Real Estate Express recently published research on how agent income correlates to hours worked.
 
In the group of 8,914 agents they studied, they found that if an agent works…
 
Less than 20 hours/week, their average income is $44K
Works 21 – 39 hours/week, their average income is $73K
Works 40 – 50 hours/week, their average income is $113K
Works 51 – 59 hours/week, their average income is $143K
Works 60+ hours/week, their average income is $172K
 
Notice the distribution of income at the top two levels—20 extra hours of work/week produces an extra $70K – $100K in personal income!
 
What is an agent in this income group experiencing?
 
Most of them are satisfied with their income level, but are frustrated they must work so hard.
 
Would some of these agents be interested in exchanging a small percentage of their income for a reduction in their hours worked?  
 
For example, let’s suppose you’re earning $175K and working 60 hours per week. What if I could help you earn $150K, work 40 hours/week, and during those 40 hours allow you to focus on the tasks you really enjoy?
 
This is how recruiting niches work—they find and solve real problems that a group of agents are experiencing. 
 
There are dozens of recruiting niches available in your marketplace.  
 
But because it takes creativity and problem-solving energy to address such issues, most of them are unfilled.
 
It’s easier just to scream “We have better splits and can offer you leads!” like everyone else.

For the last few years, our friends at JPAR have conducted an industry-wide real estate survey for agents, teams, and brokers.

It’s great they’re collecting data and using it to try to improve their brokerage (and you should do the same), but they also generously share their insights each year with those who participated in the survey.

For example, here are a few things we learned last year:

1. There’s value in having a written business and marketing plan:

Agents with no written plan earned an average of $80K.
Agents with a written plan earned an average of $108K.

2. It’s hard to “go it alone” in your real estate business:

Agents not in a small accountability group earned an average of $77K.
Agents in a small accountability group earned an average of $110K.

3. Holding client events as an agent is an important marketing tool:

Agents who never do client events earned an average of $82K.
Agents who did three or more client events per year earned an average of $120K.

Would you like to contribute to this year’s survey?

If so, grab a cup of coffee and spend 10 minutes sharing your experiences from 2021.

After the survey information is compiled, I’ll again share some of the insights from the mastermind group who will be evaluating the data.

Take the Survey Now

I use password software connected to my identity theft protection service. It’s handy because it provides the correct password right when I’m ready to log-in to a particular site.
 
Life was good until a couple of weeks ago when this software vendor decided to put bright red exclamation points next to more than 50% of my passwords.
 
When I mouse over the exclamation point, I get the judgey message telling me my password is unacceptable, weak and should be changed. 
 
When I click the “more info” icon, I get a terse description of how to create a more acceptable password (that a human could possibly remember). 
 
I’m sure the software developer who made this change was well-intentioned, but the side effect of it has been negative.
 
Every time I use the software, I feel like I’m being told: You suck at creating passwords, and I’m not going to let you forget it!
 
As a recruiter or hiring manager, it’s important your messages don’t create the same feelings in your recruiting prospects.
 
If you’re frequently reminding prospects of how great your company is and implying they’ve made a poor choice in their career, they may experience your messages as criticism or judgement.
 
This is why being positive is often a precursor to change.  
 
Most of my passwords are pretty good and appropriate for the sites I use. If my software vendor told me this first, I would be much more open to changing the few that need updating.

According to social psychologist Amy Cuddy, there are two basic questions in a person’s mind when they meet you for the first time.
 
Can I trust you?  and  Can I respect you?
 
Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence respectively, and ideally you want to be perceived as having both.
 
Most people, especially in a professional context, believe that competence is the more important factor. After all, they want to prove that they are smart and talented enough to handle your business.
 
But researchers have found the opposite to be true–warmth is the most important factor in how people initially connect with you.
 
How do you spend the first few minutes of your interviews?
 
If you’re focused on competence, you’re probably starting off on the wrong foot, according to Dr. Cuddy.
 
If someone you’re trying to influence doesn’t trust you, you’re not going to get very far; in fact, you might even elicit suspicion because you come across as manipulative.
 
A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but only after you’ve established trust does your strength become a gift rather than a threat.
 
