Premier Listings Broker Owner Jordana Tobel Shares Her COVID-19 Growth Story

RE Technology is constantly on the lookout for inspiring stories about businesses that have performed remarkably well in extreme circumstances by leveraging technology in the best possible way. Thanks to a tip from CINC, one of the leading technology platforms for top performing agents and teams, RE Technology had a chance to connect with Jordana Tobel, broker owner of Premier Listings with an office of 50 agents in Delray Beach, Florida. Her transactions span the southeast Florida seaboard from Port St. Lucie down to Miami Beach.

In Jordana's early years, she focused on the REO market and worked with Carrington Real Estate before starting her firm in 2015. Her business model is based on an idea she cultivated while at Carrington: providing value to her team members in a way that impacts their bottom line—in the form of actual buyer and seller leads. Through resources like CINC, Jordana can provide her agents as many as 50 leads per month while implementing a unique accountability program and a culture conducive to productivity. With any goal, you're going to perform better when you're held accountable by someone who cares. Jordana's model keeps agents on track using tactics such as call minimums, a scrolling leaderboard, and other policies. From 2017 to 2019, the company experienced a 33% annual growth each year. Premier Listings' growth from 2017 to 2018 was 33%; and again, coincidentally, from 2018 to 2019, the same growth, 33%. Out of the gates, 2020 was going strong and Jordana was on track to hit her GCI goal of $2 million when the world changed.

In Florida, real estate was declared an essential business. But, operating as an essential business was fluid. Often the information about showing conduct was changing daily. Jordana rose to the occasion by staying connected to her team using regular Zoom meetings, recording YouTube videos, and continuously communicating with her agents. She began emailing agents to share information, engage team members, and ensure their mental health, all while doctoring deals and maintaining the agility to keep everyone on track. (Many of these videos and meetings are available on the company's YouTube channel).

Of the myriad challenges faced by agents, one of particular interest was the lack of inventory coupled with a belief, by buyers, that real estate must be on sale since the stock market was in the tank. In reality, low inventory and high demand are driving multiple offers in the $500,000 to $700,000 price range with many homes trading at prices over the list price. Premier Listings carries about 50 listings at a time and that saw a little dip in this number during March and April. Although the company missed Jordana's projections in April and May, things were quickly back on track in June, and July is looking like an $8 million month, which will be a company record.

Jordana's brilliant strategy not only carried her company, but created the opportunity for growth through a pandemic. RE Technology learned from Jamie Quenzer, VP of Marketing at CINC, that companies who maintained or even doubled-down on lead generation and digital advertising budgets in Q2 saw enormous returns. Cost per lead for Premier Listings, and others, actually dove down 47%, as many firms put their lead generation budgets on hold. This also provided an abundance of opportunity to set the stage for a fantastic rebound.

At Premier Listings, Jordana Tobel has some key observations about her lead funnel. Her goal is to find a middle ground where 50% of company transactions come from agent relationships, and 50% comes from broker generated leads. For Jordana, that sets a lead generation goal of 500 to 800 leads per month so that she can guarantee at least 40 leads for each member of her lead team. She writes the check, CINC delivers high-quality leads. For agents not on the lead team, production comes from client engagement. Premier Listings has been able to keep up their transaction pace by enabling agents through constant communications, ongoing training, and many, many, many live webinars that help agents maximize the opportunity in using their CINC platform. The biggest bottleneck in the funnel has been challenges related to buyers not being able to look at homes due to travel restrictions or buyers competing against multiple offers.

Premier Listings has been a client of CINC since 2016. Over the years of lead generation, they have developed a pond database of more than 17,000 leads. In 2019, at the CINC Summit in Orlando, Jordana and her team were able to sit side by side with other CINC clients to learn best practices, tips, and strategies for conversion. She and her team have also developed friendships with other brokers and agents that create a steady flow of inspiring new business development tactics. These friendships carry on though the private CINC Owners Mastermind group on Facebook. Whenever Jordana needs new ideas, she jumps on Facebook with a question and gets a wealth of responses from likeminded business owners who share a technology platform and the same commitment to success. It's the support of this community of other CINC broker owners, along with the hard work of her team members, that have yielded top results, even during difficult times.

Jordana is 100% committed to CINC and advocates strongly on their behalf. Feel free to reach out to her directly to learn more about her experience (*or to join her team, as she is always hiring). As a small business owner, rather than employ her own tech support, Jordana is able to utilize CINC's support line to field technical questions from her agents. In addition to a support line, email, and dedicated account manager, CINC provides a constant source of training opportunities such as live webinars, recorded webinars, as well as 1 to 3 day events throughout the country. This enables broker owners like Jordana to focus on growth, while CINC trains and supports her team.

From a certain perspective, life can happen to you or for you. In Jordana's case with Premier Listings, hard work, dedication, and access to the right technology gave her a competitive edge in a crisis that resulted in record growth. With a new investment division in the works and an upcoming 3-Day Training Event exclusively for Premier Listings agents, there's no doubt that you'll hear more from Jordana and the Premier Listings team in South Florida.