Learn how to recruit experienced agents by implementing this simple system for meeting and demonstrating value.
If you’ve been trying to recruit experienced agents the same way you recruit new licensees, I can tell you right now — that’s why it’s not working.
Experienced agents don’t respond to commission pitches. They don’t care that you’re $5,000 cheaper per year. What they care about is whether you can actually help them sell more real estate and build the career they’ve been working toward. If you can’t demonstrate that — and demonstrate it over time — you’re going to keep losing them to whoever makes the loudest offer.
Here’s what I’ve learned after 15 years running brokerages and coaching hundreds of team leaders and broker/owners: recruiting experienced agents requires the same patience and relationship-building strategy as working a sphere of influence. Once you shift your mindset and your method, everything changes.
Stop Treating Experienced Agents Like Everyone Else
There are two very different conversations happening in recruiting. One is with new or low-producing agents who need to be shown the basics. The other is with experienced agents — people who’ve been in the business for five, ten, fifteen years — who have an ego to protect and a business to maintain.
When you rush an experienced agent into a commission comparison in the first meeting, you’ve already lost. You’re going to attract scarcity-based agents who’ll leave just as fast as they came if someone offers them a better split. That’s not the culture you’re building.
What you want are abundance-based agents — people who come to you because they believe you’re going to help them make $100,000 more per year. Those agents transform your office culture. When experienced, respected agents publicly choose your brokerage, other agents take notice. It validates your operation in a way that no marketing can.
Research consistently shows that culture and professional development opportunities are among the top reasons agents change brokerages — not just commission splits. Keep that in mind when you structure your recruiting conversations.
VIDEO: How to Recruit Experienced Agents
Treat Your Recruiting Pipeline Like a Sphere of Influence
Think about how you’d work a sphere of influence. You don’t call someone and say, “Ready to buy a house yet?” That poisons the well. You stay in relationship, you demonstrate value over time, and when they’re ready to make a move, they call you.
Recruiting experienced agents works exactly the same way.
If you’re having three, five, or ten recruiting meetings a week and you’re working the system I’m about to walk you through, you’ll have a steady stream of experienced agents making their way to your office — not because you pressured them, but because you’ve proven, over time, that you’re the right place for them to grow.
The goal in every early appointment is not to get them to come to your office. The goal is to get them into your funnel.
The Needs Analysis: Your Most Important Recruiting Tool
The foundation of how to recruit experienced agents is what I call the needs analysis. It’s a structured, multi-appointment conversation designed to do one thing: help you understand exactly what this agent needs, so you can demonstrate — clearly and specifically — how you can deliver it.
Here’s the four-part framework:
Step 1: Their Past
Start by learning everything about them. Where they grew up, their career history before real estate, every brokerage they’ve been at, what they liked, what they didn’t like, and why they left each one. This isn’t small talk — this is intelligence. You’ll learn more about an agent’s real priorities in this conversation than you will in any pitch meeting. Don’t rush it. Let it take the entire first appointment if it needs to.
Step 2: Their Present
Once you’ve walked through their history, put on your coach hat. Ask them to rate their current business on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means they’ve hit their absolute career peak — nothing left to achieve. When they give you a five or a six, ask: “What’s missing?”
Guide them. For most agents, it’s more business. For a solo agent selling 30 to 40 units, it might be getting their life back. For a newer team leader, it might be systems and structure. Listen more than you talk. Write everything down like a coach would.
Here’s a sobering stat: less than 2% of agents have their sphere of influence organized in a CRM with any kind of systematic follow-up plan. That means nearly every agent you sit across from has a gaping hole in their business — and you have the tools to fill it.
Step 3: Future Pleasure
Take them forward five, ten, even twenty years. Ask where they want to be. Help them dream big — investment properties, more freedom, less time in the business, building a team. The bigger they go with their vision, the more value you can demonstrate. When someone is excited about the future, they’re open to the idea that something needs to change to get them there.
Step 4: Future Pain
This is where real motivation shows up. Ask them: “What happens if you don’t change anything?” Let them sit with that. Let them feel it. You’re not recruiting them to your brokerage at this point — you’re coaching them. Make that clear. Tell them most agents move companies three or four times in a career, and that might be five or twenty years from now. You don’t care. You’re building a relationship.
Watch the full video walkthrough of this recruiting framework at the top of this blog.
