You can disrupt your market by adding extra, “surprise” value to your agents. Be a brokerage “disruptor” in your market and differentiate your exclusive value you bring to your agents by being a sales manager, adding valuable content, coaching, leadership and setting the tone for sales success!
In an ever-changing and fast-paced real estate environment, with a lot of shiny object syndrome and agents wanting—demanding—more from their brokerages, it is imperative to be the disruptor of brokerages in your marketplace. You offer unique value as a brokerage that make it in your agents’ best financial interest to remain in partnership with you; however, do you personally add extra, “surprise” value that goes way above and beyond the agent’s expectations—extra value by being their sales manager.
Follow these strategies to add tremendous extra, “surprise” value as a sales manager, and make a difference in the lives of your agents. These methods will not only help you retain agents, but also allow you to coach them to new levels of production and attract agents to work on your team. By adding value to the agent experience, you will continue to put them in a position to succeed, grow and reach heights they didn’t even know they could reach, financially and personally.
Be a ‘sales manager.’ If you were going to be in sales again, would you be a top producer? It is important to lead the sales team at the front of the pack and set the tone for high energy, high goals and high expectations for accomplishment, and literally drive the daily activities of your team. As sales managers, we create the energy in our offices and promote a “We are here to work” mentality. Your attitude sets the tone for the standards of your team’s performance. Act like all the listings and sales for the month are collectively yours. (I mean, they are, really!) It’s your office to lead.
Ask how you can assist closing listings or sales. Again, adding “surprise” value to your agents means asking them how you can help then be more successful. Do they need your help on securing a listing or closing a sale, or even getting a price reduction from a difficult seller client? Ask your agents how you can assist them in growing their leads or converting them into appointments. You can also offer to attend a listing appointment, which shows potential sellers how much the entire organization values their business.
Motivate, challenge, encourage and recognize. It is important to push your agents to hit the goals they set for themselves. Remind them that you are their partner and coach. Your main role and job is to help them be successful. You can’t motivate a satisfied person, so in order to truly motivate someone, you need to know what they want to accomplish and why. When you care enough to ask and then follow through with the assistance, coaching and training them to help them achieve their goals, you will be acting as a sales manager that is adding value to their business. You will be seen as invaluable. When you challenge your agents, you are acting as a coach and asking them to dig deeper to set a new goal or reach a new level of production. Agents like you to challenge them and help them grow to the next level. Encouragement is awesome, and agents need and crave it, even our top producers. Â Providing confidence and encouragement literally makes that agent feel appreciated, loved and feel they can do anything. It’s absolutely great to watch happen, too! Recognizing your agents’ efforts and accomplishments is an absolute must. They want to be acknowledged and recognized for their efforts. Recognize in private and in public! They will be delighted by your kind words and feel both valued and appreciated, and this will drive more successful production by them, too!
Engage with your agents. Always be “present” when you are with your agents. Give eye contact and listen to them without the intent to respond. Being fully engaged means you are totally in the moment with your staff or agent. You are not mentally somewhere else, but 100-percent in the moment and keeping eye contact with them only. You can also give them validation and repeat their goals back to them. Following up with them to see how things they asked you about earlier turned out, or “How did that issue get resolved?” go a long way, too. Again, it shows you remember, you cared enough to ask them, and you were listening when they told you about it the first time.
Delegate the admin work and focus on driving listings and sales. Turn over the administrative tasks and focus on making sure everyone on your team is busy getting appointments and filling their pipelines of buyer and listing leads—and, most importantly, that they are setting and going on appointments. Walk around your office and ask your agents what they are working on and how you can help. Ask them for their forecasts for the month—you know, how many listings and sales they plan to turn in. This will set the tone that you are there to help the make sales happen, are aware of what they are doing and driving the efforts of everyone on the team. You are a sales manager that is a resource and a business partner, and not a manager sitting at your desk waiting for agents to come to you with some legal question. This shows you care about their income goals and that you are watching and tracking everyone’s sales performance. You will love the results and will watch growth happen!
Create real and personal relationships built on trust and confidence. Your relationship with your agents is special and unique. You have to be the one to develop and nurture it, always checking in and making sure it is healthy. When you are a sales manager, you are a partner to them and seen as a real, valuable part of their business. They know they can trust you; they know they can rely on you and that you have their back. You are a valuable resource for strategies on how to close a deal. They actually look to you for advice to handle difficult sales situations and objections because they know you have answers for them.
Help agents reduce expenses. You can add tremendous value to your agents by offering to help them review their costs and expenses, and make sure they are getting the ROI on the tools or marketing they may by paying for outside of the tools and marketing you provide. You may be able to save your agent 15-20 percent with a less than 30-minute conversation. Many of them don’t even know what they are paying for, and they will be so grateful to you for bringing it to their attention, and, better yet, saving them the money!
When you are acting as a sales leader, you will be effectively motivating and holding agents accountable every day. It will take on a life of its own. Agents will know that you are going to ask them what they are working on, so they will actually start telling you before you ask them what they are working on. Rather than sitting in your office dealing with admin problems, you are handling all sales and listings business because you are the sales manager.
For a free copy of my exclusive Manager Weekly Action Planner to drive sales, please click here.
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour. For more information, please contact coaching@sherrijohnson.com or 844-989-2600 (toll-free) or visit www.sherrijohnson.com.
