Your primary goal as a broker is to improve your bottom line. Your agent’s primary goal is to get commission. Neither of you have control over the external factors which may affect your ability to attain these goals, but you do have control over your own actions which countervail these factors.
All of us, when confronted with things out of our control, have a choice to make: be passive or be active. For example, the thunderstorm today will affect the numbers at your agent’s open house. That is a fact. Do they write the day off as a lost cause with this excuse in hand? Or do they grab their umbrella and get as many people in there as possible? Their goal is to get the commission. The open house is an integral part of their plan to do so. To reach their goal, they will have to do what it takes to get the job done—even if they spoil their dress socks and hundred dollar tie.
Why? Because there is no alternative, there are no excuses, and your agents have no hiding places.
No Alternative
Soldiers in combat have an ethos: no alternative. They have a mission to complete regardless of what happens around them. There is no alternative to completing their mission because when things don’t go as planned, their mission still exists. Their job is to find a way to complete that mission. Real estate is not war. But there is nothing stopping active agents from adopting this ethos and applying it to their profession. An agent’s ‘mission’ is the commission. That mission exists whether the economy is bad or booming. There is no alternative to completing this mission and so, they must find a way.
No Excuses
'It is what it is' 'There's nothing I can do about it' 'Things have always been this way' These are built-in excuses, lies we all tell ourselves to inhibit action & preclude hard work. Listings have always looked a certain way? Challenge the status quo and give your viewers something different. There is nothing you can do about an economy in recession? Review your numbers regularly and strategize to remain profitable. ‘It is what it is?’ No, it is what you make it. Success accepts no excuses.
No Hiding Places
My first job was at a busy nightclub. I was a busboy. My job was to walk around and pick up empty cups all night long and my shifts were 12 hours long. The club was so large that we had a secret spot in the back where we could take a nap or get away from our managers. It was literally a hiding place. I was 14. Those are the kind of jobs that have hiding places.
Brokerages should have no hiding places for their agents. With the right technology, a broker can find out exactly how many deals an agent has in their pipeline, how much money agents are losing by cutting their commissions below an established standard, or how much money agents are bringing in on a monthly or yearly basis compared to the cost of having them work for your brokerage. All of this data is produced as an inevitable consequence of your agents doing their jobs. It’s all there for you. It’s your job as a broker to take advantage of this data and put every agent’s true performance in plain sight.
No hiding places. No excuses. No alternative. It’s not easy to adopt this as an ethos. It won’t happen overnight. But if you and your agents approach every day with this mentality, then your actions will be decisive and impactful and you will attain your financial goals.
