Solutions to the Most Common Real Estate Team Problems
Write Formal Job Desciptions
If your real estate team members have undefined lists of duties or expectations, maybe it’s time to write a formal job description. Always start analyzing current team members strengths and weaknesses before drafting.
Align Your Goals
Another common pitfall teams face is when members have different sets of goals. If one member wants to increase sales numbers, while the other is interested in farming emerging markets, you’ll have competing interests. Think of the stereotypical married couple that cannot agree on a home: One might prefer a brand new, 5 bedroom suburban tract home, while the other might prefer an inner city, craftsman style fixer upper. Without a common goal and a little bit of compromise, the two will never find a home and your team will continue to be misaligned.
Give Credit When It's Due
Another common pitfall teams face is when members have different sets of goals. If one member wants to increase sales numbers, while the other is interested in farming emerging markets, you’ll have competing interests. Think of the stereotypical married couple that cannot agree on a home: One might prefer a brand new, 5 bedroom suburban tract home, while the other might prefer an inner city, craftsman style fixer upper. Without a common goal and a little bit of compromise, the two will never find a home and your team will continue to be misaligned.
Balance Responsibilities
Team members who carry more than their own weight will eventually become spiteful. Evaluate each team member’s strengths and decide which responsibilities.
Schedule Time to Communicate
The team leader should block and enforce team meeting times. They should be clear that these meetings are mandatory, regardless competing client’s interestings. It’s also important that leaders don’t cancel meetings, as other agents will otherwise receive the impression that these meetings are unimportant.
Assign Leads According to Marketing Spend
One good of thumb from NAR is that each agent should spend about 10% of their commision should go to their marketing budget. Arguments of rights to leads are frequent amongst teams with uncoordinated marketing budgets. Team members who contribute greater portions of money and time into lead generation should have rights to those earned leads.
Zurple’s back office gives account owners the ability to edit and automate lead workflows. That means leaders can assign leads based on each agent’s contributing marketing spend, as well as leads’ geographic location, preferred properties, and price range. Arguments over who generated the lead will also be eliminated with Zurple’s CRM capabilities that allow agents to track each lead’s entire life cycle.
