Are opportunities falling through the cracks because you don’t have enough bandwidth? Have you backed out of more than one social commitment because you had to run and show a buyer a house (or several)? Have you reached a production plateau because you feel you just can’t do more?
If you answered yes to just one of these questions, it might be time to consider adding a buyer’s agent to your team. (By the way, if you already have buyer’s agents and their response time on new leads is slowing down considerably, or you are now having to cover for them to take time off when you’re already maxed out, you may need another buyer’s agent.)
Team growth is typically the result of overload. From a sales standpoint, this makes sense to you because you think, more salespeople, more production, more money in your pocket, right?
Not necessarily. Without the proper structure, systems and support, bringing on a buyer’s agent could be a disaster.
Before you let that happen to you, consider the following three key areas.
While you may have started in real estate with no set schedule, business plan, or marketing strategies, your buyer agent will need them all. It’s critical that you’re prepared to provide the following:
• Compensation structure. This is includes not only their splits and how they receive their commission, but also what opportunities they have (if any) to increase their splits either by production growth, proactively lead generating on their own, or transacting their own personal real estate.
• Business plan structure. You’ll want to help them set a business goal for themselves for the year that’s in line with what you want the business to accomplish, and then help them work backwards from that goal to identify where the business will come from and what needs to be done for each source of business to create those results.
• Marketing strategy structure. Share with them what the team does to market, and also help them come up with their marketing strategies to proactively generate business.
There may be some parts of your business where you’re still flying by the seat of your pants. A buyer’s agent needs and deserves to have clear, easy-to-follow systems that ensure not only consistency (fair housing demands this), but also that no steps in the process get missed.
Your buyer’s agent is a reflection of you to the market. You want them to demonstrate competence as well as professionalism. The best way to make this happen is to put systems in place that cover every part of the process.
Systems also include the technology you invest in: for client relationship management (a CRM), for staying in contact with prospects until they’re ready to act, and more. Evaluate each phase of the sales process and ensure you have the most up-to-date systems to move people through the process.
If you don’t have administrative support, and you decide to hire a buyer’s agent before you hire your first admin, you are going to become the administrative support.
So, you have two choices: either get good support in place to leverage both you and the buyer agent, or you and the buyer’s agent become the support staff.
In my experience, most people are either great detail people, or great salespeople, and seldom both. And even if you are good at both, what’s the highest and best use of your time? Know your hourly rate.
Seek to delegate those low-dollar, time-consuming activities so you (and your buyer’s agent) are freed up to prospect, work with active clients, and get things sold.
Hiring buyer agents can be time-consuming and challenging, but Pro REA Staffing can make it much easier! And for insights on your overall business growth or transition, reach out to me for a 15-minute strategy session – it’s my pleasure to help.
Amy Stoehr
Founder and CEO | Real Estate Masters Guild
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