Yesterday, we learned there are lots of benefits to onboarding—both for you and your new hires.

These benefits can be further enhanced when you focus on the strategic objectives for real estate onboarding.

Experiencing Quick Success. Most people get into real estate with high hopes. When those hopes are not met, anxiety starts to creep into their minds.

Gaining a sense of accomplishment is the antidote for this anxiety.

While closing a transaction takes time, accomplishing many of the steps leading to a closing can happen sooner.

Break the process down into small steps and give the newbie a way to demonstrate some early successes.

Connecting with Others on Your Team. People connect with the team when they connect with individuals on the team.

Setting up a team lunch or after-work event when a new hire comes onboard is common practice.

Take it a step further by arranging onboarding tasks and training with different members of the team.

Shared experiences are the seeds of loyalty, so plant as many as possible.

Onboarding is the afterthought of the recruiting process that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Researchers have uncovered how poorly most organizations perform this function and the negative affect it has on hiring.

-Over 20% of companies have no formal onboarding program.

-Almost 40% of organizations have onboarding programs lasting less than a month.

-60% of companies fail to set goals for their new hires.

And yet, the connection between proactive onboarding and positive outcomes is well established.

-New hires who go through a structured onboarding program are 58% more likely to be with the organization three years later.

-20% of turnover happens in the first 45 days.

-Companies with a standardized onboarding program experience 50% greater retention.

Do you have a structured onboarding program for your team? If so, are you proud of your program?

Onboarding is one of the business functions where even a small investment will produce a measurable return.

Tracy Dunne of Comey and Shepherd recently shared a phone script she uses to connect with competitive agents who are referred to her.

Hi Sarah!

This is Tracy Dunne from Comey and Shepherd. Each week I ask one of my agents who they’ve recently connected with that displays an exceptional level of professionalism and seems to align with how our company does business.

This week I was chatting with Anne Smith and she said: “You should reach out to Sarah Hyland she’s the best agent I’ve worked with this year.”

So, I wanted to connect with you and share how highly regarded you are by your peers and thank you for being the kind of agent that makes our industry look good!

====
[if you’re leaving a message]

When you have a minute, please give me a call back. I promise it won’t be a hard-core recruiting call–just a professional connection to someone who admires the work you’re doing.

When she catches an agent live, this script sets the tone of a respectful and mutually beneficial conversation.

And when she leaves a voicemail with this script, she gets a high percentage of callbacks.

Try it out and see if you’re able to engage more prospects.

Recruiting starts with a conversation. Conversations lead to appointments. Appointments lead to hires.

Tracy: Thanks for sharing your expertise with the rest of the Insight readers.

I have a high opinion of Microsoft.

It’s one of the highest valued companies in the world, and it underwent a remarkable turnaround since Satya Nadella took over the company in 2014.

Until last week, they seemed almost invincible.

What changed? I interacted with the technical support group of Office 365 (a service I’ve used for almost 10 years).

I got locked out of one of my accounts due to a malfunction in their texting service that sends verification codes.

After several conversations and email exchanges with their support group, I got back this message from a technical support representative:

Our Data Protection Team is currently working through a 2000+ ticket backlog.

I have some customers who have been waiting over 20 days to have their issues resolved.

I’m on day 13 right now, and it’s still not resolved.

I wasn’t in the market for a new email service in early March, but I am now.

Here’s the recruiting lesson in this story.

Things are always changing and sometimes they change quickly. Your best competitors may be performing at a high level today and then stumble in a profound way tomorrow.

High performing recruiters know that consistent prospecting is the best way to access the health of your competitors.

When they uncover trouble, it also puts them first in line to exploit the cracks that are  just starting to develop.

Over the weekend, a friend told me about his recent whale-watching trip near Camano Island (this island is about an hour north of Seattle).

Gray whales make a stop in Puget Sound this time of year before finishing their annual migration to Alaska.

One of the reasons they stop is to eat the ghost shrimp that populate the shallow water near the shores of the various islands in the area.

The technique they use to “fish” for shrimp is incredibly innovative.

These huge whales come into shallow water, turn on their sides, and use a side fin to stir up the bottom of the sea.

Once all the bottom creatures are dislodged, they circle back around and filter the nutrient-rich water through their baleen.

While doing this, the opposite fin to the one being used to stir up the bottom sticks up out of the water and waves at bystanders on the beach! Here is a great video of a recent siting (just watch 1:00 – 2:00).

Whales are experts at surviving, and they may have something to teach us about recruiting.

