Today we are going to talk about how to manage a real estate team lead distribution system. One of the major reasons that agents join teams is the prospect of getting more leads directly from the team. Team leaders need to be wary of are team members who may become apathetic and stop generating their own business. Let’s dive in and talk about some systems that will help prevent this and create a healthy team/agent dynamic.
Before we dive into team dashboards, let’s talk a bit about why agents join a team in the first place. As you learn how to manage a real estate team, this is important to consider. According to the National Association of Realtors, 33% of real estate agents quit after their first year. After five years, 87% of real estate agents quit. The real estate industry has one of the highest failure rates of any professional industry. The fact is, it is hard to be a solo real estate agent. An agent may know the activities they need to do to get more business, but there is no one holding them accountable and providing them with systems to keep that accountability in place.
It is a known fact that real estate agents who join a real estate team have a much higher success rate. Teams provide leads, administrative support, and accountability to agents. The accountability piece is by far the most valuable part of joining a team, though agents may feel the leads are the most valuable. Leads without accountability is not good for an agent’s long game.
If you build it, they will come. Or when it comes to team dashboards, if you build it, they will be held accountable. Accountability is huge when considering how to manage a real estate team. In The High-Performing Real Estate Team, I talk at length about the importance of a team dashboard. And, I walk through, in great detail, how to construct a good one.
It doesn’t have to be fancy. In fact, I use a good ol’ Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to teach clients about the benefits of a team dashboard. Here are the important sections of a team dashboard:
These are concrete activities that you can assign numbers to and achieve each week. Getting these activities done contribute to the overall goal — generating more business. SOI Contacts, SOI Growth, Open Houses, Lead Follow Up Tasks, Total Online Lead Contacts, Response Time to 1st Call, Recruiting Appointments, etc. Every team is different. There are many ABIs that can be added here on your team dashboard. The key is to have agreed upon target numbers for each of these ABIs. You must have them up on your team dashboard in order to enforce your expectations for team members.
These would be activities that lead to converting to a client. Listing Appointments Set, Listing Appointments Had, Listing Agreements Signed, Buyer Appointments Set, Buyer Appointments Had, Buyer Agreements Signed, Contracts Written, etc. This section helps you diagnose potential issues. For example, if an agent is setting a ton of listing appointments but has a low number of listing appointments had, for some reason, people are not showing up to their appointments. What is being said on the phone if you are setting a lot of appointments and people are not showing up?
Videos, Shadowing Opportunities, etc. ICC Clients have access to an extensive training library with videos and downloadable system and resources to support these agent training measures. This is a huge value add to team members.
Under Contract, Pending Volume, Closed YTD, Closed Volume YTD, etc. These are the results generated from the activities performed (ABIs). Most agents like to focus on RBIs, but we must train them to focus on ABIs instead. The ABIs are actionable. The RBIs are not.
Now we are going to move to the section within our Lag Measures titled “Closed YTD.” In this section, you will see two columns: Agent Generated and Team Generated. This is where we can see a comparison of how many closings the agent is bringing to the team vs. how many closings the team is giving to the agent.
When it comes to choosing Realtor production standards, I promote “The Matching Standard.” The number of closings that an agent on the team generates on their own should match the number of closings they get as a result of a team-generated lead. Obviously, it doesn’t always have to be dead-on, but it should be close. It shows that the agent is holding up “their end of the deal” and pulling their own weight in the team. It demonstrates that they aren’t just feeding off of the team’s leads, but that they are bringing their own leads to the table. This is an essential metric by which to measure the agents on your team!
With our coaching clients, we have found out that by implementing the Matching Standard in teams that are struggling in one way or another, it will solve 90% of the problems. This is a proactive solution because it solves problems before the problems even happen. The Matching Standard changes your team or brokerage fundamentally, with a new organizational structure. The primary reason that a team fails is that there is no production standard in place.
The Matching Standard can also alert you to team members that may be a flight risk. For example, if your team member is generating significantly more closings on their own than from leads they receive from the team — that’s not good. That’s a sign that they might be starting to reevaluate whether or not they are benefitting from being on your team at all. In fact, oftentimes when you factor in commission splits, this agent may actually make more money if they leave your team! It isn’t financially worth their while if they aren’t getting enough team-generated leads converted.
A team dashboard helps agents do the uncomfortable (but important) things they don’t want to do to get the results they want. This is the most valuable thing a real estate team provides to its agents.
To support your team dashboard, you need a weekly team meeting. At that meeting when you go over dashboard numbers, conversations will come up. This is how you manage a real estate team. You help your agents diagnose issues and you talk about the solutions to those problems. You support your agents and ask the tough questions that are brought up as you go through the team dashboard on a weekly basis. This is accountability at the highest level. And, it creates an engaging, and meaningful, team meeting.
