The KPIs and Metrics That Matter for Real Estate Success
The New Year is a great time to set new goals, but you'll also need to get clear on your path to each one. One of the best ways to ensure you're on track to hit your goals? By monitoring your success metrics. There's plenty out there on the metrics real estate pros need to monitor, but we're going to break down the ones that matter, no matter where you are in your real estate career. Why It's Important to Keep an Eye on Your KPIs Before we take a closer look at the crucial key performance indicators, or KPIs, real estate professionals need to track, it's important to understand why tracking these metrics is key. Hint: it's not just for your brag sheet. Tracking your KPIs regularly is crucial for real estate pros, no matter where they are in their career journey. Monitoring your KPIs is crucial to gauging your success and getting clear on areas you can improve. By knowing where you're performing well, you can build upon your success by knowing exactly where to focus and take more impactful, meaningful actions. And keeping an eye on areas to improve helps ensure you're staying on track towards your goals, providing you the opportunity to prevent falling off course completely. Agents For the solo agent, the KPIs you track will be relatively consistent across the board, whether you're a buyer or seller agent. To ensure success, you'll want to track: Your transaction volume: Transaction volume is the total number of properties you've helped buyers purchase or you've helped get successfully sold. Monitoring your transaction volume will help you ensure your lead generation efforts and conversion rate keep you on track for your revenue goals. Your lead generation volume: This is the total number of leads you've generated across all your sources, online and offline. By tracking this KPI, you can see how many potential clients are interested in working with you, so you know which campaigns or outreach efforts are most effective. Your lead conversion rate: Going hand in hand with your lead generation volume is your lead conversion rate. This is the percentage of leads that turned into closed deals. Knowing your lead conversion rate will help you understand your most successful lead generation efforts, and help you keep your finger on the pulse of your sales and negotiation skills. Your Gross Commission Income (GCI): This KPI is the amount of income you earn from your commission on a transaction. It's important to monitor your GCI to keep your finger on the pulse of your finances. GCI can fluctuate for a variety of reasons, so monitoring your own personal trends is key. Your Net Commission Income (NCI): On the flipside, your Net Commission Income, or NCI, is the amount of income you earn but with key expenses subtracted, like brokerage or transaction fees, taxes, other miscellaneous fees, and more. Keep track of your NCI to monitor your annual income and finances. Midsize Teams and Brokerages As we expand to midsize teams and brokerages, the KPIs these real estate pros need to track also level up. If you fall into this category, you'll want to stay on top of the following KPIs in addition to the ones agents typically track above: The team's transaction volume: This goes without saying, but you'll want to keep watch on your team or brokerage's overall transaction volume, as well as drilling down into each individual agent's transaction volume. Keeping close watch on this KPI will allow you to get a good grasp on how you're pacing to your goals, and give you insight into any star players or areas of opportunity to train or improve. Your group's agent retention rate: Your retention rate is made up of the percentage of agents who stay onboard your team or brokerage. This is crucial to understand agent satisfaction, as well as how well you're training, growing, and developing your team. It also provides insights into how well the tools you give your group impacts their performance and willingness to keep working with you. Your marketing return on investment (ROI): Investing in marketing for your brokerage and your agents is a must. So, you can't skip out on tracking your marketing ROI. Monitoring this metric will help you know which channels are the most effective, what campaign types move the needle most for leads, and allow you to better manage your marketing budget overall. Continuing education and training completion: Tracking how much your agents keep up with opportunities for training or continuing education (CE) courses is another great metric to track. This helps you understand what investment they're making in their overall skillset, as well as what courses or sessions are resonating with your agents. It also ties into your agent retention rate. Expansion-Level Brokerages At this level of real estate professional, your brokerage has grown and expanded beyond its initial market to serve a variety of regions and areas. To measure success as an expansion-level brokerage, these real estate pros need to track the agent-level and team-level KPIs listed above, as well as more comprehensive KPIs, such as: Your offices' or branches' performance: Arguably the most important KPI to watch is the performance of each office or branch in your brokerage. Think of this like tracking each of the KPIs listed in the previous sections above. This will give you a laser focus on each offices' strengths, areas to improve, helping you monitor the viability in the market they serve. Agent recruitment and retention rate: We covered the importance of brokerages and teams keeping an eye on their retention rate, and that applies here as a KPI, too. But you'll also want to measure recruitment rates, or how many agents are being brought on to work in each branch or office. This will help you understand