What Brokerages Don't Teach Their Agents … Leading Their Agents To Fail

Most brokerages don't teach what you really need to know in real estate because they often don't know themselves.

They may never have performed at a high level, or they may only care about agent count and money. They have quotas they need to hit, and many of their agents are W-2 employees that are simply there to get a paycheck.

It's all a numbers game for some brokerages, and if they just get enough bodies in the door, 1 in 10 will be successful … right? Sound familiar?

At Momentum, the mission is to improve the way that real estate is done in Florida. It's not just for the money – that is nice, but only comes in big through the fulfillment of the mission. It is really about customer experience. Since real estate sales is still very much a human system that gets help from technology tools, that means a brokerage like Momentum is all about finding the right humans to help provide a 5-star customer experience to the general public. It starts with the quality of the real estate agents accepted by the brokerage.

Momentum’s founders have met and worked with hundreds of agents, good and bad, and here's what we see as the Top Three Ways that doing real estate in Florida can be improved.

Let us know if we’re missing anything. 

#1. Answer Your Phone.

The first step in being a successful real estate agent is having a system that ensures your phone is answered. That's it. Answer your phone. That can be you, your assistant, or call forwarding to another one of your colleagues. Just do it.

In our virtual world, customers are more than ever looking for instantaneous results and responses.

And the customer is always right. So, either your human system answers the phone, or the customer will find someone else to work with.

The Real Issue: The failure to answer your phone is a symptom of the real issue:

Many people get into real estate sales looking for an easy path to lifestyle and freedom.

But you can’t gain lifestyle just by being in real estate. You have to earn lifestyle, and, as John Maxwell says, you have to pay the toll to accomplish your dreams. That means you must first put in the effort, systems, and people that let you slowly leverage out of personally wearing the many hats that real estate requires. That does not happen overnight. And, frankly, your budget must allow you the freedom to leverage out -- which means you must first produce quite a bit on your own in order to afford it. Less than 2% of real estate agents that I know have reached what we call "7th Level" - when you’ve fully leveraged out of sales activity - and even then, they must remain actively involved in the day-to-day of their business to some extent. The idea that just getting into real estate will give you the lifestyle is a lie.

The Real Deal:

You should be getting into real estate because you want to serve people, to help them with the largest financial transaction of their life, and to make that transition a smooth and fun one.

Understand that real estate sales is actually a service game, which means that you get the customer what they want, when they want it. As their agent, you are the intermediary between what your client is looking for, and doing everything necessary to help them get it -- all at their pace, not yours. Again, this is their journey, not yours. And when you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want: great reviews and referrals.

#2. Be Reasonably Responsive.

The second basic thing that agents must improve upon is being responsive. That means answering calls, texts, and emails in a reasonably quick manner.

Too often, when I would send a text or email to the other agent for more information, it felt like my message went into a black hole. So, then I’d pick up the phone to call the other agent after 24 hours of no response, only to have my call go straight to voicemail or, worse, the agent on the other side wouldn’t even have voicemail set up. Finally, I’d wait a few minutes and then text them. Again. This is pretty wild, isn’t it? That someone in a sales role would not answer their texts, emails, or phone within 24 hours -- or at least have someone else do it?

It seems odd, but apparently many brokerages are OK with that type of non-response from their agents being the norm.

And, it is the real estate customers -- and the good real estate agents -- who pay the price for these bad agents. (I am convinced that more than 50% of agents fall into that “bad agent” category.) In fact, that lack of service is a big reason why NAR studies show 67% of the public doesn't trust real estate agents. Guess what? NEITHER DO I! Frankly, I am surprised that percentage isn't higher; based on the years when I was an agent, I would expect closer to 95%.

The Issue: Every agent has a different schedule and lifestyle, and very few of them set up their businesses to ensure that all of their actions, communications, and responses with the general public, their customers, and their colleagues are made in a timely manner. That's a real problem.

It makes all agents look really bad, and customers scratch their heads wondering why, if they can't get important information quickly, they need an agent in the first place.

The Solution: Agents can build a system to respond to inquiries, and provide others with the information they need to know, in an effective way. And since this segment is about responsiveness, part of being able to appropriately respond means just having the information requested immediately available!

How?

The standard, most basic expectation should be to set in your voicemail or in an email auto-responder, a message something like this:

“Hey! I received your message, and I'll get back to you within 24 hours. If you’re calling after business hours, 9am to 5pm, I'll get back to you during business hours on the next business day. Please note that since I do not work on Sundays, you should not expect a response on Sundays, but you will get one on Monday! In the meantime, check out resources 1, 2, and 3, etc….”

Another solution is to simply do the prep work upfront, and upload all possible information related to your listing under the "Documents" segment of the Multiple Listing Service. That should prevent 90% of the phone calls, with the other 10% usually being agents who, unfortunately, don't read or do their research before calling.

In fact, put all the information the other agents might need to know about the property into the Private Remarks. That's exactly why Private Remarks exist in the first place. Include literally any other important fact that you can think of – for example, where the binder will be held – to prevent an agent from needing to call you.  

Momentum has taken that step even further, by creating a sheet for its Sellers to fill out that includes virtually EVERY single answer to every single question that it has ever been asked. That includes termite bond, utilities, easements, septic --you name it! And when its agents get a question that is kind of crazy and has never been asked before, Momentum simply adds it to the Seller’s sheet of questions so that it won't be asked that question again. The sheet is uploaded to Momentum’s Shared Drive.

We make our own lives easier by working smarter. If you fail to set up a solid system, you're already planning to fail.

#3. Set Customer Expectations. 

When you choose not to do an initial consultation with your prospective buyer customer, who becomes in charge of the process, you or them? Them.

Ok.

Who is the one who knows the real estate process, you or them? You.

So, naturally, there's a disconnect, right? Yes.

Why would an agent fail to consult with a customer and frame the relationship from the beginning? Are they just straight-up lazy? Sometimes. But what we have observed is that many real estate agents don't actually know the process themselves, so they are terrified about trying to explain it to a buyer. This fear may be due to lack of knowledge, experience, or available resources around them to actually show them how it's done.

Whatever the reason, not being educated on the process is a serious problem. That's literally why agents get paid -- to know the entire process AND to know (ahem) perhaps a little about roofs, HVACs, siding, lot locations, etc. -- too. 

The Rule: Either you do the work on the front end for 15 minutes via a buyer consultation, or you do hours or days of stressful work on the back end because you failed to set expectations and take control of the process from the beginning. 

Would your doctor do a procedure on you without checking your vitals and investigating what the real issue is? No. That would be malpractice. Well, most agents are out there, often because of fear, committing a type of malpractice because they believe if they don't grab the buyer immediately, that buyer will move on to the next agent. Fear and desperation are not a good combination.

The Reality: An agent has to understand the process, the market, and the parameters they want for their customer relationship well enough to discuss it with a buyer upfront.

Great agents know their worth.

The way that they talk and share what they know to be true with their customers is why their customers stick with them. They set extreme expectations with their clients about important things, from the current market to the transaction processes, to how communications between them will occur. And they set these out clearly at the beginning of the relationship, not the middle or end of it. Setting powerful expectations with customers upfront -- Momentum agents often use its Buyer Loyalty Agreement to do much of that -- is why top agents can, with grace and ease,  do 10x the number of sales as the average agent. 

To summarize:

#1. Answer Your Phone.

#2. Be Reasonably Responsive.

#3. Set Customer Expectations.

If you do these things, you'll be a top agent in no time. Literally, you can do it in a year. We know. We've done it.

• Guest Post by Co-founder, Jon Brooks.