How to Write a 100 Days Plan for Every Position on Your Real Estate Team

Seems like no matter what Facebook group for real estate agents I belong to, inevitably someone asks for a 100 Days Action Plan for some position or other on the team. Where does this idea come from and how can you develop a 100 days plan no matter what position you need it for?

Why 100 Days?

If you’ve been to a Keller Williams course on hiring such as Recruit-Select, or Career Visioning, you’ve likely learned that the first 100 days for a new hire can be thought of as a probationary period. You set the expectation up front that you are going to lead the new hire through 100 days of guided training. If at the end of the 100 days, either party doesn’t feel as though it’s a good fit, then either party may back of the hiring agreement at that time with no hard feelings.

100 days is enough time to get to know the new hire better and determine if what they conveyed during the interview process is indeed true to how they perform in reality. It might be possible to overstate abilities on a resume or in an interview, but when put to the test, it’s difficult to bluff your way through.

What Happens in the First 100 Days?

Establish Culture

Your new hire needs to spend time getting to know the culture of the company. You’ll spend time reviewing the team’s MVVBP (Mission, Vision, Values, Beliefs, Purpose). You’ll also have your new hire explore the company website. At Keller Williams there are MANY videos online about where KW came from and what KW culture means. You’ll need to decide which of these videos you want your new hire to review.

A word to the wise: don’t skip this step. No matter what company you are with, each one has its own lingo and way of speaking. Your new hire will be confused when he hears “why four seas two teas” and will then feel like an outsider if you don’t take the time to train her on these things.

Introduction to the Key Players

Make time for your new hire to spend about fifteen minutes with the people who are most important to the success of your team. This could be the loan officer you most often refer, the title company escrow agent you like to use, the front desk staff at your company’s office, your accountant, and of course all the individual members of your team.

You would also be well served to leverage some of your new hire’s training to some of these people. Your loan officer can teach your new hire about the loan process and the roles of the people on the mortgage end of the real estate process. Same with your title company or attorney. Have that person walk your new hire through their role in the real estate transaction.

Systems Training

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. When training on systems, I find that most people do well with “I do it, WE do it, YOU do it.”

I do it. – You watch me as I use the system. You are making notes as I explain what the system is for and how things are done.

WE do it. – You use the system as I help you navigate, telling you where to click. You fill in your notes with additional information.

YOU do it. – I sit nearby, working on my own stuff and you use the system based on what you learned and your notes. When you get stuck, you ask me questions. When you’ve completed a pre-determined project, I look it over and tell you where you can improve.

Don’t forget to teach about time blocking here as well. It’s important to give your new hire the time management training she’ll need to success in her new role.

Sales Training

You teach your new hire the contracts, scripts, and sales techniques (like mirroring and matching) that they will need to succeed. If your admin will be having any kind of contact with clients, I suggest including them on this type of training as well. Sales is not just selling services, it’s also selling ideas such as price reductions, closing extensions, and inspection repairs.

Required Reading

There are just certain books that every new hire should read. For us, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent is the first. After that, it’s entirely up to you. Some classics are How to Win Friends and Influence People, Shift, The One Thing, The Four Disciplines of Execution (or nearly any John Maxwell book for that matter), and Rocket Fuel (for executive assistants).

Who Is Responsible?

Of course, not all training needs to be done by one person. You may decide that you can outsource certain aspects of your new hire’s training. For instance, we hired our Market Center’s Productivity Coach to train our new Buyer’s Agents on how to read contracts, what to write in them, how to respond to incoming leads, and how to show property.

So for each aspect of your new hire’s training, decide if the task is self-directed (such as reading a book or watching training videos) or to be led by you or someone else. If led by someone else, be sure that person’s contact information is available to the new hire as well.

Set a Deadline

You’ll want to set a deadline for each task as well. Perhaps you have your new hire complete one book for every 30 days. Setting deadlines is also part of setting expectations. You may expect your new hire to be able to input a new contact in the database without errors in the first 30 days and then be able to enter a new action plan in your CRM by the end of the next 30 days. Whatever you choose is fine, just be sure it’s realistic.

You may want to match up your First 100 Days plan with your Market Center’s calendar and tell your new hire which classes will be most helpful to her.

Set Tasks Based on the Job Description

When you hired this person, hopefully you put together a job description along with a detailed set of tasks you want this person to perform. It’s this list of tasks that you need to train your new hire to do, so those are the items that go on your First 100 Days Plan.

Here’s a sample plan you can follow: the-first-100-days-transaction-coordinator . This is the one I created when I hired for our transaction coordinator position.

If you have any questions about how to create your own first 100 days, feel free to reach out to me by email. I’m happy to help! egilbert@kw.com