RISMEDIA, July 15, 2008-The delicate balance of recruiting in today’s market needs to be weighed against several factors, especially if doing so will guarantee a better outcome for clients as well as lead to increased profits for your business. While there are no guarantees in life, Jeff Camp is seeing success using specific recruiting approaches in his team at High Country Properties in Utah. Read more to learn how.
Jeff Camp
The High Country Properties Team
High Country Properties
Years in real estate: 15
Years as an agent team: 5
Number of team members: 7
Region Served: Park City, Utah and the surrounding area
I formed an agent team because…there wasn’t enough of me to go around.
How do you determine when it’s time to add a new team member?
It really depends on what area of the team we are thinking about adding to. We were very close last year to adding another buyer’s rep because our sales were at our peak but thank goodness we didn’t go ahead and add one because our market turned before we made the addition.
How do you do so while maintaining profitability?
Very cautiously. I assess historic patterns and will not commit to a new team member until I feel 100-percent confident that I can live up to my part of the bargain. And that means of course giving the new team member a good amount of work.
What are the top characteristics needed to succeed in an agent team? Tenacity and great organizational skills.
How do you indoctrinate/train new team members?
I have documented systems and each new team member receives a packet of systems (an electronic packet) and I sit down with them and train them personally as to what I need out of them. When they are trying to remember what to do, they have it all written down, so they can refer back to it in any situation and know the way that I think is best to handle it.
Success Strategies
How does having a team help you with new listings?
I have a listing coordinator who manages all of our listings and goes on quite a few of our listing presentations with me. So she knows everything about the new listings and the sellers know that there is always someone they can get in touch with for any question they might have.
What’s the 1 thing your team can’t live without? The Internet.
What’s the best way to build a brand?
That’s been something that I have been working on ever since I started a team. For years I was just this guy, Jeff Camp, and everything had my face on it. But now we are on the verge of launching a new look where High Country Properties is the brand. My long term goal is to turn this into a business that doesn’t need me and then sell it. Branding then is the number one thing I need to do and if I want to sell it Jeff Camp has to be gone from the equation.
What is the average number of hours each team member works? It is a moving target these days. During busy times, my staff does a 40-hour work week and buyer’s reps do 100-hour work weeks during busy times-20 hours during less busy times.
What is your philosophy on life in real estate?
Make time to enjoy the benefits that you have reaped and share that with family and friends. For me, life in real estate is a never-ending quest for balance. I tend to hyper-focus so the whole world could be falling in around me and I don’t notice because I am so busy working on that one thing until it is perfect. I keep a lot of lists. Every single morning starts with a list.
Why is real estate a good career for you?
It’s the only business I could imagine where a guy who never completed college could make this much money.
–Lesley Geary