Yesterday, we learned that active recruiting prospects are usually preferable to passive recruiting prospects. Why? According to researchers, it takes money to dislodge a passive prospect—you must “make them unhappy” with their current broker by what you’re offering. On the other hand, active prospects are already thinking about leaving and will consider options that address the unique problems they’re trying to solve. So, how do you tell if an agent is an active prospect? 1. Look at their data. When the data profile of an agent changes, they may become active. Things like a significant drop in production, crossing certain benchmarks (time and production), and organizational and management changes tell you an agent may be looking. There are lots of great tools on the market that can help alert you of these types of changes in an agent’s profile. 2. Just ask. Simple questions can get an agent to reveal their status. Have you thought about changing brokerages, or are you at your forever brokerage? Most agents change brokerages three or four times during their careers as they grow. When do you see your next change happening? It’s worth spending some effort assessing prospects before dedicating energy to more time-consuming recruiting tasks. Your chances of success increase when the prospect is already leaning towards making a change.