What makes recruiting so challenging for brokers? For starters, making phone calls is a job all its own, and hectic schedules rarely allow for cold-calling (or even calling warm) prospects each day. Regardless of whether we have time to make the call, we all know recruiting is the foundation of every brokerage.
A popular—yet rather ineffective—solution has been designating robocallers to do the dialing for us. This tends to have a negative effect on prospects because there’s no personal touch. Therefore, many brokers and recruiters are moving toward the assistance of meeting coordinators or career counselors who are specially trained to recruit talent to brokerages. They’re skilled at articulating the brand’s value proposition, and are committed to goals to make targeted phone calls. These calls can be made from live call centers, or contracted to individuals.
There are call centers that use callers to do the work, but this rarely happens with the personal touch that makes such calls successful. A more effective call center would be one in which the same caller contacts targeted prospects on your behalf. This way you can make sure the caller is keeping your dialogue and brand value consistent.
Some companies contract with stay-at-home spouses, especially if they have experience in a sales-type role. The hours are flexible, and you have someone you can manage and work with to hone dialogue and rebuttals. The job of the meeting coordinator is to simply book appointments on behalf of the broker. They don’t sell your value proposition to the fullest extent, or negotiate splits. They simply call, connect, and set up the meeting. If pressed with questions about the brokerage, they should know enough about the brand’s value proposition to make it palatable for the prospect.
With more real estate information readily available through data analytic systems, now more than ever, it’s paramount to make these phone calls and position yourself as the destination brokerage. Whether it’s a live call center or an individual meeting coordinator, this is the future of recruiting talent. While the meeting coordinator is setting up appointments, the broker can get back to focusing on their clients and listings.
Engel & Völkers has raised the standard for the on-boarding process for training individual meeting coordinators. Each coordinator spends 30 – 60 days getting fully acquainted with the brokerage’s brand. Before they get on the phone, they take part in the Engel & Völkers Certification Program, and are aligned with the coaching and accountability department. All of this is done to help supplement the broker’s recruiting practices and free up time to manage their shop, while holding them accountable to recruiting and pipelining.
Because meeting coordinators are specially trained and remain consistent to the broker, they’re truly the most qualified individuals to arrange meetings. The goal isn’t to call top producers, but rather, to call the mid-level producers who are productive and may want to take their career to the next level. It’s still fully believed that a top producer should be called and pipelined by the broker.
The importance of working with a call center is immeasurable. Engel & Völkers’ licensed meeting coordinators close candidates with an average per-person productivity of nine closed deals a year. In some cases, this is more than the robocallers bring in, and in many cases, it’s a lot cheaper. Their prime focus on recruiting paves the way for brokerage growth and allows license partners to do what they do best.
For more information, please visit www.evusa.com.
