One of the most challenging parts of handling a real estate brokerage is agent recruitment. Everyone wants to have top talents working for their team, so the competition can be a little intense or even cutthroat at times. Thus, if you want to hire the best people, you need to step up your real estate recruitment tactics. Among the best ways to do this is to know and understand what real estate agents truly want. Indeed, if you can offer agents all of their non-negotiables, they’ll be more likely to join your brokerage.
Before you can provide what real estate agents want, however, you have to know what they are in the first place. Here’s a quick list to guide you:
Mentorship and Learning Opportunities
Mentorship is important in any industry, but especially so in real estate where expert knowledge is critical for success. As a brokerage, it falls upon you to provide mentorship as well as various learning opportunities for younger agents. When potential hires know that they can count on you to help them succeed and advance their careers, they’ll be easier to convince to sign on with you. For more experienced agents, consider advanced learning programs or helping them set up a wider network. You may also want to offer them learning opportunities in allied industries.
What’s great about providing mentorship and learning opportunities for your agents is that it doesn’t just benefit them. It also benefits you. After all, your agents are the ones representing your brokerage out in the field. If they’re well-equipped with the critical information and experience, you can be more confident that your brokerage will retain its good reputation and track record.
Technology & Support
Being a real estate agent is a multifaceted job. Beyond helping clients buy, rent, lease, or sell properties, agents also provide advice regarding market conditions, negotiate prices, and more. There are also a lot of administrative tasks involved, such as research, scheduling meetings, filing paperwork, and handling customer relationships. Thankfully, there are now various technological advancements such as CRM apps and task management tools that can lighten the load for agents.
Provide such technology for your real estate agents for free or, at the very least, at more affordable rates. If you can, find software that can easily be integrated or linked with other apps and tools. This will make things more seamless and further boost productivity for your agents.
Great Culture
Company culture can be defined as the spirit or essence of an organization. It’s a big part of why real estate agents join (or leave) a brokerage, simply because it dictates their quality of life at work. If your brokerage is a toxic environment that doesn’t foster career and personal growth, then no real estate agent will want to join your team.
Give your potential recruits a supportive network that allows them to learn and improve. Work-life balance is also important, as well as a solid foundation of core values. Of course, your entire organization should be on-board. Set an example and provide feedback and pretty soon, your company culture will naturally emerge and everyone will have adopted it.
Office Space
Admittedly, a lot of the action for a real estate agent happens outside of the office. These include things like client meetings, open houses, and showings. Still, a large number of agents prefer to have a dedicated workspace in their brokerage. Having a brick-and-mortar office as opposed to a virtual one can also help foster rapport and establish team dynamics among agents.
You don’t even have to have a Google-esque kind of office, with ultra-modern and high-end features and furnishings. What you have to ensure is that you have a space that underscores your company culture and that’s conducive to productivity. It should also be somewhere that your real estate agents can be comfortable, even proud, to bring clients and partners. Having an actual office space can also help build your credibility.
Attractive Compensation Package
People want to be compensated well for their hard work. As such, you want to offer agents an attractive compensation package. This does not necessarily mean providing higher commission splits. Rather, it’s about creating a commission structure that’s supported by other factors. For example, the above-mentioned mentorship and technology support can go a long way in making an agent self-reliant. This, on top of a reasonable commission split, can be more attractive to your candidates.
Nevertheless, having multiple non-monetary benefits is not enough. At the end of the day, being a real estate agent is a livelihood. Some may have alternative sources of income, but others may depend solely on their job as an agent to sustain their needs.
Remember that developing and refining a recruitment strategy takes a lot of time and resources. This highlights the importance of patience. But most of all, you should be willing to invest to provide what real estate agents want and need. Your sincere efforts, combined with the right message, will surely resonate with the best prospective real estate agents.