How to Build a Real Estate Team
Let’s face it, it’s tough to get started as a real estate agent. That’s true whether you’re a solo agent or on a real estate team. It can take months before you sell your first house and sometimes even longer before you actually start making money because you have to become established and build a network.
In addition to learning all the technical and legal aspects of the real estate industry, you have to learn how to find leads, how to successfully convert those leads into clients, and how to take them seamlessly through the entire process of buying or selling a home.
Being a solo real estate agent presents even more challenges. You have to determine where to spend your money and how to best use your limited resources to maximum effect. How much money should you spend on marketing? What kind of marketing should you spend your money on? Should I purchase training? How much should I spend on training? How do I find time to actually work on my solo real estate business in addition to meeting with clients and showing houses?
These are just some of the big questions you’re going to have to grapple with when starting out as a real estate agent.
Building a Real Estate Team
But let’s say you accomplish all of that. You hustle. You build up a valuable network. You find the right balance for your resources. You reinvest your profits back into training and marketing. Basically, you’re killing it.
Eventually, you’re going to reach a point where you have built up such a solid network and large circle of influence in the real estate industry that you are going to have more leads coming in than you can handle. This is when agents have a decision to make: “Do I just keep killing it as a solo agent and let the leads I can’t get to pass me by, or do I grow my business and build a real estate team?”
If your goal is to take your real estate business as far as you can and grow it as much as possible, then this decision is no real decision at all. As soon as you find yourself so busy with current clients that you simply don’t have the time to follow up with leads, generate new leads, or take advantage of all the business coming your way, it’s time to add to your real estate team of one.
How to Start Building a Real Estate Team
Once your solo real estate business has the volume necessary to expand, the first order of business is to ensure you have a solid foundation. That means you have to have a game plan. For example, it’s critical that you develop revenue goals and work backward to determine how many leads and team members you’ll need in order to meet them. Furthermore, you have to make sure your lead generating and nurturing systems are in solid shape—ready for the influx of leads that your new team will be bringing in.
Once the foundation is shored up and ready to go, the smartest first hire you can make for your real estate team is an admin. Remember, what’s driving you to build the team is the fact that you have so much success that you have no time. An admin can help you dig out from the mountains of paperwork that come along with that success. They can also help you with building your business’s strong foundation and with onboarding future team members.
Buyer’s Agent
Once you and your admin have developed the systems and processes necessary for a successful real estate team, you’re ready to hire a buyer’s agent. A buyer’s agent’s job is take your lead generation systems and put them into action. You and your new agent will basically be taking the reins together—each generating leads, nurturing leads, going on appointments, finding homes, etc. You guys will be partners in crime at this stage—both hustling and both bringing in new business.
Inside Sales Agent
As you and your first buyer’s agent keep killing it with leads and appointments, soon it will be time for your next hire. Once your buyer’s agent is handling about four transactions a month, it’s time to bring in some additional help.
The benefit of hiring an ISA (inside sales agent) for your real estate team is that it allows your team to specialize a bit more. An ISA is a dedicated sales person who specializes in generating warm leads and setting appointments over the phone. They act as the top of your funnel—the first face (or voice) of your business that prospects and new leads see (or hear).
With the inside sales agent handling the top of the funnel, you and your agent are freed up to do what you guys do best. That is, working with clients, showing houses, closing deals.
After hiring a buyer’s agent and an ISA, on a solid business foundation that you created, your business is going to grow exponentially. From there it is just a matter of hiring additional buyer and seller agents, maintaining flexibility so your systems and businesses can adapt to your growth, and making sure you are hiring the right people.
After hiring a buyer’s agent and an ISA, on a solid business foundation that you created, your business is going to grow exponentially. From there it is just a matter of hiring additional buyer and seller agents, maintaining flexibility so your systems and businesses can adapt to your growth, and making sure you are hiring the right people.
Who to Hire for Your Real Estate Team
Hiring good people is one of the most difficult aspects of running a team or a business. To start, it can be hard to feel comfortable passing off some of the responsibility that you have been shouldering. This is your business and your team—something that you have poured hours of work, sweat, and tears into. This produces a bit of reservation when it comes time to let someone else track down and follow up on leads in your name.
In addition to that, how do you even find the right people to hire? And then once you’ve hired them, how do you train them to treat your business as if they were you? The key to both of these questions is to hire motivated doers, and then focus completely on the second question and train the heck out of them.
Building your real estate team requires people who are as motivated and dedicated to its success as you are. Focus on the mindset of your potential new hires and the rest will follow.
Conclusion
Being a successful solo real estate agent is a massive accomplishment. But eventually, if you want to keep building on your success, you’ll be faced with the massive new challenge of building a successful real estate team. If you follow the formula above and focus on hiring motivated people who are able to learn and grow, and who care about your business as much as you, the success train will keep on rolling.