RISMEDIA, November 4, 2010—Many brokers have spent time teaching their agents how to go after FSBO’s. The first thing that the agent needs to understand is that prospecting FSBO’s is a lot of work and, therefore, requires a strong commitment. The second thing is that they must work to earn the FSBO’s trust by seeking to understand their true issues/needs/wants. The third step is for the agent to then present their value to the FSBO by offering tools/technologies/services or other benefits to help the FSBO accomplish their goals. And then the agent needs to maintain constant contact with the FSBO to ensure that the FSBO knows how important they are to the agent and that the agent is confident that he/she can help them achieve their goals.
In today’s market, the same thinking should go into the broker’s own recruiting efforts. Recruiting in the past was almost entirely focused on bringing new agents on board. Then the broker provided the training and mentoring with the hope that two out of three would eventually contribute to the bottom line. But today, a broker can’t just run a drip e-mail campaign and then sit back and wait for agents to come in his or her door. They have neither the resources to train nor the time to wait for the one in five or six that might make them money someday.
For brokers today, recruiting is a lot like their agents’ FSBO campaigns. It needs to focus on experienced, productive agents; agents who can have an immediate impact to the bottom line and create excitement at the same time. But recruiting experienced agents is a lot harder and requires a greater commitment level by the broker. You won’t be successful recruiting established agents through passive marketing efforts, just as your agents will never list a FSBO through e-mail—they need to get in front of the homeowner—a broker needs to get in front of the agent to have any chance of recruiting them. But how can the broker find the time to make the literally thousands of calls to the hundreds of experienced agents they want to target? And how can the broker make the best impact with the agent and earn his or her trust? What values/benefits should the broker present and when? What should the broker do to continue the recruiting process after they have met with the agent? What does the agent actually think of the broker and their value proposition?
Take the time to learn these critical steps, make the investment and commit to recruiting five or six more productive agents. Each recruiting campaign will grow your bottom line and position your company for strong growth—both of your market share and your profits down the road.
Todd Shyiak is president of Cogent Step Recruiting, a leading expert in Outsourced Recruiting. Contact Todd at www.cogentstep.com or 250.682.2961.