Very often, team leaders tell me they started their teams and made so many mistakes in the beginning. Fast forward and they are trying to scale and grow, and it might not be happening fast enough or happening at all.
Take inventory of your leadership style and your priorities. How are you leading? Are you managing or leading? Are you spending your time on the right things to shift and grow? Do you have a positive mindset and attitude or are you stressed all the time? Are you doing too much yourself? Are you selling more than your agents?
All these scenarios exist but one thing is for sure, if you want solid, year-after-year meteoric growth of your real estate team, you must employ these winning behaviors and make necessary changes to the way you manage and lead.
If you are a team leader facing the challenges of growing, the good news is you’re not alone. We see this all the time, and there are some things you can do immediately that will create many opportunities.
Once you have done a SWOT—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats—assessment of your company, implement the following strategies to help coach your team members toward more successful appointments and increased listings, sales and income for all.
1. Have a strategy plan for growth. Having a clear plan of what you want to accomplish and achieve will help you get there faster. Writing it down and having monthly, quarterly and annual benchmark goals will also help. Most agents don’t have a written strategy plan for growth and end up running their businesses more reactively than proactively, which results in chaos and the agent spending way too much time in the business rather than working on their business.
2. Define the structure. Communicate everyone’s roles and responsibilities. If you haven’t defined the structure of your team, you need to do this sooner than later. Everyone on the team needs to know the roles and responsibilities of each team member. Clear understanding of this makes your team work amazingly effective together for optimal results. Each person knows what they own and how their talents add value to the team.
3. Hire people that are smarter than you. Hiring talented team members should be on purpose and strategic. Intentionally hiring people that are smarter than you in areas you are not skilled is not only smart on your part, but also shows humility and that you realize you don’t know, or claim to know, everything. Hiring talent brings more ideas and outside perspective which helps you be more innovative and creative and increases opportunities for all.
4. Delegate. Delegate. Delegate. To scale your business, you must be able to let go of some major tasks and job responsibilities that you are used to doing to someone else This will allow you to achieve more in less time. Delegating literally leverages your time and allows you to achieve more in a shorter amount of time allowing you to scale. A lot of successful agent team leaders have a very hard time letting go of all the tasks, thinking they are the only one that can perform it. It will be impossible to scale if you cannot delegate. You will be stuck believing you are the only one that can perform certain tasks, and this belief will keep you from being able to scale your team. Write down everything you do and what you love and loathe. This will help you start to delegate and offload the items you can’t do because of time or don’t want to do as a matter of freeing up your time to manage or go on more appointments.
5. Implement a repeatable and scalable system. Anything you do more than once needs to become a repeatable and duplicatable. Creating systems creates higher efficiencies and creates a much better client experience for everyone. Checklists online or offline allow for consistent work at every stage of the services you offer. Most agents just want to list and sell, but if you intend to scale, having a system is a requirement for growth. You will be thrilled at the amount of output that is performed and you will have more time for either more leadership tasks, more appointments or more personal time.
6. Lead by example. Everyone on your team needs your direction and a team structure to thrive. Your example will create the culture you are looking to have that sets the tone for everything you accomplish. If you are still prospecting daily or several times a week, this shows the rest of your team that you are doing what you ask of them. Your leadership sets the tone and will help create a successful, thriving and scalable team model.
Your ability to master these six key methods for team leadership and direction will dramatically help scale your business quickly. All your goals can happen, and you can create wildly successful results in a short amount of time. Take the time to evaluate what you are doing effectively, what tasks you need to delegate, what systems exist or need to be created, who you may need to hire to fill a job position, and what you can do to lead by example to create the culture you desire that will help you scale your team.
To schedule your FREE, 30-minute strategy call with Sherri Johnson Coaching, visit www.sherrijohnson.com/event.
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With over 20 years of experience in real estate as an agent, broker, and executive, Johnson offers 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. Sherri has also been named a RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker in 2020 and 2021 as an Industry Influencer and Thought Leader. Visit www.sherrijohnson.com for more information.
