This time of year, our company sends out some Northwest holiday confections to our clients.

It’s a great way to celebrate the holiday season and thank those who have contributed to our success.

Then something strange happens.

Each year, a small group of owners/executives sends back a personal note (usually handwritten via traditional mail) thanking us for remembering them.

These quick notes have a powerful effect because they communicate thoughtfulness, genuine concern, and attention to detail.

Aren’t these the traits you’d want to communicate to those you’re trying to recruit?

A quick email, a text, and an occasional handwritten note will speak volumes to those in your recruiting funnel.

Try starting your notes with, I was thinking of you today….

Writing a few sentences doesn’t take much time, and it pays a remarkable dividend in the hearts and minds of those who are receiving your messages.

If your recruiting process is characterized by lots of quick notes, your recruiting funnel will produce more valuable hires.

Yesterday, we discussed how market conditions are making it more difficult to source recruiting prospects.
 
At this juncture, real estate organizations are tempted to make one of two mistakes:
 
1.  Sit it out.  Some brokers tell themselves:  I’ll take a break from recruiting until conditions improve.
 
This only works if you can get you can get all your competitors to agree to do the same.  Unfortunately, there are always a few who don’t go along and use a challenging market to gain market share.
 
2. Rationalize lower sourcing volume.  Getting a consistent number of new recruiting prospects to engage is difficult, so they rationalize that a lower number of prospects will suffice.
 
I’m better at connecting with the right individuals—so I don’t need as many prospects.
 
I’m better at interviewing and closing the prospects in my recruiting funnel—so I don’t need as many prospects.
 
I’m really good at picking the winners, so I focus most of my effort on just a few high-potential candidates—so I don’t need as many prospects.
 
This is the same line of reasoning athletes use to do fewer practice reps, fishermen use to make fewer casts, and agents use to make fewer prospecting calls.
 
All these scenarios lead to the same outcome: poor results.
 
After working with many high-performing real estate hiring managers over the last decade, here are the sourcing metrics they use to drive outstanding results:
 
It requires about 30 – 40 recruiting prospects to produce 4 good interviews (10 – 15% interview rate).
 
It requires about 4 good interviews to produce 1 high-quality hire (25% interview/hire rate).
 
When things get difficult, the shortcuts always come calling. 
 
The best hiring managers know better than to listen.

Google has taught us this simple correlation:  What people search for tells us a lot about consumer sentiment.

Since 70% of job searches begin on Google, it also tells a lot about the job market.

Traffic for the popular search term “real estate jobs” was fairly stable until early August.

Since then, it has dropped to what appears to be a new normal that is 25% lower than its previous range.


 
Why August?  The job market typically lags consumer sentiment by 3 to 6 months, and the negative press started to affect the job seeker’s mindset.

What does this mean in your search for talent? 

The large, organic influx of agents many brokers enjoyed over the last couple of years has probably hit its tipping point and has begun to normalize. 

It’s not that talented individuals will stop getting into real estate in the months and years ahead, but there will be less of them, and the competition to attract and hire them will increase.

And those who increase focus on recruiting and execute consistently will win.

It’s the same thing you’re telling your agents.  The deals are still out there–you’ll just have to work smarter and harder to get them.

Many of the hiring managers I coach have a difficult time crafting and articulating their lead generation stories.

This is especially true for those who advise their agents to use more traditional referral methodologies to generate leads.

If you’re struggling with this concept, try using this framework to develop your story:

High-Quality Leads versus Low-Quality Leads: Some leads produce more commission and convert to sales more reliably than other leads. High-quality leads are more valuable.

High-Cost Leads versus Low-Cost Leads: Purchasing leads is the quickest and easiest way to connect with a potential buyer or seller. But if you’re not going to do the work to generate the lead, you’ll have to pay someone for their effort.

Long-Term Leads versus Short-Term Leads: Transaction-based leads tend to be short-term. Relationship-based leads generate follow-on referrals among the family and friend networks of satisfied clients.

Building your story around one or more of these contrasts allows you to take the higher ground and frame your competitors’ lead systems as flawed.

They also lend themselves to asking open-ended questions. For example:

How much more commission is a high-quality lead worth?

You’re going to be paying for your leads in referral fees, how much does that limit your income potential?

If you’re dependent on an external lead source, how will you build a long-term, sustainable business?

Thoughtful questions are the secret sauce driving prospects back to your lead generation story.

With some forethought and focus, you can win this game.

Generating leads is top of mind for most real estate agents.

They know that without a consistent flow of leads, they’ll  fail.

So, it’s not surprising the topic of lead generation comes up during most recruiting discussions.

As a hiring manager, you must know and be comfortable articulating your organization’s lead generation story.

You must be able to complete the sentence: My team helps you generate leads by….