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Recruit: Recruiting Real Estate Agents (Icenhower Institute)
ICT Online CourseRecruit
Recruiting Real Estate Agents
Master the systems and strategies top brokers and team leaders use to consistently attract, recruit, and retain great agents.
Learn how to build and manage a recruiting pipeline with proven follow-up systems
Discover how to identify top talent and match agents to your team culture and value proposition
Gain access to scripts, dialogues, and presentations that turn interest into commitment
Implement marketing strategies to position your team or brokerage as the place top agents want to work
Understand how to onboard, train, and retain agents for long-term success
Includes recruiting dashboards, tracking sheets, and customizable scripts
Attract Top Talent
Learn how to position your team or brokerage as the clear choice for high-performing agents.
Recruit With Confidence
Use proven scripts and systems to identify, connect with, and convert top prospects.
Retain for Growth
Build a strong culture and onboarding process that keeps agents engaged and productive.
Designed for all learning types
Video Training
In-depth video training walking you through each module of the course, explaining the strategies, tips, and best practices for using Canva for real estate agents.
Written Workbook
Detailed and downloadable written workbook that provides you with a bullet point outline, summarized text, action steps, key takeaways, as well as space for taking notes.
Instructor Materials
Teach this course at your organization with the help of our downloadable presentation notes, presentation files, and Instructor's Manual.
Course curriculum
Enrollment includes access to the following course materials for 6 months
Module 1: Your Unique Value Proposition & Recruiting Targets- Workbook: Your Unique Value Proposition & Recruiting Targets
- Video: Your Unique Value Proposition
- Graphic: DISC Behavioral Assessment
- Graphic: DISC Profiles
- Commission Comparison Chart Template
- Workbook: The Recruiting Scoreboard
- Video: The Recruiting Scoreboard
- Graphic: The Big 3
- Resource: Sample Weekly Calendar
- Resource: Sample Recruiter Dashboard
- Resource: Recruiting Tools
- Workbook: Recruiting with Technology
- Video: Recruiting with Technology
- Graphic: 10-10-5 Daily Plan
- Workbook: Recruiting Sources
- Video: Recruiting Sources
- Script: Congratulations & Production Report
- Script: Congratulations on Production
- Script: Expanding into Your Area
- Script: New Listing
- Script: Thank You for Cooperating on Buyer Side
- Script: Thank You for Cooperating on Listing Side
- Script: Real Estate School and New Licensees
- Workbook: Setting Recruiting Appointments
- Video: Setting Appointments
- Script: Let’s Talk About Your Production
- Script: Provide a Production Report
- Script: After Closed Transactions #1
- Script: After Closed Transactions #2
- Script: When Recruit is Referred by One of Your Own Agents
- Script: When Recruit is Referred to the Recruiter
- Script: For a New Brokerage or New Recruiter
- Script: Looking to Build Relationships
- Script: Referred by Agent After Transaction
- Script: Students from Real Estate Licensing School
- Script: For Rookie Agents in Their First Year
- Script: For Up-and-Coming Agents
- Script: Increased Market Presence
- Script: Invitation to Class or Training Event
- Script: Invitation to Participate on Agent Panel
- Script: Confirming Recruiting Appointments
- Script: Objection Handler – Not interested in moving companies
- Script: Objection Handlers – I’m too busy #1
- Script: Objection Handlers – I’m too busy #2
- Script: Objection Handlers – Happy with current company
- Script: Objection Handlers – I need to wait until my transactions close
- Script: Objection Handlers – Let me think about it
- Recruiting: Scripts E-book
- Workbook: Conducting Recruiting Appointments
- Podcast Episode 196: Real Estate Recruiting Scripts – Conducting the Appointment
- Video: Conducting Appointments
- Script: The Recruiting Process
- Workbook: Setting Follow-Up Appointments
- Video: Setting Follow-Up Appointments
- Natural DISC Profile Business Generation Tendencies
- Script: Attend a Class or Training Event
- Script: Behavioral Assessment
- Script: Set a Coaching Appointment
- Script: Create a Business Plan
- Workbook: Closing recruits
- Video: Closing Recruits
- Agent Intake Pipeline
- Scripts: Closing and Objection-Handling
- Script: When, Not If
- Script: They Can’t Say No to Their Own Goals
- Script: Delay Causes Resentment
- Script: Commission Split
- Script: You Need Our Systems
- Script: Start Transitioning Ahead of Time
- Script: Can Your Broker Help?
