March 26, 2021

Good Times Created Bad Habits – 6 Things Ops Bosses® Should Be Doing NOW!

About a year ago, as we began the journey of the pandemic, fear was running rampant in the real estate community. Jobs were cut, expenses trimmed back, and we were asking each other crazy questions like “Is real estate deemed essential in your state?”

A year later, jobs have been reinstated in our industry, teams are growing, and just about every team we coach had the best year they’re EVER had in 2020. In fact, industry-wide, agents seemed to have had one of two things happen:

1. They didn’t act fast and double down, so they lost market share.

2. They wasted no time doubling down, and they gained market share.

Once we got through the first few months of the pandemic when sales slowed (in some states NO closings were allowed), the real estate market adjusted and picked up steam. Agents on most teams thrived, and most ended the year with great results.

The thing is, these great results came to many solely because the market was good. Great results came not because of what they were doing, they came in spite of what they were doing.

2021 arrived, along with historically low inventory. And now we are seeing the result of “bad habits created in good times”. 

The results of bad habits created in good times:

  • Agents leaving teams to go solo (because a great year made things look easy)
  • Agents leaving teams to build their own team (same reason)
  • Buyer Agents worn out from writing contracts and losing out to other offers
  • Admin not building purposeful systems to generate income (being efficient and not effective)
  • Admin not creating and executing on systems that drive culture & retention

6 Things Ops Bosses® should be doing in 2021

(“Good habits to create in bad times“):

1. Reviews & Referrals

Create a system for each. It’s not rocket science, but the SAME thing must happen on EVERY transaction to make it a system. Your system MUST drive leads and commission to your team. (Plus referrals & reviews are the best way to measure whether you are providing a customer experience as opposed to customer service.)

If you need ideas for how to do this, we teach a Review System in our “BE A BOSS! 10 Secrets of a Mega EA” class and a Referral System in our “Systems Are Sexy” class. Our trainers (Stephanie Brackett & Christy Belt Grossman) have personally created systems that have driven MILLIONS of dollars in GCI to real estate teams and they share the EXACT way to do it.

2. Training Schedule

Create a training schedule for your team. In today’s low inventory market, there are more agents in the U.S. than there are active listings. This means the most skilled agents WIN. Help your agents be prepared to win. Research and provide them with new scripts. Role play with them. (Yes, I know you are an admin for a reason, and role play feels like it’s for sales people. AND you can role play and pretend to be the customer to help them.)

3. Lead Gen

Double down and be creative.

  • Help your agents by making it easy for them to circle call around the few listings you have.
  • Create door hangers for those doorknocking.
  • Come up with client events that provide your agent a reason to call their sphere.
  • And you should be calling YOUR sphere too!

Many teams slacked off on lead gen when the market picked up last year. They succeeded in spite of that. If that was your team, it’s time to put that habit back in place.

  • A good ‘ol 66 Day Challenge might be in order.
  • Cap it off with a Call Night you organize.

(Here are tips to make your Call Night As Easy As 1,2,3!)

4. Help Find Off Market Homes To Sell

  • Reach out to agents outside your team daily to see what they have coming on the market. Then share that with your team.
  • Write letters for buyers who are targeting a specific neighborhood.
  • Call through your databank to see who they know that might be selling.
  • Add a Buyer Wish list page to your web site and share it on social media.

5. Value Proposition

It’s your job (along with your team owner) to ensure your Value Proposition is alive, and that it is driving culture & retention. Are you clear on what it is? Are you delivering on it?

In order to create a great culture and keep retention high, you must “Tell them what you’re going to do, do it, then tell them what you did“.

We often talk about Value Prop during the recruiting/hiring stage. Then we never discuss it again. As an Ops Boss®, it’s up to YOU to create a system around this.

  • For example, do you have a 24 Touch Plan for your team? (Most have a touch plan for their database, and they forget about their team.)
  • Are you purposeful in telling people what you did? (Example: “John, congrats on closing 101 Main Street. So glad we could provide that lead to you from the Facebook ads we ran. Nice work converting.“)

6. Databank

Most people have a database. Many people went through their database last year and spent time getting it in shape. AND most people do NOT have a SYSTEM for feeding the database. NOR are they tracking and setting goals around how to grow the database, what results the database is providing and how to increase that result. Every team needs to:

  1. Know how many contacts are in your database. (it’s not a “contact” without contact information!)
  2. Know how many deals came from your database last year (sphere, past clients and referrals from sphere and past clients)
  3. Calculate the percentage. (Example: 1,000 in database, 10 deals sourced. 10/1000 = 1%.
  4. Have a system to FEED the database. (JotForm is great for this – you can watch our Jotform Mastermind on our YouTube channel).
  5. Set a goal for how many to ADD to the database AND for what percentage will either do a deal or send you a referral.
  6. Once you have a goal, put systems in place around the goals (touch plan, client events, tracking, etc.) NOW your database becomes a databank. And you can create a predictable business!

Moral of the Story:

Many teams had a great year last year because the market was good. If you are an Ops Boss®, you like to create your own destiny. So it’s time to create Good Habits to Avoid Bad Times! Now THAT is Bossy!

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