Learn the 7×7 Communication Strategy for Dramatic Buy-In and Results!
Company tech tool adoption is a major challenge for brokers large and small, and getting your entire management and sales teams excited about new marketing tech tools you have made huge investments in can be a daunting and seemingly overwhelming task. Usually, companies are quick to announce their hottest, new “technology tool” to their agents to show they are investing in their success and there is great value in doing this; however, the implementation and communication plans to roll out these programs typically fall short, and company executives are left wondering why all their agents wanted this tool when hardly 10% are even using it.
Clearly, this is not good for many reasons. First of all, your agents are not benefiting from the value-add services that will actually help them convert more appointments into sales and, even worse you, have spent a lot of money and time on this new tool and are not getting any return on investment.
Increasing the communication plan by using the 7×7 Method of Communicating will help you gain more users, increase adoption, and generate the increased production and revenue you intended to create from purchasing and implementing the tool in the first place.
Implement these over-communication strategies for increased buy-in of your company tools:
Over-train your sales leadership team. The largest point of communication for your company’s new initiative lies within your management team and their ability or inability to communicate the value of the new product launch. Invest in the time and training to actually make sure your management team and staff know how to use the new product, the value it brings to the consumer and agent, and, most importantly, how they are going to communicate these benefits to the sales teams. When managers don’t understand how the tools work, they are not completely bought in and clearly cannot communicate the tool’s value to the agents effectively. When they know the product and can show the agents how to use the new tool to win more listings, attract and close more buyers, and increase their effectiveness in generating and converting leads into sales, then (and only then) will the agents want to use these tools.
Communicate seven times. People (mostly adults) learn and retain information differently, and with so many ways to communicate, important messages can go unread, unnoticed or, frankly, get deleted. How you write and how often your agents hear your messages absolutely matter. So the goal is to be a broken record—or put the message on loop/repeat because you want everyone in your company and in each office to know the tool exists, why it is beneficial for them to use it and, most importantly, you want them to know how to use it to increase their performance. Plan out seven different methods of how you will communicate your new initiative and its benefits, as well as when the training and coaching will take place. As an example, you can map out the pre-launch and launch plan in this way:
1. Announce at your sales meetings for months—yes, months!
2. Create a video where senior leadership is announcing this new initiative and email it out to your agents, sharing the tool, the benefits and how your agents will win more listings and sell more homes. This lets them know you are investing in their success.
3. Create three to four specific topic emails about this new initiative that are pre-planned to go out weekly.
4. Set up the specific training sessions both online and in-office and over communicate the invitations.
5. Post the new initiative in your company and/or office’s private Facebook groups.
6. Create a pop-up message on your company intranet site with details and a link to sign up for training
7. Go one-to-one with agents and ask them directly to sign up for the training sessions and get their buy-in. Your enthusiasm will be contagious, and they will want to get behind what you get behind.
It is so important to use strategic words that will help agents want to hear about, take the time to learn and see the value of how this new tech tool will actually help them sell more houses. Your messaging needs to convey that quickly and effectively. How you write your subject lines for email messaging matters and will directly affect your agent’s buy-in and adoption of all your initiatives. I specifically use phrases like “Join me this week to dramatically increase your listings in the next 30 days!” versus saying, “Training on Thursday.” Enthusiasm paired with the benefit of increased success will increase agents actually coming to your learning sessions and will result in more adoption of your tools.
Communicate in seven different ways. Remember, not everyone shows up for your sales meetings and so they will miss your announcement. Not everyone opens their emails and not everyone is going to see your Facebook post. So you have to have at least seven different ways that you are saying your message for it to resonate, get their attention and leave them interested and wanting more. They will now be inclined to learn about it, attend your training and coaching sessions, and literally use the technology.
Continuously train and coach the tools. Even after the initial roll-out of your new tools, it is so important to continue to reinforce the learning and the benefits from implementing the new tool, which include increasing agent’s successes in winning more listings and sales. Have the new tool on your agenda at sales meetings and continue to have workshops that actually show your agents how to use the tool to get maximum results.
Share success stories repeatedly. Once you have success stories within your office, start sharing those immediately and continue to share them for months and years over and over because people need to hear it over and over. They also need to be reminded of the success that others have had when implementing the tool. This adoption process will continue for months and years as more agents use the tools successfully.
“The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack.” This is so true for company adoption and building momentum and buy-in of your technology tools that you invest in to create the highest ROI for your bottom line. Creating and adding value should happen daily, not as a one-time announcement. Ask yourself as a leader, “Am I 100% bought in to these tools?”, “Do I know how to explain this tool to a buyer or seller effectively?” and “Do I over communicate our company and my personal value to my agents every day?” Doing so will not only result in more adoption of your corporate tech stack of tools you offer your agents, but will also create amazing results when your agents use them to differentiate their value to their clients, generating increased adoption of your company programs.
And it is not too late to re-launch a company initiative or program that you launched last year or two years ago that is still of great value and maybe isn’t getting used enough. All your tools can be trained (actually how to use it) and coached (showing them how to use it with clients and on appointments to win!) at any time. Get excited and watch your listings, sales and top line revenue increase! You will also increase retention and recruiting opportunities for your office as well!
For a free copy of my “Leadership Performance Skills Assessment” to help you increase your leadership and communication effectiveness, click here. For a free, 30-minute leadership strategy call, click here.
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 25 years of experience in real estate as an agent, broker and executive, Johnson now shares her proven methods through coaching, consulting and keynote speaking services nationwide. She is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour and is the Official Real Estate Coach for McKissock Learning and Real Estate Express. Johnson has also been named an RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker in 2020 and 2021 as an Influencer and Thought Leader. Schedule a free 30-minute coaching strategy session or visit www.sherrijohnson.com for more information.
