How a Real Estate Agent Can Create a Team to Sell More Houses
One of the best ways a real estate agent can make a lot of money is to create a team. The most successful agents have teams. Members of the team help complete tasks the Mega Agent doesn’t like doing, sell more houses and make life easier by saving the entire team time.
One of the hardest parts of being a real estate agent or business owner is hiring people, but it has to be done. Without help you will always be on call, get stressed out with too much work, go crazy with busy work and be unhappy. The sooner you hire help, the better and easier your life will be and you will make more money!
How does a real estate agent know when they are ready to hire help?
A real estate agent should hire help as soon as they can afford it. The sooner you hire help, the more time you will have to train them and the more time you will free up to pursue money-making activities. If you wait to hire help until you are so busy that you must have help, how are you going to find time to train them? You need time to look for help, go through the screening process and train them.
Q: Who is the first person a real estate agent should hire?
A: An Assistant.
Only 14% of all real estate agents actually use an assistant according to the most recent National Association of Realtors report. Typically only the largest and most successful agents in each market employ an administrative assistant yet, in my opinion, an assistant is necessary for every agent to be successful.
In order to take your business to the next level, you need to make hiring a support team a priority. Here is the first sign you are ready to hire an assistant:
You’ve earned $60,000 in annual income.
We’ve put it out there. We provided a magical number that you probably won’t find anywhere else on the internet that so clearly defines when you should hire an assistant. We believe that once you make $60K, you should hire a part time assistant for $20,000 per year. You’ll get back 50% of your day as well as a more narrowed focus that should result in at least a production increase of $30,000 in annual income. This will offset your cost of hiring an assistant as well as improve your reputation in the industry.
Does a real estate agent need to hire someone with real estate experience?
The drawback to hiring someone with no experience is you have to teach them everything, but this is also a positive. If you have to teach someone everything they know, you can teach them the right way to do things. If someone already has experience, they may harbor bad habits that they’ve learned or operate differently than how you want it done.
It is much easier to teach someone who is brand new how to complete new tasks, than to have to teach someone how to do things that they have done differently for years. We are creatures of habit and it is very hard to break habits. It may take more time and effort to train a brand new person in the beginning, but you will most likely have less headaches in the future.
What should the person a real estate agent hires do?
The great thing about hiring someone to work for you is you are the boss. You can teach your assistant to do whatever you need help with. I needed help with paperwork more than anything else. That also happens to be the tasks most productive Agents dislike doing the most as well so it tends to work out well
A traditional real estate agent can use an assistant to help with contracts, marketing, web development, advertising, database maintenance, picture-taking, contacting clients, contacting title companies and much more. Whatever you don’t like doing, you can have your assistant do as long as it does not require a license and they are unlicensed.
How will hiring help make a real estate agent more money?
There are many tasks a real estate agent must complete to be successful. If an agent is doing everything without help, they probably aren’t doing a good job with everything that needs to be done. There is not enough time in the day to market, contact your database, show houses, write contracts, create leads and set goals. When a real estate agent hires help, they can teach the new person how to do the tasks that are not being done or not being down well. That leaves more time for the agent to concentrate on the tasks they like to do. It also leaves more time for the agent to make sure everything is done well and it leaves time for the agent to set goals and plan their business. The more planning and goal setting a real estate agent does, the more successful they will be. When an agent gets busy, they usually ignore goal setting and planning, because it does not seem important. However goal setting is one of the most important things any business owner can do!
You will have to pay someone to work for you and it is tough for real estate agents to give up their hard-earned money. The person you hire will allow you to make much more money than you will ever pay them, because you will have more time to focus on what makes you money.
How can a real estate agent continue to grow their team?
When a real estate agent hires their first assistant, they usually see a big jump in production and wonder why they waited so long to hire someone! With more time and more help they can do more deals and make more money. With that growth, comes more listings and more listings create more leads. When you start generating enough leads, you can hire another real estate agent to join your team.
How to Add a Real Estate Agent to Your Real Estate Team
Hiring another agent to join your team is a little trickier than hiring an assistant. First you have to see how your broker handles teams and what the commission split will be. Then you have to decide how to pay your real estate agent. Many books and coaches suggest a 50/50 split for newer agents with the team leader paying expenses for the agent. More experienced agents may not join your team for a 50/50 split and you may have to pay them a 70/30 split or come up with another arrangement. Some teams will give different splits to agents depending on if the agent received the lead from the team or it was their own lead.
Should you hire an experienced real estate agent?
New agents can be very motivated, work for a smaller commission split and can be trained easily. New agents need more training and guidance, and may not sell as many houses as an experienced agent.
More experienced agents will want a higher commission split and less training, but will sell more houses. If you are training your agents to use a system to be a great agent, the more experienced agents may be harder to train.
It may take more time to get a new agent to sell many houses and make you money, but when they do start selling houses they will make you much more money than an experienced agent.
Why would a real estate agent join your team?
Real estate agents have no boss to tell them what to do. They have to make themselves work hard and do the things they need to do to make money. Some agents are self driven and do great in real estate, while others do not. A team can provide guidance for agents that provide structure to allow an agent to succeed. Your assistant can help agents as well as yourself with paperwork and other tasks. You can also pay some costs for your agents like MLS fees, board dues or office fees. If your agents are selling houses, the money you make from their sales will more than make up for these costs.
Conclusion
People may think having a big team makes things more complicated, but it can make things significantly easier. Imagine going on vacation without working, Picture being able to focus on only money-making activities or things that you like doing all the while letting your team handle the other tasks. Envision being able to offer better service to your clients. All these things are possible, but you’ve got to build a team.
