5 Sales Management Strategies for Brokerages

Cultivating effective sales management for brokerages is a little different than cultivating it in another business. In a brokerage your salespeople are your agents, and they do a lot more than just sales. So it is important to recognize that, and adjust your approach to management based on that fact.

Follow the sales management strategies below and you will create an environment within your team that leads to success for your brokerage and your agents.

Be Picky About Your Agents

Ultimately, the agents you choose to bring into your brokerage will determine the success of it. You need agents who are driven, passionate about their job, and are open to learning. Having a poor team of agents will cost you a significant amount of money in the long run. So, it is well worth it to extensively vet your potential new agents, and constantly be evaluating your veteran agents. Some major factors to evaluate your agents by would be:

• Community knowledge. How well do they know your brokerage's service area? Can they present all the benefits and positive attributes of it? Can they then align those benefits with a client's priorities? Are they able to do the same with a house?
• Communication skills. Clients are drawn to people who are enjoyable to work with. They want an agent who is responsive, charismatic, and understanding to their situation. Do your agents fit the bill? Excellent communication skills are much more difficult to teach than community knowledge or sales skills are. So try and find agents who already possess these skills, or at least who are committed to improving them.
• Motivation. Motivation is something that can be difficult to evaluate in an interview or short term evaluation. It is crucial that a real estate agent possesses it, though, due to the nature of their job. Even though it may be hard to see at times, the motivation level of an agent will typically reveal itself in the form of their work ethic, and commitment to success.

Have a Great Onboarding System

Having an extensive onboarding and training program for your agents allows everyone to be on the same page from the start. This is beneficial to your brokerage in more ways than one. Key components of a great onboarding process include training on all of the technology and accommodations you offer, as well as a detailed overview of your expectations for them. Maybe you use a newly developed CRM tool, or you expect them to use the TC service you pay for. Regardless of how you conduct business in your brokerage, be explicit about it during onboarding.

In order for agents to be successful, they must know exactly what you expect them to do and how you expect them to do it. So provide that to them. It will lead to a lot less confusion, confrontation, and miscommunication if everything is laid out plainly from the start.

Give Detailed Feedback

In order to create a culture that encourages growth, you will need to give detailed, constructive feedback—both when they do something great and when they could improve upon something. The type of agent you want on your team is one who welcomes and feeds off good feedback. These agents are committed to their continued success, and are willing to learn from other industry professionals.

Ensuring that giving feedback is built into your routine will help your agents adjust to getting a significant amount of feedback if they are not used to it. Before you know it, they will begin to appreciate the constant feedback and start to look forward to it.

Set Goals and Quotas

Setting goals and quotas for your agents lets them have something specific they can work towards, while also outlining an expectation you have for them. Goals based on the number of houses you want them to sell, or profit you want them to bring in are great and necessary, but they are not the only goals you should have for your agents. Goals based around continued training, brokerage activities, or industry functions positively affect and motivate agents.

Be a Team Player

One of the best sales management strategies for brokerages is to truly be a team player. Work with your team instead of just supervising. Offer coaching tailored to agents' weaknesses, and be able to have a constructive conversation with them if they are struggling. Be a liaison between upper management and your team, and fight for their interests.

Creating an environment where you are a strong support system for your agents will help them be as productive and successful as they can be. This ultimately offers strong benefits to you and your brokerage.

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