Helping someone change careers or find a better team is a gift, but that gift will only be received if a recruiting prospect trusts and respects you as a hiring manager.

When talking with a recruiting prospect, it’s easy to get drawn into a tit-for-tat feature dialog.
 
Does your office provide leads? What technology resources do you provide? What transaction management resources do you provide?
 
These exchanges rarely turn out well because there’s always someone ready to undercut you with features that are similar to what you’re offering.
 
In a recent post, Seth Godin explains why high-performing organizations don’t play this game.
 
Benchmarking involves looking at every element of what you offer and comparing it to the very best element of any of your competitors.
 
So your door handle is as good as the Audi’s, and your brake pedal is as good as the Volvo’s and…
 
It’s pretty tempting to do this. Who wants any element of what they do to be inferior to a competitor’s?
 
And yet, that’s almost never what makes something remarkable.
 
So, what do you do instead? 
 
What makes something remarkable is a combination of its internal synergy—the parts work together as a coherent whole—and its imbalance.
 
Something about it is worth talking about. Something about it is hard to find. Something about it helps us achieve our goals if we talk about it.
 
Agents will rarely talk about their feature list to a competitive agent.
 
But, they will talk about how much they love their office, love their manager, and love what they’re accomplishing by working with you and their high-performing peers.
 
It’s the buzz of an office that attracts prospects and makes them ask: I wonder what it’s like to work on their team?

At its core, good recruiting is about helping people improve.
 
It’s a message of hope: Join my team and your life will get better. 
 
Here’s the problem: Most people are defensive when they hear a self-improvement message.
 
Why? Researchers at Penn say it’s related to self-image.
 
People are generally, fundamentally, motivated to feel good about themselves. And they’ll fight against these threats to maintain this kind of positive outlook.
 
When you say: Let me help you.
 
They think: I don’t have problems, why are you trying to help me?
 
To sidestep this relational pothole, the researchers suggest priming the requests for change with preliminary messages of kindness and compassion.
 
They found that sending someone a simple “Hope you’re having a great day!” text in the morning causes the recipient to be much more open to the self-improvement requests later in the day.
 
This happens because it puts the recipients of your messages into a transcendent state of mind.
 
…when we’re feeling more transcendent, our defensiveness fades away and we’re more likely to act on good advice.
 
The messages of kindness and compassion include topics such as gratitude (I appreciate this about you), noticing others (I like this about you), and consideration (I hope this works out for you).
 
Take the time to prime the recruiting pump and your results will improve.

In a long post from the archive, Matthew Perman explains why attempting to fill your calendar and task list to the brim with productive tasks is a mistake.
 
Researchers have found that whenever most systems—such as airports, freeways, and other such things—exceed about 90 percent of capacity, efficiency drops massively. This is called the ringing effect.
 
The same is true if you try to over-systematize your day-to-day work.
 
How do you avoid this trap? Perman has lots of great suggestions. Here are two of the ones I found most helpful:
 
Only schedule/plan tasks to 75% capacity. This is backwards to how I think, but planning less may result in accomplishing more. 
 
This acknowledges the reality that unexpected events happen, and they’ll impact even the best plans. For sure, this will help you accomplish more of the right things because at least those items will be on your schedules.
 
See your schedule as a time allotment of your roles. Each of us has roles we consider important in our lives—both personal and professional (ex. recruiter, coach, spouse, parent, etc.). Most people have 7 to 10 important roles in their lives.
 
If your schedule becomes a description of these roles, we can divide our week into time zones each representing the important responsibilities in our lives.
 
For example, if coaching agents is one of your roles you might want to create Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 1pm to 4pm as your coaching time zone for this role. Focus all your coaching activities and tasks into this time zone (don’t pack it too full) and focus on other tasks during other time zones.
 
These time management best practices you can personally start implementing right away.  
 
Also, coach your agents to approach their schedules in the same manner—you might find everyone in your office is a lot more productive.

It’s part of human nature to want to be noticed by those around you.
 
As you know, much of social media plays on the dark side of this natural tendency.
 
Everyone seems to be screaming “notice me!” and then measuring how much attention they’re garnering.
 
The most successful hiring managers reverse this “wanting to be noticed” propensity.
 
