Keep Your Agents with Four Simple Questions

If you’ve been paying attention to what going on around you in the real estate industry, many teams (regardless of size) are seeing a decrease in home sales from past months. Some teams are panicking and others just know that this is how real estate works. You have boom times and you bust times.

In this bust time, real estate agents are considering other options. Those options might include getting out of real estate completely, joining another team, or going solo. (And usually when agents go solo, they switch brokerages as well.)

When agents leave our teams, we should be conducting an exit interview. This is where we ask them questions like, “What could we have done better?” or “What do you think is missing from this company?”

Adam Grant posted a talk on LinkedIn about the “stay interview.” It’s where we’re connecting with our agents before they get the idea that it might be better somewhere else.

Here are the questions Grant suggests asking:

What has been the defining highlight of your experience here?

What have been the lowlights?

What made you consider quitting?

And how do we make sure that doesn’t happen again?

These are really awesome questions! And I’d recommend asking them at least once a quarter. The purpose of these questions if of course to improve retention. And it means you or your team lead need to really open your ears and listen to the responses with empathy. The information you’ll learn is incredibly valuable to improving company culture.

If it’s just you and your team lead, I’d recommend answering these questions and submitting them to your team lead to open the door to a wonderful discussion about your role and the future of the company. No one likes working in overwhelm or burnout, and if that’s your experience, but you’ve been hiding it, then the likelihood that you’ll quit without a discussion is actually very high.

Don’t let it get that level. You are responsible for your happiness at work. No one else. So take that responsibility by answering these questions and discussing those answers with your team lead.

• You’ll either confirm your feeling that it’s time to move on, or you’ll realize that your team leader is willing to make some changes or improvements to your situation that would really benefit you.

It’s worth finding out!

And, one last thing. What if you answered these questions in regards to your team’s vendor/business partners? I’m sure there have been times where you’ve recommended a particular plumber, electrician, title company, etc. and while things may have been great for a while, a day comes where things are not so great. Answer these questions and submit them. Again, you’ll learn who really wants to work with you, or who is ready for you to part ways with them.