In the following interview, Chris Speicher of Long & Foster Real Estate in Bethesda, Md., discusses the growth of his team with wife Peggy Lyn, and their approach to agent education and training.
Years in Real Estate: Chris: 6; Peggy Lyn: 26
Region Served: Washington, D.C., metropolitan area
Team Members: 12 agents (buying and selling), 5 admin/marketing support, 5 inbound and outbound client care
You have an award-winning agent team, The Speicher Group, at Long & Foster in the Washington, D.C., area. Please explain how you’ve grown your team from where it began with Peggy Lyn as a single practitioner six years ago to where it stands today.
Chris Speicher: When I joined my wife in 2010, we did six transactions a year. Wanting to grow, we worked at putting together a business foundation. My wife and I are CEOs of a multimillion-dollar sales operation that just happens to be real estate. For growth and structure, we needed systems and procedures in place. I started with a plan to generate immediate income by picking the best partners to help us grow for the future, providing the best bang for our buck. That turned out to be with first-time homebuyers on Zillow. We then partnered with Tom Ferry, and four years ago with BoomTown for our back-end. We track and measure everything. Every lead goes into a single system. Not only is it a winning system for our team, but it helped us take off.
What is your belief when it comes to training and education?
CS: Training and education are critical. We have a team meeting every other Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. that begins with a single gratitude from each agent. The following Tuesday, Peggy Lyn runs a one-hour meeting on scripts, dialogues and role-play, with the goal of making sure every agent can turn a lead into a sale. And every Wednesday is a role-play situation. You have to build a culture of winners. In today’s real estate world, the challenge is staying ahead of the consumer who has access to so much information online. We combat this by reinforcing our value proposition through training and education.
What sets you apart from the competition?
CS: Everything. Our unique selling proposition as a team begins when a client first comes in by matching them with an agent via personality type. And it all goes from that point of matching like personalities. We’re set up as a team so that at each point in the transaction, there’s always an expert there to carry it forward. We’ve spent a lot of time building the right culture, and we come at everything from abundance.
Talk about the benefits of being a husband and wife team.
CS: We love it. Peggy Lyn and I have been married for eight years. We weren’t looking for love when we found each other. We’re so in love, and for us to be able to work together and grow something together is amazing. It’s also one of the reasons we got into coaching. Our golden rule is that we refuse to sacrifice our marriage for real estate. Peggy Lyn runs the listing side of the business, and I run everything else. I don’t work her clients. I care about building a brand. We make sure it’s very clear who is responsible for what, which has allowed us to continue to grow and flourish.
For more information, please visit www.longandfoster.com.
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