And then be able to tell stories and give examples of why your lead generation system is superior to your competitors.

As you know, there are many different ways to generate leads, and each methodology has advantages and disadvantages.

You don’t lose by embracing the wrong methodology.

You lose either by not having confidence in your methodology or being timid in communicating why your approach is superior.

Hesitancy cracks the door for your competitors to tell their lead story with confidence.

Everyone knows that setting a timer for yourself when starting a task can improve efficiency.

But how often do you do it?

If you struggle to consistently use this basic time management technique, it may be your timer’s fault.

Because most people use their phone as a timer, they often don’t make it past all the distractions poised to steal your time away.   

What starts as a good intention, often ends in failure (What was I setting a timer for?).

Here’s a better way.  

I recently bought a couple of cube timers.  There are dozens of these types of timers on Amazon.

When I want to start a task, I assess how much time I want to allot to the task and flip the block.

I’ve started in a couple seconds.  No distractions.  No fiddling with my phone interface.

It helps me overcome the inertia of getting started on an important task and stay focused on that task until it’s completed.

For me, it has become a simple life-hack that helps me get more of the right things done.

Yesterday, we discussed the most common and consistent factors (attrition constants) causing a person to defect to a competitor.
 
While these attrition constants still have the greatest influence, there are some emerging attrition variables worth noting. People also tend to leave companies when:
 
They feel like they’re not doing as well as others in their peer group outside the company.
 
They feel like they’re not as far along as they should be at a certain point in life.
 
These new discoveries were verified by analyzing electronic communications behaviors and online social networking activities.
 
The key to understanding the new attrition variables are typically related to events happening in an agent’s life. Here are some events researchers encouraged managers to track:
 
Work Anniversaries. These are natural times for reflection. I’ve been here three years. How much have I progressed? Job hunting activity has been shown to increase by 6% to 9% after a work anniversary.
 
Birthdays. Another year’s gone by. Am I as far along as I’d hoped to be? Pay special attention to the midlife milestone birthdays (turning 40 or 50). Job hunting activity jumps 12% just before a person’s birthday.
 
Large Social Gatherings. Real estate agents are particularly vulnerable at these events, even if the events are virtual. These can be professional events (e.g., a national conference) or personal events (e.g., a class reunion).  For example, job hunting activity jumps 16% after a person attends a class reunion.
 
Once you have these events on your radar, use them as catalysts to have proactive conversations with those you’re trying to retain. Turn the new attrition variables (above) into questions.
 
For example, you might say,
 
I noticed your birthday is coming up. Some people use a birthday to reflect on their progress in life. Do you feel like you’re doing as well as you’d hoped at this point in your life?
 
The objective is to have these discussions with your agents BEFORE they start having them with your competitors.

Next to recruiting, the retention of profitable agents is something that exasperates every real estate leader.
 
It’s difficult and expensive to recruit, train, mentor, and coach an agent. Seeing your investment walk out the door is heartbreaking—and bottom-line-breaking.
 
So, what causes your agents to leave?
 
According to Gartner, a global consulting firm, the most common reasons people leave their jobs has remained surprisingly consistent over many years.
 
It’s so consistent, the reasons are often called the Attrition Constants. Here’s a prioritized list on why workers defect to their competitors:
 
They don’t like their bosses (especially their first-level managers).
They don’t see opportunities for promotion and growth.
They are proactively offered a better gig (usually involving higher pay/better split).
 
If you’re not focusing most of your retention effort on these issues, you’ll miss the mark.
 
If you’re not focusing most of your recruiting effort on exploiting these weaknesses among your competitors, you’re missing the best opportunities.

In a post from the archive, I shared how executive coach Todd Herman was voted the Greatest Salesperson in the World after winning a worldwide competition sponsored by the global marketing firm Ogilvy.

He became a finalist by creating an online video of himself selling a red brick. The two-minute sales presentation is entertaining, and it illustrates the power of a great pitch.

In a recent email, Todd referenced this competition, and the most common question he was asked by reporters after he won.

Why would you want to be known as the ‘greatest salesperson’?

While it was an appropriate question (Todd was not a professional salesperson by trade), it revealed the stereotypes and stigmas many people have about those who are in sales.

Why wouldn’t you want to be known as being a great communicator, a great messenger, a great empathizer, a great listener, a great motivator, or a great researcher?

Because in order, to be great at selling, you have to be great at all those things.

When you’re trying to hire a high performing real estate agent, you’re looking for a remarkable person who possesses all these traits.

It’s why these individuals are so hard to find.

It’s also why the relatively few agents at the top make a disproportionate amount of the money in the real estate industry.

The game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire is still one of the most popular television programs in various markets around the world.

You may remember, the original version in the United States popularized the idea of “phoning a friend” when a contestant was stumped.

