How I Replaced Myself in My Listing Business, Sales & Operations

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Transcript:

Now to the next step for me. Keeley (my ISA) introduced me to my first listing agent (Keith) in December 2011. He was my first listing specialist and I thought when he was hired, I was out of the listing side. I made a critical mistake: I didn’t train Keith properly in the process of how we did listings and how to handle a high volume listing environment. I think he had over 100 appointments in a three month period, and the results weren’t good. 

Luckily, he was loyal and stayed with me while I jumped back into appointments. I built the process out, where it was more repeatable. Now with the repeatable process, we put Keith back into that role, and then I hired my 2nd listing specialist in the middle of 2012. I finished out that year with 248 sides. We went from 178 to 248. It wasn’t bad, considering the roller coaster ride we went through. At that point, I think I had one listing go over into January 2013, it was my highest price point closing at 1.2 million, which is a big deal in our market. And then I would not work with a client again.

At that point, I was really the sales and operations manager. Two basic functions I served in the company. True to my vision of building a sustainable business, it was time to find more talent. I really didn’t realize that Keeley had a background where she managed a bunch of new home developments. We redesigned her role to handle part time sales manager duties and continue as our ISA. To this day, she still takes all of our incoming seller calls and books listing appointments for our team.

Here’s another thing. Super critical. It was in 2012, after we had done a bunch of sides, that’s when we hired my first buyer ISA. There is this push now where everyone I know is bringing ISA’s into their business, and it definitely works. But usually, what I see is that agents are abdicating the responsibility of lead generation and conversion instead of being a true master at it, and having agents that can do their own lead conversion. We already had a fully productive team when we brought in an inside sales person. 

I then brought in a few “raw” talent buyer agents who fit perfectly into our plug and play system. Two agents came in March/April 2013. One was on a team for a year and didn’t sell a single property, and one was new to general brokerage sales, but had her license. They sold 60 properties between the two of them. The leads, process, and training were already in place.

I really needed an office manager, someone to handle the inner workings of the office. I got a bunch of resumes, interviewed a dozen people, and I found Chari. She started out as an office manager and in less than 6 months, she really gets the vision that we are creating and sees the opportunity, as I do, in the company. They see it as an opportunity of them to do more and truly have an impact on a substantial business. We really hit the jackpot with that hire.

She is in the process of becoming our BIC to handle all issues. She gets involved in a lot of client issues as operations manager. It’s a true blessing to find Chari and to redesign Keeley’s role, which gave me the ability to replace myself and that’s when, sometime in 2013, I went down to 2 days, then 1 day a week. I ended 2013 with about 320 sides and approximately $74 million in volume. Our goal was 340 and $80 million in volume, so we missed our goal. But it was still a really good year, considering I removed myself from the business and did no production.