your competitive advantage in those markets. Customer satisfaction: Each market will have its own specific characteristics, especially with the clients served. Counting customer satisfaction as a KPI is a must. Whether you source testimonials, conduct customer interviews, or send out surveys, make sure to listen to what customers are saying. This will give you a real-life feel for what it's like working with your agents and their perception of your brokerage and brand. Technology adoption and usage: It's important to invest in powerful tools and software to optimize your brokerages' operations. But it's also important to measure if this tech is actually being learned and used. Make sure to track how much agents are using the tools you provide, attending training sessions, and source their feedback. This will help you ensure your technology investment is proving its ROI. To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate blog. Related reading Metrics Are More Than Just Numbers 5 Real Estate Marketing Metrics to Help You Grow Your Business Why the Top Agents Leverage Success Metrics in a Shifting Market

How to Attract Customers... and Keep Them: Think Like a Healthcare Network
Welcome back to our "Tips and Tricks Tuesday" series, which highlights articles around a monthly theme. October's theme is "Never Lose Another Client." Read on for tips and tricks on maintaining long-term relationships with your clients: In a healthcare network, the emphasis is not solely focused on providing care during health crises. It's also about preventive care, monitoring, and maintaining overall health. Drawing a parallel, real estate brokerages could benefit from adopting similar technological innovations to enhance client engagement, streamline processes, and provide a more efficient and consumer-focused experience. The result — a trusted, lifelong partnership between brokerages and their clients. The Patient Portal for Real Estate Much like patient portals encompass a diverse range of features aimed at enriching patient experience and facilitating comprehensive healthcare management, a homeownership portal could provide a centralized platform with a wide array of features to enhance the homeowner experience. 1. Access to Important Records Patient portals provide patients with secure access to their electronic health records (EHRs), including lab results, medications, treatment plans, and vaccination histories. This empowers patients to stay informed about their health status and make well-informed decisions. Homeowners can access detailed information about their property, including transaction records, home warranty information, product warranty information and manuals, paint colors, make and model of roofing material, and anything else that the homeowner wants to keep a record of. 2. Ability to Select Providers Healthcare networks provide patients with the flexibility to choose from various healthcare providers within a network. This allows patients to select the specific doctors, specialists, hospitals, and clinics that meet their needs. It also provides them with the assurance that these providers are working together and sharing information to deliver coordinated care. Real estate brokers operate similarly by building networks of various providers in the broker's homeowner network. These networks can include lender partners, insurance providers, title companies, contractors, and more, which allows brokers to offer clients a full suite of services related to buying, selling, and maintaining their homes. 3. Secure Messaging The patient portal's integrated messaging system enables secure communication between patients and healthcare providers. This real-time communication streamlines inquiries, appointment scheduling, prescription refills, and clarifications, reducing administrative overhead. This is a massive opportunity for homeowner portals. When a consumer requests a service, the homeowner portal will automatically send pertinent information regarding that service to the service provider. If the consumer prefers multiple quotes, the portal can send the request to multiple service providers with the information that they need to bid on the job. By sharing necessary details with all potential providers simultaneously, homeowners can make more informed decisions and select the best option. 4. Personalized Information Patient portals often offer personalized health education materials, wellness resources, and disease-specific information, fostering patient understanding and self-management of health conditions. Just as patient portals offer tailored health information and resources, the homeownership portal can offer customized maintenance information and options for homeowners to manage their homes effectively. By organizing over 50 of the standard maintenance tasks that come with a home, the portal can empower homeowners to better understand the needs of their homes and make informed decisions about whether to handle maintenance tasks themselves or schedule a professional service provider. This kind of approach can lead to improved homeowner satisfaction, increased property value, and overall better management of one's living environment. Summary Brokers can build long-term relationships with homeowners, providing ongoing value and support beyond the initial transaction. By offering a comprehensive digital platform that assists homeowners in managing their home, brokers can foster a sense of trust and connection. Homeowners would then be more likely to return to the same broker when buying or selling a new property, as they have already established a relationship and familiarity with the homeownership portal with their broker being top of mind throughout the journey. Shannon Baldwin is Vice President of Marketing at Milestones.