High-performing recruiters and hiring managers use the same strategy.

They reach out for help to solve the problems that keep the recruiting process from moving forward.

Who can help?

Your Agents. Those who are happy and productive in your office are often your best advocates.

Start asking some of your high performers: 

Would you mind reaching out to [recruiting prospect] and letting them know about your experience working here?

Your Executive Team. Your owner, general manager, or others from your executive team can be great advocates for your recruiting cause.

Ask your executives to make a quick connection with a prospect who is on the fence: 

Sue asked me to reach out to you. After hearing your story, I think you’re the type of person who will thrive in our environment—we could do some great work together.

Your Professional Network. There are many people in your professional network (ex. mortgage rep, title rep, appraiser, home inspector, etc.) who could make a call to a recruiting prospect on your behalf.

Brian asked me to give you a call. I work with agents from lots of different companies, and Brian’s group is the best.

Recruiting is hard enough. Don’t go it alone.

Jay Luebke published an article outlining his seven-year journey as a real estate agent (he started when he was 17-years old).
 
In his short career, he worked in four different brokerages in several different geographic markets.
 
According to Jay, here are just a few things that may be going through an agent’s mind when choosing a brokerage:
 
Do I need a robust training platform as I kick off my career as a new agent?
 
Am I in a new market where I need some help getting off the ground with leads?
 
Have I built a thriving business, honed my systems and now want the freedom to do what I want with little support from the brokerage?
 
Do I want an environment where I can create a passive stream of income by building a team?
 
And, there may be dozens more things to consider.
 
As a recruiter or hiring manager, it’s important to recognize your company cannot possibly meet all the diverse needs of the prospective agent population.
 
It’s better to identify the two or three things you do better than any of your competitors.
 
Then spend most of your time searching, finding, and connecting with agents or perspective agents who need the specific things you’re really good at providing.
 
This strategy is more expensive and time-consuming on the front end, but it honors the integrity of both parties in the long run.
 
That makes for a better hire.

An English social researcher, Richard Titmuss, first hypothesized in the 1950’s that if you offer to pay someone to give blood, the blood supply would be significantly reduced.
 
At the time, people thought he was crazy, but the research later proved him correct.
 
Studies have since shown that offering to pay people to give blood, in fact, decreases the number willing to donate by almost half.
 
In follow-up studies, the same clinics allowed the blood donors to contribute the payment to charity, and the trend was then reversed.
 
The lesson here is that motivation is a tricky thing to tap.
 
When recruiting, you must figure out what motivates your prospects because it’s the pathway to meeting their unique needs.
 
But assuming you know the answer is a mistake.
 
The best recruiters treat each prospect as individuals and discover their motivations by asking lots of open-ended questions and taking the time to actively listen.
 
Are you wondering what motivated those donors to give less blood when they were paid? Here is what the researchers discovered:
 
People desire to be esteemed by others and to be seen as ethical and dignified. Rewarding blood donations backfired because it suggested that donors are less interested in being altruistic than in making a buck.

In a recent blog post, Tom Ferry tells agents to ask every potential buyer this question:
 
How long do you plan to be in this home?
 
This question is beautiful because it’s not overly aggressive and cuts right to the heart of what every buyer is thinking about in the back of their mind.
 
A similar question will likely get your recruiting prospects to consider a move, as well.
 
How long do you plan on being with your current broker?
 
We all know that most agents change brokers several times during their careers.
 
And these changes are typically initiated when an agent outgrows the value proposition of their current broker.
 
Assuming a change is coming and asking about a possible timeline is a non-threatening way to get the conversation going.
 
It positions you as a coach who’s helping them navigate the inevitable changes that every agent faces.

Despite all your best efforts, some agents will choose to leave your company.
 
It can’t be avoided. 
 
Some tours of duty come to an end and are not renewed.
 
At this juncture, most leaders try to talk the agent out of his/her decision. It rarely works, but it’s worth a try.
 
When you recognize there’s no changing the agent’s mind, try pivoting to something positive rather than parting ways in anger.
 
Offer the parting agent an invitation to your company’s alumni group.
 
HBR reports that consulting companies started this practice years ago and it has been remarkably beneficial.
 
For example, McKinsey had more than 20,000 members in its alumni network.
 
And it’s not just consulting companies—most Fortune 500 companies now have alumni networks on Facebook or LinkedIn.
 
One obvious benefit to an alumni network is the opportunity to rehire former agents, but the value goes far beyond this benefit:
 
Your alumni are among your most effective means of external engagement…. They understand how your organization works and are generally inclined to help you if they can.
 
Creating and offering an alumni network to departing agents is a positive way to keep the relationship going.
 
Goodwill has a way of catching up with those who are helping their agents even after they leave the company.