listing from the time it is listed on the market until it closes escrow. When you have created a great listing campaign, you also create a great opportunity for buyers to be interested in those listings. When buyers are interested in the listings, the buyer’s agent or buyer specialist and Assistant for displayings keep working.
The Specialist in Marketing is also responsible to keep present and previous clients “top of mind” so that the buyer’s agent or listing agent will be that client’s real estate agent for life.
A well-rounded Specialist in Marketing will be the most successful. The specialist should also have extensive knowledge in social media so as not to miss any forms of media for reaching out to future business.
Conclusion
“It takes a community to raise a kid,” according to a lovely saying. A rock star real estate team, in my opinion, requires the personnel mentioned above. Once everyone’s talents are identified, as well as whatever function on the team brings out each person’s finest attributes, a rock star real estate team will be formed.
Real estate teams split commission in different ways. Some split it evenly, while others have a tiered system where the top earners get a larger percentage of the revenue. Reference: how do real estate teams split commission.
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