Fostering Collaborative Spirit in Your Brokerage

Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K Smith, author of The Wisdom of Teams, observes, “There is virtually no environment in which teams—if done right—can’t have a measurable impact on the performance of an organization.” This statement is true for your brokerage, too. Building and keeping a team of agents who share your brokerage mission is the starting place for building a culture of support and fostering a common drive for success. Your ability to communicate and lead is critical to motivating the team and getting positive results that are greater than the sum of their individual parts.

Recruit Right the First Time

As you know, creating a solid team of both veteran and new agents is crucial to your brokerage. Skills, ethics and motivation are always important factors to consider, but you also need to determine if each agent has a vision and drive similar to yours. All it takes is one bad personality to ruin an otherwise good team of agents and lower your credibility. Take the time to recruit the right agents and you will have no regrets.

Be a Leader

Building a real estate agent team means you’re in charge; so be a leader. Believe in your agents and your purpose. You should know the strengths of all your agents to determine how you could best to use them to elevate the brokerage. Then encourage them to take on certain roles based on their strengths. This will help reinforce teamwork, while still allowing them to be independent. For instance, perhaps one of your agents is skilled in contract writing and agrees to teach a few classes a year for your agents or help new agents write their first contracts. Or maybe younger agents can provide older agents some social media tips and tricks to make them more comfortable using that medium. Mentor wisely, as being a leader means allowing everyone to grow personally and professionally, while encouraging them to care about each other’s well-being.

Consistently Strengthen Your Brand

While your agent team may continually change, there are a few things that should remain constant: all agents should align with your basic brokerage values, all should have clear goals and a path for success, and all should follow a level of consistency in how they represent your brokerage as a brand. Building a brand is especially important for the independent broker who does not have a recognized national brand to leverage. Let each agent know how to present your brand in the sales process and on listing appointments so that your competitive advantages are really highlighted. Consistency here will create local awareness and a strong brand for you and your agents to stand behind. Katzenbach and Smith believe that leaders must communicate the “purpose, meaning and performance implications of visions”.  By sharing and articulating your goals to your team and asking for their help and participation, your agents will feel invested and empowered to achieve them. They will want the plan to succeed as much as you do.

Benefit From a Culture of Sharing

It’s a natural inclination for a team to want to win. Agents in the brokerage must share an eagerness to ask questions, try new approaches, learn from results and take responsibility for making change happen. They should be able to do this in a safe environment, where mistakes are not overly criticized, but treated as coaching opportunities, and new thinking is considered an asset. If your agents succeed and feel like they are an integral part of the growth and success of the organization, you’ll have happier agents, strengthen your bottom line and drive a positive perception of your brand in the office, which projects itself into the market. Who doesn’t want to work with a happy, successful office?

Create a Shared Purpose. Celebrate Successes.

Do more with your current agents and hire new agents with your vision in mind. Everyone has a strength. Use those strengths for the betterment of the brokerage, while fostering an agent environment of communication and teamwork. Have actionable goals for agents to work toward as a team, such as a certain number of listings and a certain amount of open house traffic each month, so everyone gets a chance to contribute. Keep the individual in mind, too, to reward key players who go above-and-beyond to help other agents. For instance, those who bring in the most listings in a given month or close the most transactions.

Continually lead in new ways that bring out the best from all agents. Together, agents can help each other overcome obstacles to growth while learning along the way. Build team of positive-thinking individual agents and by motivating each other, you’ll watch as they gain prosperity and happiness, while your brokerage triumphs in productivity.

Team Dynamics Can Be Tough To Get Right

You know how to run your business, but everyone can use a little help sometimes.  Having a resource that provides you with the systems and the coaching to help grow your business can make it easier and help you reach your goals faster. As a Weichert Affiliate, our mission is to see you succeed and our service teams are always there to help, so you never feel like you have to go it alone. That’s the power of We. That’s the power of Weichert.

If you think your brokerage could benefit from becoming a Weichert franchise, call 877-746-8807 to learn more or go to weichertfranchise.com.

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