Lead generation is critical to survival. Whales can’t survive without eating. You can’t survive without a consistent flow of recruiting leads.

Leads become available through proactive work. Without some innovative work, the shrimp remain safely hidden in their crevices on the bottom. Recruiting prospects have to be dislodged, as well.

Take a page from the gray whales’ playbook and recognize you need to proactively generate leads to survive.

When Dave Brailsford took over the British cycling team in 2002, it had only been awarded one Olympic gold medal in the previous 76 years.

When originally applying for this leadership position, he was asked how he planned to turn around this poor performing program.

I’m going to apply the aggregation of marginal gains—we’re going to make a 1% improvement each day and let those changes compound into remarkable results.

Many doubted such a simple strategy would produce the results Brailsford hoped to achieve, but they gave him a chance anyway.

Did it work? Far more than anyone thought it would.

Brailsford’s initial goal was to win a Tour de France within five years. It only took him two years, and then they won 3 more times in the next 4 years.

At the following two Olympics (2008 and 2012), the British cycling team won gold medals in 70% of the biking competitions.

There is more to this story than I can cover here (here are a couple of extra resources to read or watch if you want to learn more), but the principle behind these remarkable achievements applies to recruiting.

To many of you, recruiting seems like a large and insurmountable mountain.

You don’t have a track record of success, your competitors are strong and more experienced, and you really don’t know where to start to solve the problem.

Try taking a page from Brailsford’s playbook by making a 1% improvement in how you execute one of your recruiting tasks today.

Make another 1% improvement tomorrow.

A habit is the brain’s decision-making shortcut – it gets actions started with the least amount of mental energy.

For humans, habits are essential because our brains would be overloaded and debilitated if we had to completely think through every decision.

To efficiently initiate a habit, the brain connects a “trigger event” to the habitual action.

For example, when we wake up in the morning, the surface of our teeth feels fuzzy (trigger event). To solve the problem, we automatically feel the need to brush our teeth (the habitual action).

For recruiting, let’s suppose you want to build the habit of making outbound recruiting calls for one hour a day.

A trigger event for building this habit could be simple things such as:

Schedule to make the calls at the same time every day.
Set a reminder on your phone alerting you it’s time to start your calls.
Shut your office door.

The goal is for the trigger event to cue you to automatically start the activity before rationalizations and distractions steal your time away.

In order for a positive change to take root, there must be a clear and compelling payoff for the person making the change.

“Compelling payoffs” come in two flavors—those that benefit you personally and those that benefit others.

Personal payoffs are often simple and straightforward:

I’ll earn $10,000 more if I meet my recruiting goals this year.

Payoffs that benefit others are more difficult to conceptualize, but more powerful:

I’ll be able to provide my daughter the wedding of her dreams if I meet my recruiting goals this year.

Research from various sources suggests the payoffs benefiting others are more effective at creating change.

When identifying your compelling payoff, keep in mind that it must be:

Well-defined. Here’s exactly what is going to happen if I make this change.

Time-related. Here’s the deadline for realizing the benefit.

What is the clear and compelling payoff of the change you’re trying to make?

According to BJ Fogg, Director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford, there are only three things that will change day-to-day behaviors in the long term:

1. Having an epiphany
2. Changing your environment (what surrounds you)
3. Making small changes

Of the three, the last option is the most practical—most everyone can start making small changes.

How small? Fogg suggests defining “micro-habits” that take less than 60 seconds to complete.

By first defining and finding success with a couple micro habits, you’re taking steps towards tackling a larger, more complex habit.

For recruiting, a micro-habit could be something as simple as sending an email to just one agent in your office each day asking for a recruiting referral.

“Hi Sarah, quick question–have you connected with any agents in the last 6 months that you think would fit our culture and make a good addition to our team? If anyone comes to mind, let me know and I’ll reach out. Thanks!”

Try developing a few micro-habits of your own and then let me know about your successes.

According to Tony Schwartz, the author of Be Excellent at Anything, habits control most of our lives.

Fully 95% of our behavior occurs out of habit, either unconsciously or in reaction to external demands.

We think we’re in charge of our lives, but we’re not.

If habits are truly this powerful, no doubt they’re affecting your daily recruiting activities.

What you’re choosing to do, what you’re not choosing to do, and what you’re avoiding all become habitual.

Powerful and prophetic, good habits equip you to perform at a high level and bad habits keep you stuck in mediocrity.

In a recent article, psychologist and author Benjamin Hardy reminded his readers of the importance of being in psychological flow to accomplish their best work.

