Broker owners and team leaders, this may be the single most important time for you as a leader. Seize the moment!

Many agents are lost, looking for guidance in a complicated industry. 2023 was challenging for most, and 2024 is not going to start with a bang. Even with the prospect of declining interest rates, the new year appears to be fraught with much of the same—low inventory and high interest rates that can’t come down fast enough, leaving most agents searching for answers.

• What should I do next?
• Where should I market?
• How do I market with no money coming in?
• Where do I find my next transaction?
• What can I do today to build momentum for tomorrow?

The uncertainty is so powerful it is oftentimes paralyzing. With such an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, many agents are standing on the sidelines, waiting for the market to change. As most of us know, the “hope” method of success is not a great strategy.

With nowhere else to go, agents are turning to leadership, now more than ever, to help lead them through this challenging time. Effective leaders can seize this opportunity to guide their agents to success in 2024, increasing retention, loyalty, and growth.

The following five strategies can help your agents right now, making you look like the hero who guided their real estate career during a difficult time.

Create an accountability group for your agents: As independent contractors, unless they pay an expensive coach, agents don’t have built-in accountability to ensure they are executing the tasks that need to get done to find buyers and sellers.

We called our accountability group “the boiler room.” Our agents who took part gave us $100 each to be part of the group. They signed a pledge to complete a task each week. If they did not complete the task, we took $10 out of the $100 they gave us. If they completed each task, we gave them back their $100 at the end of the designated time.

See the Marketing Action Plan workshop for exact marketing ideas if you need to give your agents a nudge in the right direction.

Share successful marketing: Have agents who recently closed a transaction explain how they obtained their most recent client or clients to show agents having trouble there is hope. It will demonstrate how agent marketing efforts actually work and give them ideas and strategies they can emulate to find their own business. I was recently on a brokerage Zoom call where this practice was implemented, and it was incredible. One agent shared that she put some friends of her in-laws in her CRM and they were getting monthly newsletters. She didn’t even know how long they had been getting her newsletters. They called her in-laws to see if she was a reputable agent, and of course, the in-laws gave a glowing recommendation. She listed and sold their home and helped them buy a new one.

Another agent met a couple at an open house over six months ago, kept in touch, and ended up getting a call one weekend to show them a home. She was so excited as she told the story. I could see the other agents nodding their heads, and some light bulbs went off (I really should be doing the same thing!!).

Ask your agents an important question: “Why would you hire you?” If your agents can’t articulate why they would hire themselves for the largest financial transaction of their life, then why would their sphere know why they need to refer business to them?

In any year, most real estate agents drive a good majority of their business from the people they know. In a challenging year, this is magnified. They will find their next buyer or seller amongst the people they know. With interest rates remaining higher than normal and inventory still at historic lows, who buys and sells houses? People with life events. Death, divorce, downsize, relocation, marriage, baby, inheritance… these are the people we need to be in front of and they need to know why we are the best agent they know.

Action: Have your agents write down why they would hire themselves and get specific. None of this, “I’m a local expert,” or “I am a native.” Make sure they really get deep with this, and they understand why they are the best agent they know.

Role play: I know it is hard to get adults to accept they need to act situations out, but role play is one of the most effective ways to build confidence. With the most recent news about lawsuits and buyer agent commissions, uncertainty in the real estate industry can be a blocker when it comes to executing marketing tasks. If you are not confident in what you do, it shows. Create scenarios to role-play during your next meeting. Guide your agents through the thought process and even offer up scripts for tough conversations.

At a New Year’s Eve party, a neighbor asks you what you think about commissions home sellers have to pay and even insinuates you make way too much money. What do you say?

You send a newsletter to your sphere of influence every month. One of your past seller clients gives you a call, hearing about the lawsuits on a national news network, and asks you why they paid what they did when you sold them their home. What do you say? How’s the market?

Create scenarios for your agents to help them with the answers. Give them the dialogue to practice and win difficult conversations. You will see a change in mindset.

Spoon feed your agents, executable marketing tasks: Don’t give your agents any excuses for failure. Instead, give them exactly what they need to market themselves to find buyers and sellers. The content exists. Even if you have an amazing marketing department, they may not be agile enough to scale marketing for your whole brokerage or team. Give your agents foolproof marketing strategies and tasks.

• Automated Direct Mail Marketing for a Geo-farm or Sphere

• Newsletter Automation

• Weekly Engagement Posts for Social Media

• Bad Ass Open House Marketing

• Single Property Site with QR code for their next listing

• Buyer Presentation- helps lead conversion

• Interactive Geo-farm Guidebook

• Referral Playbook

• Marketing Action Plan Workshop

At a time when agents can find almost everything they need to run their business online, they are looking to you for guidance now more than ever. The industry is teaming with negativity and self-doubt. Now is the perfect time to step up and guide your agents through the challenges. Become an invaluable resource for their success.

For more information on Breakthroughbroker.com or to partner with our team and brokerage marketing technology, please give us a call anytime.

Since 2005 our mission has been to help real estate professionals create an amazing life for themselves. Our brokerage grew through the last recession and was acquired in 2010. The idea for Breakthroughbroker.com came from the burning desire to see agents execute their marketing tasks. After watching their agents struggle and identifying the single most important aspect of success, execution, and getting the things done that drive business, Eric and Nathan launched Breakthroughbroker.com and Custom Brokerage Marketing Centers in 2012. Now helping over 500,000 agents and hundreds of brokerages and teams, Breakthroughbroker.com is one of the most used marketing technologies in North America.

Call us for a brainstorming session, or just a good real estate convo!! Contact us here.

Download the Broker Owner/Team Leaders success PDF here.