Rather than turning up the volume and joining in the “notice me” noise (look at my office culture, look at my high performers, look at my training, etc.), become the person who goes out of your way to notice others.
 
Why does this work?
 
The most obvious reason is there’s not much competition for this role.
 
But more importantly, being noticed compels others to like you, trust you, and want to do business with you.
 
Start with simple stuff like: I noticed you were on time for our appointment—that’s really professional.
 
And then get more business specific: I noticed you closed four transactions in one month last year—how were you able to make that happen?
 
If you spend the extra time and attention it takes to notice others, you’ll be rewarded with close professional relationships.
 
It’s a great way to build a database of recruiting prospects who know and trust you.

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear Anthony Lamacchia share some of his recruiting wisdom during a breakout session at the LeadingRE annual conference.Here are the three most insightful things I took away from his talk:
 
When you educate, you attract. Recruiting prospects naturally back away when they’re approached with a promotional message. Counter this by being a giver and having an abundance mentality.  
 
Yes, a few agents are going to take your secrets, apply them, and experience success. Good for them. But most prospects are going to need your help, and there are plenty of them available to recruit.
 
What agents want differs based on transaction volume. Here is a rule-of-thumb to keep in mind:
 
When an agent is doing 1 – 10 transactions per year, they generally want training and leads. When an agent is doing 10 – 20 transactions per year, they are more interested in services and support. Agents above 20 transactions per year are difficult to dislodge without writing a check.
 
Business development, not recruiting. Since most successful new agents are growing more than 40% a year, they’re focused on their personal business development. Anthony calls this recruiting group the Business Development Group because it better matches the interests of his prospects.
 
Getting heard is a lot about making the small tweaks necessary to break-through the defenses of agents who are constantly bombarded with recruiting messages.
 
Try implementing these techniques to get your message above the noise.

Hiring managers and recruiters seem to struggle most at two points in the recruiting process.
 
The first sticking point is what to say to get the initial conversation going.
 
The next hurdle is restarting a conversation with someone in your pipeline who you haven’t spoken to in a while.
 
Here is a texting script I shared a couple of years ago that can be used to break the ice in either situation:
 
Hey {insert name}, you just popped up in my head, so I figured I should say hello and check-in. How are things? How is {a struggle, a common problem, a goal, etc.} working out for you? Anything you need right now? Hope you’re well, but if there are any little or big stresses I can help with, let me know.
 
You can change it up so it doesn’t sound too repetitive/canned, but the basic structure, flow, and general content can be reused frequently.
 
It’s common for a recruiting dialog to get stalled at various points in the hiring process.
 
This is a great way to restart the conversation when you hit a lull.

Oh, how the tables have turned.
 
For decades, traditional companies had the upper hand in the employment marketplace.
 
Stable salaries, lucrative benefits, and ingenious corporate perks lured the best and the brightest to conventional companies.
 
While the so-called Great Resignation has hindered hiring and retention efforts across all industries, an unlikely contender has emerged as the leader of workplace satisfaction according to a recent LinkedIn employment survey.
 
In today’s fidgety, anxious economy, is anyone actually feeling well-settled in their current work situation?
 
If there’s an island of contentment right now, it’s probably in real estate, where 54% of respondents say they plan or hope to be in their current jobs in six months. Only 12% say they plan or hope to make a switch.
 
This is good news and something you should weave into your discussions with both your recruiting prospects and your existing agents.
 
By nature, humans will always feel some anxiety about their employment choices. 
 
It’s your job to calm this anxiety and help them recognize realty.
 
And reality is this—the real estate industry is a pretty good place to be right now.

Many team leaders and single office brokerages must make a transition from sales to leadership.

While many of a high-performer’s sales skills do transition to leadership positions, there are some predictable blind spots.

In a post from the archive, tech columnist Geoffrey James relates this transition to a start-up scaling their operation.

Here is some of Geoff’s advice that applies to aspiring real estate leaders who are attempting to scale their teams.

Fighting fires rather than scaling up. New leaders have a tendency to focus on crises: service issues, customer issues, agent drama, and, of course, running out of money. They forget a team can’t possibly grow and succeed unless they make a commitment to recruit.