Being in “flow” is crucial to high-performance and creativity. It’s crucial to being happy. It’s crucial to social connection.

How do you get in flow?

There are many “flow triggers,” such as being in various types of environments, having short deadlines, having high consequence for failure, etc.

And that’s having one outcome that you’re seeking at any given time.

This lack of a singular focus on recruiting (even for an hour a day) not only causes poor results, but it also makes recruiting a miserable experience.

The problem for most people is that, while they’re doing one thing, they’re also seeking other outcomes.

We can become accustomed to never being fully present, and rather than being where we are and accomplishing our one outcome, we get sucked into mental addictions.

High performing recruiters and hiring managers purpose to close out all distractions during their time blocks and focus on the singular outcome of accomplishing their recruiting metrics.

It’s the “flow trigger” that equips you to do your best work.

One of the best parts of my job is hearing about your wins.

I get updates from clients and Insight readers almost every day letting me know about the progress they’ve made, the obstacles they’ve overcome, and the new goals they’re setting to reach even higher.

For example, one of my favorite recruiters told me she’s hired 98 agents since the beginning of the year. What a remarkable accomplishment in just eight weeks!

If you’ve recently done something amazing–shoot me an email, and I’ll help you celebrate!

Today I’d like to turn the tables and give you an opportunity to help our ThirdPool team celebrate a major milestone.

Just over a year ago, we launched an innovative recruiting CRM called taTEXT. In the next couple of the days, one of our clients will be sending the one-millionth text message on the taTEXT platform.

To celebrate, this lucky (and productive) individual will receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card.

If you’re a taTEXT user, get busy texting your recruiting prospects so you can go shopping!

We’ve been discussing procrastination for the last few days. If you missed the previous posts on the topic, you may want to take a few minutes to catch up (previous Procrastination Insights 1, 2, and 3).

The Procrastination Equation states:

Your tendency to overcome procrastination = (Expectancy x Value) / (Delay x Impulsiveness)

The denominator of the equation veers away from economics into the psychological field of behaviorism.

It relates to what behaviorists call the Matching Law and accounts for the less rational contributors to motivation.

Its relationship to positive motivation is clear—time and distractions are killers.

This is why high performing recruiters and hiring managers break the recruiting process down into small chunks where small wins can be frequently recorded.

For example:

How many proactive outreaches to prospects did you accomplish?

What percentage of my trial closes for an appointment worked?

In essence, you turn recruiting into a fun game so delay and impulsiveness are constantly being minimized.

This keeps motivation high, limits procrastination, and sustains you during the seemingly long periods of time between hires.

Nothing’s more frustrating than executing the recruiting process flawlessly, and then seeing your new hire fail to launch and experience success on your team.

We call these failed hires, and they want to be avoided at all costs.

At ThirdPool, we define a failed hire as someone who joins the organization and leaves within 90 days.

It’s common for real estate companies to experience a failed hire rate of 25% or higher.

If you’re struggling with failed hires, there could be a number of factors contributing to the problem.

One issue worth addressing right away is the first impression your new hires experience on or shortly before their first day on the job.

Dr. John Sullivan documented some best practices for making the most of your new-hire first impressions.

Send them a thank-you note. Immediately thank them in writing for accepting your offer. Also reinforce the decision in that note by reminding them that they have chosen wisely by listing the factors that make your firm outstanding.

Introduce them to their mentor. This shows them you’ll be supportive from the start. Have the mentor make contact and begin helping the new hire on or before the first day.

These best practices demonstrate your positive belief in the new hire’s decision to join the team and increases the chances they’ll follow through on their commitment.

In a post from the archive, Dave Mashburn encourages hiring managers to view their trade like a professional baseball manager coaches a team.

There are at least 90 commonly used statistics in baseball.

This may sound a bit ridiculous, but exceptionally talented and deeply competitive baseball professionals enjoy this level of scrutiny.

It compels them to practice, find patterns, uncover weaknesses and improve.

Here are the top 6 reasons that professionals depend upon measurement:

They can’t set goals without it.

They can’t measure progress without it.

They can’t forecast results without it.

They can’t compare performance without it.

They can’t assess changes and fix problems without it.

They certainly can’t beat the competition without it.

Professionals know that without measurement there is no way for them to assess and improve the performance of a team or an individual.

As you head into the weekend, ask yourself:

What are you measuring in your recruiting process?

If you don’t have a clear and compelling answer to this question, you’re probably operating like an amateur.

And until this changes, you’ll continue to get amateur results.