Learning to Lead Is Essential to Scaling Your Business

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I had never managed anyone before, and so it's not easy to learn how to lead and inspire. Becoming a leader is the next phase of your growth. Maybe you have a couple of agents and an admin, but to scale your business you have to become a true leader to inspire others to take action.

I didn't have the smoothest experience now that I look back on it. In 2010 I hired some misfits and some good agents, but none of the people in that group are still with us. That year I sold 60 homes, Chris sold 27, and everyone else sold another 30. It wasn't pretty but it worked, and I learned how to run team meetings. I learned the importance of accountability and how to bring out the best of people.

I was then able to build the listing inventory, and this was a huge shift for the team. I was able to get leads from sign-callers, and those are some of the best leads that you can get. We sold about 118 homes that year, but it was difficult to get over the 100 same hump. The infrastructure you need to do that is just remarkable.

The next challenge was getting more help, because Tia and I were both at the breaking point. Tia was the only Admin that I had. She did all of the closings, all of the listing management, and all of the marketing and advertising functions. She was really just doing everything. I see some agents hire another admin when they do 50 or 60 sides, but I think that's because they don't have good systems in place. If you're hiring a second admin and you're not near the 100-sale mark, I'd suggest that you look at your systems. Don't just throw a person at the problem.

That lead us to a lot of hiring in 2011. My listing inventory was growing because I had just added radio and so my lead generation was way up. I hired a listing manager and a seller ISA, and this freed me up to focus on taking listings and growing the team.

At this point, RE/MAX required us to have a physical office space (we had been working virtually and met once per week in person) so we opened an office in July of 2011. Looking back on it, not having to pay for a physical office space was a big deal when my business was expanding, so that's something that you may want to look into.