- Script: Prepping the Broker Conversation
- Script: Transferring Current Business
- Workbook: Creating a Growth Environment for Recruiting
- Video: Creating a Growth Environment for Recruiting
- Graphic: Characteristics of a Growth Environment
- Graphic: DISC style identification
- Graphic: SWOT
- Real Estate Office Brokerage Training Monthly Calendar
About this course
- $299
- 82 lessons
- 5 hours of video content
Immediate Takeaways
Here is what you can expect to gain from taking this online course.
- SCRIPTS for recruiting. Congratulations & Production Report Script, Expanding into Your Area Script, New Listing Script, Thank You for Cooperating on Buyer Side Script, Thank You for Cooperating on Listing Side Script, Real Estate School and New Licensees Script, Objection Handlers, and many more
- RESOURCES to help you recruit effectively. Sample Weekly Calendar, Sample Recruiter Dashboard, Recruiting Tools, Recruiting Scoreboard, Agent Intake Pipeline
- HELPFUL GRAPHICS to illustrate takeaway points and reinforce learning. DISC Behavioral Assessment, DISC Profiles, The Big 5, 10-10-5 Daily Plan, DISC Style Identification, Characteristics of a Growth Environment, SWOT
- OPTIONS for how you learn best. Each module provides a downloadable PDF chapter as well as a featured video of Brian Icenhower, teaching the topic at hand. At the beginning of the course, you are also provided with a full audiobook to listen to. So however you learn best -- we have an option for you!
Certification & Designation Upon Completion
In this ICT online course, you will receive an official designation of "Certified Recruiting Director" or CRD upon completion, as well as a downloadable (and printable) Certificate of Completion. Add your designation seal, as well as your designation letters, to your email signature to bolster your reputation and show off your expertise to clients and colleagues alike.
Reviews
"I use ICT systems, the Icenhower Institute, and the coaching program to coach and train my team of over 30 agents. I use the ICT dashboard systems to keep my entire team accountable for their activities and set proper expectations."
Jake Rockwell
Over 500 Units Sold Annually
"I have coached with ICT for over five years. ICT has helped me quadruple my luxury business through marketing strategies so that I receive listings and sales through lead generation and multiple pillars of income."
Dennis Adelpour
Luxury Agent - West Los Angeles
"When we started coaching with ICT we worked all the time with some degree of success. Now, seven years later, we have grown to have the #1 market share in our area, we more than tripled our income and production, while also improving our work-life balance to enjoy our personal life with family and friends."
Tammi Humphrey
#1 Market Share & 100 Million in Annual Sales Volume
InstructorBrian Icenhower.
If your business isn't growing then it's dying.
To attract agents to your real estate team or brokerage, you must evidence your ability to increase their productivity and help them sell more real estate.
In his most important work to date, veteran coach and real estate consultant, Brian Icenhower, shares the systems and strategies he used to build some of the fastest growing real estate companies in the United States.
Recruiting is the single most valuable skillset in real estate and the linchpin of all successful real estate businesses. To exponentially and sustainably increase the net profit of your real estate business, it is essential that you operate a committed and systematic recruitment practice.
From sourcing recruits and recruiting with technology to setting, conducting, and closing recruiting appointments, this exhaustive course provides invaluable insights and practical instruction for creating a production-centric growth environment that attracts agents to your real estate team or brokerage.
With our consultative approach, recruits guide agents to a place where they self-discover that the best way to sell more real estate, become more successful, and increase their net income is by joining your team or company.
We know not everyone learns the same way. For that reason, this course has videos, text modules, and a full audiobook. In addition, the text and audiobook are downloadable so you can keep this information for life, and take it with you wherever you go.
Build a recruiting system that drives long-term growth for your team or brokerage.
Enroll in Recruit: Recruiting Real Estate Agents (ICT) to master the models, dialogues, and systems top leaders use to attract and retain exceptional talent. Learn how to fill your pipeline with qualified prospects and grow your organization strategically.
