Building a team that works
In many industries, real estate in particular, you work for yourself. You may belong to a brokerage or work for a team. In fact, you may get all of your leads and clients from the broker that you work for. The actual transactions, client retention and success rates, however, fall on you. When you’re running your own brand and business, you’re tempted to be in charge of and implement every aspect of it. From marketing to day-to-day operations, you would probably prefer to do just do it all yourself in order to ensure it’s done to your liking.
The reality is, NOBODY can manage every aspect of their business without a little bit of help. If you could delegate certain aspects of your business to others based upon their skill set or expertise, then why wouldn’t you? Building a team that works on your behalf is imperative to your success. When you have people working for you toward a common goal, you can focus on your own strengths and get more done. Your objective can be to produce results, not to spend time trying to keep every element of your business together.
If you think about it, the most successful agents in the industry aren’t afraid to admit that they have a team behind them, working with them to serve their clients. When you ask for help and acknowledge that you can’t do it all alone, you show your clients that your number one priority is to give them your time and attention. Let other people run the business side. You focus on what you do best: working with people.
Focus on productivity with these team building tips
Here are a few things that you should look for when building a team:
A “for the good of everyone” attitude. The people that you hire to help you should be less concerned about their bottom line and more concerned with the team’s objective. You want people that are going to work WITH you toward a common goal, not alongside you for their own benefits and success.
A specific set of skills. You can hire one person that’s incredibly tech-savvy and can do a variety of things, or a few people each with their own skill set. What you want are people who can complete what you need them to do as quickly and efficiently as possible. When you interview, ask to look at a portfolio or contact previous employers before you hire them.
A willingness to learn. The reality is that when you’re building a team, you are looking for people who are going to be working for you. That means that they are going to be representing your brand and your business on your behalf. With that being said, your team has to be willing to learn the ins and outs of your business. Even if they have all the real estate experience in the world, they need to take the time to learn your target market and your processes for doing things.
Ideas on how to make your business better. The best team out there will offer suggestions on how you can run your business more efficiently and offer valuable ideas on how you can succeed more. The more useful people you have working for you, the more creative, bar-setting initiatives you’ll be able to implement to REALLY stand out from your competition.
The bottom line? Don’t think that hiring a team or asking for help in your business efforts is a sign of weakness. In order to be successful, sometimes you have to take the advice of others and try new things for your business. If you don’t already have a team in place, the next step is to start looking for one! The road to success starts here.