What to do: Put aside at least five hours a week for recruiting and interviewing candidates, even if you’re not currently hiring. Ideally, you want a pipeline of potential hires whenever you need to add staff or agents.

For a team to grow, everyone on the team must level-up every 12 months. That’s only possible if the owner helps them understand the new skills and behaviors they’ll need to grow themselves as the company grows.

What to do: Think of coaching as an investment in time management. Yes, it takes longer to coach somebody to do a task than to do it yourself. Once you’ve trained somebody, though, that task leaves your to-do list, creating time to do those things that only you can do.

Failing to plan for setbacks. Even the best-run teams encounter problems. If you’re not prepared to deal with them, even a small hiccup can derail your ambitious plans.

What to do: Work with your coach or mentor to create contingency plans, in case there are recruiting delays, slower-than-expected sales cycles, departures of key personnel, and other operational disruptions.

I’ve heard hundreds of times: Great salespeople don’t make great leaders.  

It’s not true if you can see and address the most common blind spots.

Most real estate recruiters and hiring managers view recruiting as a transaction.

This only makes sense–we get a great sense of satisfaction (and usually a compensation bonus too) from bringing someone across the finish line.

Unfortunately, your recruiting prospects are experiencing something different. They spend 90% of their time contemplating and preparing to make this significant life change.

If you approach everyone with a transaction mentality, most of your interactions are going to feel awkward, forced, and unwelcome.

Here’s a better way.

Start categorizing your interactions into one of three stages:

Building Awareness (Marketing): The recruiting prospect is just learning who you are and whether you can be trusted.

Career Counseling /Problem Solving (Nurturing):  The recruiting prospect is willing to take your advice and share openly about his/her problems and concerns.

Closing the Hire (Selling): The recruiting prospect is ready to make a commitment, and he/she is actively considering options from you and other companies.

If you know where a person is in the recruiting process, you’ll be better equipped to customize your message to meet their needs and expectations.

When a person feels understood, friction is reduced and communication flows more freely.

Stephen Covey reminds us that the best negotiations culminate in a win-win agreement.

The best hiring managers and recruiters approach their prospects with the same mindset.

It’s irresponsible and lazy to give everything away just to get a high-potential candidate to join your team.

Today’s win turns into tomorrow’s loss when you and your organization suffer from the long-term consequences of an inequitable hiring deal.

The same is true for your recruiting prospects.

When they accept an unfair offer and later find out they were cheated, they become disgruntled and leave.

So, the takeaway is simple: Insist on a win-win agreement before bringing someone onboard.

But the reality of structuring deals that are truly win-win is not so simple, and it’s why successful recruiters frequently play the “no-deal card.”

It takes lots of opportunities to find the right match.

And this is what makes recruiting so difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

But when a great match is found, the payoff is substantial for both you and your new hire.

Since I’ll be attending a conference in Las Vegas later this week, I thought it might be a good time to talk about recruiting odds.
 
A couple of years ago Jobvite published a recruiting benchmark report that synopsized the employment behaviors of more than 50 million jobseekers. Here is some of what was discovered:
 
For a paid job ad, it takes about 18 clicks (someone reading your ad) to get one application.
 
If you have a career site, website visitors will typically need to visit/interact with 6 pages before completing an application.
 
You’ll need to capture about 8 applications in order to schedule one interview.
 
It will take about 4 interviews to get one hire.
 
The overall top-to-bottom conversion (any contact on the “top” to a hire on the “bottom”) is 0.56% (178 contacts to 1 hire).
 
The average time to hire is 38 days.
 
While this data was collected across all industries, there are some insights that do apply to real estate hiring.
 
Attracting the attention of prospects can be complex and expensive. There are many companies competing for the attention of talented individuals in all industries.
 
Applications/Inquiries are valuable. If someone figuratively “raises their hand” and wants to talk to you about working in real estate, focus quickly on this opportunity.
 
Continue to be selective in the interview. The interview to hire percentage is remarkably stable for hiring managers who are selective. If you want more hires, do more interviews.
 
Build a pipeline. Hiring takes time. You must work today to get something tomorrow.
 
Successful hiring managers don’t try to beat the odds. They understand the odds and play enough to win in spite of them.