Start building your recruiting pipeline today. Add to CartRecruiting for Real Estate Agents
More about this real estate training course
Talk to a coach
If you've been considering hiring a coach, now's the time. Book a FREE coaching consultation session with your purchase of this course! Book Your Call
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Brokerage / Corporate Coaching Program
With the Brokerage / Corporate Real Estate Coaching Program, ICT will help firms set up the most effective and efficient systems for recruiting, agent onboarding, commission & fee structures, agent engagement & retention systems, recruiting, administrative work-flows, transaction management, staff hiring, agent onboarding, productivity training & accountability, financials & budgeting, marketing and much more!
How the Agent Management Portal Changes Everything
Here’s where the game shifts. In the past, staying in relationship with 30 or 50 prospects meant I had to personally deliver coaching content, meeting after meeting. A few tips here, a few tools there. The problem is, they can get tips and tricks anywhere — YouTube, conferences, social media. You become just one more voice in the noise.
What you need to demonstrate is something different. You need to show them entire systems.
That’s exactly what our clients are doing with the Agent Management Portal (AMP). Instead of just talking about how they can help agents grow, they’re sending prospects a single course link and inviting them to get inside and start learning. Then they can see exactly where that agent is in the course — which modules they’ve completed, where they’re getting stuck — and use that as a natural follow-up trigger.
“Hey, I see you got through the first five modules of the SOI course. Want to sit down and talk about implementation?”
That one question turns a recruiting conversation into a coaching relationship. And that’s when experienced agents start to open up.
Here are the courses our clients rely on most for this approach:
- DISC Assessment — Start here. It’s a short, engaging course, and the debrief conversation is incredibly valuable. You can show them which lead generation methods fit their behavioral profile, and they’ve almost never had that conversation before.
- Sphere of Influence — Less than 2% of agents have a real database plan. This course fills that gap immediately.
- Geographic Farming — For agents looking to build a local brand or move into a target neighborhood. Most think farming is just mailers. This course shows them the full digital strategy too.
- Team Lead Management / Growth Operations — For team leaders who are running their business without real structure. This one will blow their mind.
Run the Training in Your Office — And Invite Your Recruits
Take it one step further. Run live training sessions in your office using the student materials, slides, and instructor manual. Teach one module. Then hold a mastermind conversation around it. And invite your recruiting prospects to attend.
Now they’re not just hearing about what your office does — they’re seeing it. They’re sitting in the room. They’re watching agents engage with real coaching content. And they’re thinking: This isn’t happening at my current brokerage.
That’s the moment the gap becomes real for them.
Be Patient. Trust the System.
The number one mistake brokers and team leaders make when learning how to recruit experienced agents is focusing too much on how many agents they’re getting to move, instead of focusing on whether they’re having the appointments and doing the follow-ups.
Work the system. Stay in relationship. Demonstrate value. Keep people moving through courses that are directly relevant to their goals. The agents will come — and when they do, they’re coming for the right reasons.
That’s what builds culture. That’s what builds a business.
Want more recruiting strategies that actually work? Subscribe to The Brian Icenhower Podcast, follow ICT on YouTube, or reach out to our team at Icenhower Coaching & Training to learn how we help broker/owners and team leaders build recruiting systems that compound over time.
Click below for a free coaching call with an ICT coach.
Video Transcript
Prefer to read along? Here’s the full transcript from this training video.
I want to talk to you about a recruiting method that a lot of our clients are using very well. I really like the mindset around it.
They’re implementing our Agent Management Portal — our AMP — at a really high level, and they’re using it to target experienced agents. I’m excited about it because, quite frankly, for the last 15 years of me running brokerages, I was always out there saying, “Hey, if you come to our brokerage, you’ll sell more real estate.” But the brokerages got so big that I really wasn’t delivering on that promise. I was just trying my best to manage the top ones and coach them forward. But when you’ve got 400 or 500 agents, it’s tough.
So internally I really wanted this — and I wanted it externally too. I wanted to be able to use it to recruit, because it was very hard for me to demonstrate value over time. And when you’re recruiting experienced agents, it’s very different from recruiting low-producing or brand new licensees.
You almost have to treat the MLS population of agents like a sphere of influence. With a sphere of influence, you stay in relationship over time to demonstrate value, so that when they’re ready to buy or sell real estate, they raise their hand to you. With recruiting top agents, it really needs to be treated the same way.
