How to attract top-performing Real Estate Sales Agents to your Agency. The Recruiters Insight...

As Specialist Real Estate Recruiters, we speak with many of Australia's top agency principals daily. This gives us one of the most unique perspectives on what it actually takes to build a high-performing Agency and the people behind the growth.

The rewards and accolades for building a top-performing Agency are not only personal wealth and satisfaction, but also the legacy left behind for the next generation of top-performers who ultimately inherit the traits and models put in place by the ones before...

Like many who start out in Real Estate, Principals are on their own personal journey to build something great. Firstly, becoming great at Real Estate is it's own personal challenge and, secondly, deciding to take your business to a whole other level by building an Agency is another entirely!

Building a great Agency is not easy, as it involves many models you can do this with, lots of moving parts and more importantly, it involves people (who have their own motives)... Real Estate is an extremely ambitions industry, filled with Agents, and Principals for that matter who are ultimately out to make their own mark. So how do you find and attract the best available talent and keep them?

The different perspectives on how to do this is are a rabbit warren of information. It takes a career of continual learning to get your head around it all. Maybe some of the cherry-picked insights from some of the best will help you hone your growth plans, and ultimately save years of learning...

A Clear Growth Plan:

Would it be surprising to you if I told you that not many Agencies have a clearly defined growth plan? Many open the doors every day and get on with it, but what's the ultimate goal? What are you trying to achieve as the end result? Is there an end goal or are you just winging-it to see how you go?

If you can work out where you're going, you can reverse engineer what you need to get there.

e.g Questions to ask yourself to plan for growth:

• Is my ultimate goal to sell the business before I retire?

• If I am going to sell, what am I going to sell?

• If I am going to sell, who would buy it?

• Will a large Property Management Portfolio be part of my ultimate goal?

• Will I buy rent rolls or grow it organically over time?

• Do I want to build a Team that is known for being some of the very best in the county?

• What will I offer high-performers if they join my team (both PM & Sales)?

• Do I want a local business, multi-state or a national business?

• How will I fuel this growth?

• Do I join a Franchise, Boutique, Independent or open my own Brand?

• How can I achieve my goal under any of those structures? Is it even possible?

• What does my office space / brand look like?

• Will top-performers be attracted to working in my office(s)?

• What time-frame do I want to achieve this by?

• Who's my main competition in this space?

• Will I be a selling Principal or a Non-Selling Principal?

• What strategies will I use to attract top-performers?

• What do I offer (internal structure) that's better than what they have already?

• Will I build in growth plans for individuals that perform well in my business?

• How will I retain Staff?

• Can I compete on tech and support staff?

• Can I compete on what other Agencies offer top-performers?

• What areas do I need to be established in an why?

• What are the future development plans for these regions?

• Am I wasting time where I am if I can't achieve my goals there?

  
  

If you just realised you have no idea about what the end goal is in your business, then you have a heap of work to do to plan it out. Only then will you know what you actually need to get there and how top-performers can fit into the model.

Sometimes it may even mean you need to decide if the current model you operate in is built for purpose, as to what your end goal is, and if it's not, maybe making a bold leap to a model that can facilitate your end goal is a choice to make now rather than later!

If you would like help to work out what this may look like, you can reach out Andrew Turnbull at Placed Australia for a chat and I can help you navigate and plan to leap to the best structure for your end goals. We see some of the best and worst structures for Agents and Principals.

Regardless, if you think you are going to be able to attract and keep top-performing talent if you can't even explain to them what the end goal is, and what needs to be done to get there, then your going to struggle to build and maintain a top-performing Real Estate Team.

Work on your Workplace...

Is your workplace sexy? What I mean by this is, we speak to so many Agencies that ask us to find them as many $500k + GCI writers as we can, but their Agency looks like a dingy cave in an old run-down local shopping strip next to the old News-agency...

While this may be totally fine for some, you have to be realistic about what talent you are going to attract and keep, and there is not much a Recruiter is going to be able to do for you if you keep tasking them to find you $500k + GCI writers when you have no end goal, no clear pathway and your office looks like you threw a few 2nd hand desks and computers in the back an old fish 'n' chip shop...

We hear it from top-performing Agents all the time. They expect a polished work environment they can be proud to be associated with. If you can't deliver that, then don't expect a Recruiter can magically attract these people for you and expect they will stay long-term...

An attractive modern environment for your Team is vitally important.

Whats the model for top-performers?

Most high-performing Agents we speak with are open to moving for "something better" and this usually involves the lions share of the commission. We all know that if you put every Agent in your team on a 90% Commission Split, sure, they will all probably come and work in your very expensive office, with your highly skilled back end team, that are also expensive to keep, and milk it for everything you've got...but, that's not business.

Finding a balance for top-performers by creating a model where they can earn more and grow within your business is key, and this in-itself is a minefield.

What things do Top-Performing Agency Principals offer Top-Performing Agents?

• Clear and defined brand recognition (you have to be desirable to attract the best).

• Super-high Comm split for one or 2 top-performers who attract new talent.

• A top-performing back end team attracts other top-performing people.

• A chance to build equity in a business with buy-back options if they leave.

• Additional commission for helping grow the rent roll.

• A high commission split, but with staggered commission milestones. (hit this, get that..do more than that each quarter, get more comm on a much higher split).

• Sign on Bonuses. We have seen Agencies offer Agents up to $100k sign-on bonuses.

• EBU - A chance for an Agent to branch out under your Brand and build their own team.

• Equity Stake - A chance for an Agent to buy-into the business or earn Equity over time.

• Internal Lead Generation - Feed Agents more business than they would usually expect.

What's your culture?

There is so much that goes into building top-performing teams, although culture in a business makes up a huge chunk of what attracts and retains top-performing talent.

You can learn more from our previous article on Company Culture here.

How will I attract top-performers and get them to the table so I can pitch to them?

Attracting talent is an art in itself. There is a delicate approach and constant touch-points that go into securing top-performers that involves working out the end-goals of the Agent and aligning them with the Agency.

Much is to do with timing, the right approach and having a model that peaks their interest.

This is a skill in itself as the Recruiter isn't just chasing the top-performer for you, their working out where you're at, what you're trying to achieve, how that can be packaged to convince a top-performer to even entertain leaving somewhere else.

A more in depth coverage of this topic can be found here.

How can we get Placed Australia to help us secure the best talent?

If you would like to speak with any one of our Specialist Real Estate Recruiters about helping you build your team and retaining talent, feel free to reach out to any one of the Placed Australia Recruitment Team in your state. Their numbers are on the home page of our website by clicking their profile picture.

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