Do you ever get clubbed over the head with an idea so powerful it nearly knocks you out? And usually that idea is probably something you’ve heard before, but you hear someone say it in such a way that it sounds like a new idea?
Yeah, that just happened to me!
My Mega, Ron, asked me to listen to a segment of a podcast. I had already heard this particular episode, and in fact, I’m the one who told him to listen to the entire thing in the first place because I thought the content was a great example of what we’re currently working on in our own business which is growth.
The podcast is Real Estate Uncensored and it’s the episode with guest Jay Niblick from WizeHire.
Ron texted me to start listening at the 39:30 mark. To save you the time, here’s the transcript and the part that I want to share with you. The host, Matt Johnson is talking about building a team, and more importantly, building a business. His perspective starts off in response to a comment about hiring order takers for your team rather than rock star agents who can lead generation, convert leads, and then service those new clients.
Look at it from the entrepreneur’s perspective. Which would you like to have a business based on? A business that produces leads that are so easy to close that you can have an entire fleet of order takers or would you like to be dependent on a group of rock star agents and all the cat herding that goes along with that?
I know guys that have come into the the real estate industry from outside the industry and these guys are real deal entrepreneurs and they don’t build a team of rock star agents. They build a rock star system and they plug good people with the right DISC profiles into each stage of the system and the system is what converts people. They have a person at the right stage of each process that their superpower is just moving that person from one stage to the next.
I think the key take-away here is that as the Executive Assistant, you need to building systems for each stage of the real estate process and then allow people with the right DISC profile to use those systems to do the converting. Essentially, the systems are what make the entire business work. This way, the business doesn’t rely on a few rock star agents to do everything. Because what happens when those rock stars decide to go out on their own, or they leave the team for whatever reason? You have to hire a new rock star. And in the meantime, business declines.
But what if you, the Executive Assistant, build a plug and play system? Where there’s a system that brings in leads. Where there’s a system for doing open houses. Where there’s a system for following up with leads. Where there’s a system for inviting sphere and past clients to events. Where there’s a system for signing up clients and servicing them all the way through closing.
When the systems do the heavy lifting, and all the people on the team have to do is follow the system, it makes hiring so much easier. You don’t need to hire a quality lead-converter. You need to hire someone with a good attitude who is open to learning and growing and who can follow a system.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think in conjunction with you building the system, it’s up to your Mega to build the culture. The business needs a culture of accountability to follow the system in order to thrive. The team needs to be cohesive so that when someone doesn’t follow the system, the hole that is left is obvious. And that person can choose to follow the system and stay on the team, or they can choose to find a new employment opportunity with someone else.
Of course, the key to all your systems is the documentation. I’m fond of the playbook idea myself because it’s so tangible. If a new team member doesn’t know how to do something, and I have a step-by-step playbook that I can hand to them (either physically or virtually) then I don’t have to slow down what I’m working on to explain how to do the thing. The playbook does the heavy lifting. And if I have a thorough playbook, I’m not likely to get any questions about it.
So are you up to the task of building rock star systems? It’s not an easy task. It requires that you first build the systems and then fine-tune them. It also requires you to set aside your ego when you build out a system that the agents don’t like or find too complicated to use. (Remember, they’re not rejecting you. They are rejecting the system. You are not the system.)
Keep in mind that when you build out these systems, you’re going to have several agents using them. New agents will come in and some agents will leave the team and you have figure out what’s the best process for orienting them to the systems and how to remove them when they quit. And of course, your own job duties are going to change, so have you documented how you do things so that someone new can take over the different aspects of your current duties?