If you just call someone in your SOI and say, “Hey, are you ready to buy or sell?” you’re going to start to poison the well. Recruiters that do that run into trouble in a big way. They look at recruiting new licensees, low producers, or unhappy agents the same as they look at experienced agents. So they’re not patient. They get into meetings and in the very first conversation, they’re talking about commission structure — maybe even comparing it to what the agent is already on.
When you do that, you attract scarcity-based agents. They’re coming to you because you’re maybe $5,000 cheaper a year. Versus getting an agent to come to you because you’re going to help them sell more real estate — because they want to make $100,000 more a year. Now you’ve got abundance-based agents, which really improves culture.
The quickest way to improve culture is to recruit and bring in abundance-based, experienced agents. The social proof of experienced agents publicly choosing your office changes your office. People don’t look at it the same anymore. Agents that have been around for a while — that have influence, that have been active on social media — people respect their decisions. Agents that sell eight to fifteen units and have been in the business for ten or fifteen years — you can really help those people.
So how do you demonstrate that you can help them when you yourself are not a coaching guru? How do you get people to lower their ego, get vulnerable, and actually admit you could help them? It takes time and patience.
The process I talk about all the time is the needs analysis. That’s usually my first appointment. It’s a four-step process.
Step one is their past. Find out everything about them — where they went to school, every company they’ve been at, what they liked about each one, what they didn’t like, and why they ultimately left. You’ll learn everything about their priorities. This can take an entire meeting. I’m fine with that. I promised not to talk about my brokerage to get the appointment, so I don’t break that promise. I’m just getting to know them.
Step two is their present. Ask them to rate their current business on a scale of one to ten, with ten being career utopia — they’ve maxed out every bit of their potential. If they give you a five or a six, ask what’s missing. Listen. Write it down like a coach would. For most agents, it’s more business. For a solo agent selling thirty to forty units, it might be more free time. You’ve probably learned what’s in front of you during the past conversation.
Here’s something important: in any given association of realtors, less than 2% of agents have their sphere of influence in a CRM with contact information and any type of database plan set up. It’s probably less than 2%. Almost every agent needs help there. Please do not underestimate your value.
Step three is future pleasure. Take them forward five, ten, or twenty years depending on their age. Ask where they want to be. Ask how it would make them feel. Would they buy investment properties? Travel more? Get out of production? The bigger they dream, the more deliverables you have to help them get there. People get very motivated when they have something to look forward to.
Step four is future pain. What happens if they don’t change anything? This is where they get real. I want them to feel it. And I make it very clear — this is me coaching them to sell more real estate at their current brokerage. I’m not recruiting them. I’ll even tell them: most agents move companies three or four times in their career, and that might be five or twenty years from now. I don’t care. I’m building a relationship.
Back in the day, I had to personally deliver coaching content to stay in relationship with prospects. A few tips here, a few tools there. The problem is, they can get tips and tricks everywhere — YouTube, conferences, social media. You’re just one more voice. You need to demonstrate entire systems.
That’s what our clients are doing with the AMP. They’ve got one client right now in constant relationship with fifty different agents in the MLS, and she’s getting roughly one experienced agent joining per week. Here’s what they do: they send a single course link. “Do you use a CRM? Do you stay in contact with your sphere?” Then they send the SOI course.
Now they can log in and see them getting through modules between meetings. Maybe they complete the first five modules — which cover how to put a sphere of influence together in a CRM, set up action plans, all of that. Then the broker reaches out: “How are you liking it? Want to sit down and talk about implementation?” That turns a recruiting conversation into a coaching relationship.
You can do this with any course. A forty-unit producer — get them through our agent financials course, our business planning course, our DISC assessment. A team leader without real structure — the team lead management and growth operations courses will blow their mind.
The go-to courses our clients rely on most are: DISC assessment first, because the debrief conversation is incredibly valuable and no one has ever shown them which lead generation methods fit their behavioral profile. Then sphere of influence, because almost no one has it set up properly. And geographic farming third, because most agents think it’s just mailers — and you can show them the full digital strategy too.
Take it one step further — run live trainings in your office using the student materials and slides, and invite your recruiting prospects to attend. Now they’re not just hearing about what you do. They’re seeing it in action. And they’re thinking, “This isn’t happening at my current brokerage.”
The biggest mistake I see in recruiting is being too focused on how many agents are coming over, instead of focusing on whether you’re having the appointments and doing the follow-ups. Work the system. Trust it will come — just like an SOI. It really works if you run the system and stay patient.
