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Soon, we’ll be entering the year of what I’ve coined “The Super Agent”. What does this mean? I strongly believe that agents who are set up with “Effective Business Units” will thrive, while others may face burnout.
Quite simply, the pandemic has changed almost everything about the world. It has changed the way we live, the way we play, and the way we work. It has changed the way we do business, including streamlining a lot of processes that are no longer necessary. And in real estate, it has the potential to change the way we, as individual agents, do business within the overall organisation. To put it another way, agents who wish to write in excess of $1 million in fees will need to establish themselves as a “business within a business” if they want to simultaneously grow without burning out.
The business within the business
The Effective Business Unit (EBU) that every agent should be looking to set up helped me go from writing $600,000 to more than $2 million in fees. So how do you create the EBU and ultimately become a super agent?
The first thing to do is bring on new team members. The team should consist of a lead agent, a client services manager and a sales creator. As a rough suggestion, each person should represent $300,000 in gross fees. This means as a standalone agent, once you hit $300,000 in fees, bring on your first assistant, and once you hit $600,000, bring on your second. Then create the defined roles for each person.
The role of the lead agent is to be the face. Do the appraisals, meet clients face-to-face, conduct the listing presentations. Then when it’s needed, negotiate the tough deal, represent your client when it comes to the offers process, handle the vendor-paid advertising, and help with all final inspections. In other words, make sure the lead agent is doing everything that absolutely cannot be left to change.
The client services manager is the vendor’s contact throughout the week. They do the chasing with solicitors and vendors to ensure everything is available whenever it needs to be, and all dots are put on I’s and all crosses are put on T’s. This also includes building inspections, pest inspections, bank valuations and all the administrative work involved.
And then it comes to the sales creator. A whizz at prospecting, handling all the calls – to the database and cold calling – and door knocking if required. The sales creator should also be dealing with new buyer inquiries, taking buyers through properties and conducting the open homes.
Importantly, each person has very defined roles.
It’s about quality of life
A lot of agents run around trying to do everything. This leads to burnout, and in some cases, agents leave the industry because they just can’t handle any more. It’s a big loss, especially for those who have worked so hard to remain in the industry.
But by setting yourself up for success, and by bringing in the right amount of help, many agents can actually enjoy a good quality of life. You no longer have to do absolutely everything, but rather, you have a team behind you who will do whatever is needed to ensure the whole EBU succeeds.
If you remember to look at yourself as a business within a business, and a business owner within a business, you will give yourself more time to do the most important tasks – appraisals to qualify people. Remember though, you need to invest time in recruiting and training. And you need to know what to let go of and when to let it go. The point of an EBU is to create defined roles, so each person knows what they do and why they do it. And while you should all be there to support each other, by having clear job descriptions and tasks, it gives everyone ownership of their role, empowering them individually to do better and ensuring overall team success.
Adam Flynn is the state director of Coronis Group Victoria.