Here's How to Help New Agents Become Profitable, Faster
We've all had our first day on the job and remember how it felt to be the "new kid." Any agent that joins your team must undergo the inevitable learning curve on their way to closing their first deal and proving themselves as a powerful — and profitable — addition to the business. Building a strong foundation through solid, consistent training can help new agents and up-and-coming teams: Boost their productivity and motivation Build stronger loyalty and sense of self Require less supervision from leadership Encourage growth and innovative thinking Avoid frustrating — or even costly — errors A Two-Phase Approach While it might be tempting to throw new agents into the deep end, taking a beat to train them properly can make a world of a difference. You don't want to cut corners or skip hands-on, dedicated training — you want to set them up for success. It's important to keep in mind that speed isn't always an indicator of success, and that forcing a newcomer to jump right in and figure it out as they go can actually lengthen that pesky learning curve. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Don't double back to correct mistakes or undo bad habits that could have been prevented with solid training from the start. Once an agent has joined your team, it can take months before they close a deal. By investing the time to offer intensive, strategic, and involved training from the start, you can help shorten this timeframe. We like to take a two-phase approach to training: Initial Onboarding and Ongoing Refinement. Both are equally important in their own right, and we'll break down the ins and outs of each. Free Checklist: 20 Daily Activities for Profitable Agents Phase One: Initial Onboarding Consider this phase of training to be the building of the foundation for your new agent. Just like a house needs a strong foundation to withstand the test of time and the elements, your agent needs a solid start to ensure they'll have long-lasting, enduring success in your business. It is imperative to ensure your new agent learns and becomes deeply familiar with the systems your team uses, has a deep understanding of and alignment with your vision and goals, and is up to speed with how things work within your business from a day-to-day perspective. Taking the time to invest in phase one can set the stage for your new agent to shine. Hands-On, Thorough Systems Training This is absolutely critical. Focus here first. Do we have your attention? Excellent. The technology your business uses, like a CRM, lead generation software, or transaction management tool, all requires hands-on training. Your agents must know how to use your systems, and how to use them effectively. Technology is a critical investment to stay competitive in real estate, and getting your agents on board and actively using your technology is key to driving the success of your business. Failing to train agents to use your systems can cost you in both time and ROI. Pro Tip: If you're not sure where to begin, dig into what your software company can offer. Oftentimes, they'll have training materials and resources on their website, or even a hands-on team of experts to train your agents one-on-one. It's also a good idea to stay on top of system updates, new training courses, and regular refreshers to ensure you maximize your investment in software and use it to its fullest potential. Lead with Purpose As the leader of your business, you are the captain of the ship. Your team looks to you and your vision. As such, the responsibility of training — whether you do it yourself or select your top performers to do so — falls on you. To help speed up your agent's ride along the learning curve, you should: Enforce that they take every opportunity for training and resources that the software company has available. Develop and implement an accountability system across the business to make sure your agents are properly and accurately using the technology. Make it a priority to hold regular check-ins with your team to address and discuss any questions, concerns, or issues they may face with your technology, or share any new features and updates that may have been rolled out by the software company. Dedicating this much time to training may seem overwhelming or counterintuitive. We get it, time is money. But think of it like putting together Ikea furniture. You could skip the manual and spend two hours putting it together blind… or spend 10 minutes reading the manual and build it in half an hour. Internal Operations Internal operations, or the day-to-day activities, of your business are also key for a new agent to be immersed in as they are trained. These operations can be both formal and informal in how they are documented, so spending time training your new agent from the very start on how things work within your business can help prevent numerous interruptions down the line. No matter how you run your team or manage your business, be crystal clear about protocol, processes, and practices. Give your new agent an in-depth rundown of every detail, even allowing them to shadow other agents for a week or more and document questions or curiosities that arise as a result. As an added benefit, these questions can also help you develop a training manual and process if you plan to expand and hire more agents. Align with Business Goals and Mission Statement Odds are, you've sussed out the quality of talent in your agent during the interview process, including how they align with the goals and mission of your business. Regularly communicating your team's goals and having a crystal-clear mission statement is important: taking your compelling vision and infusing it into regular training will help keep everyone on the same page and motivated to deliver their best work. Continual Refinement Now that your new agent has gotten their feet wet and is settling into their groove as a team member, phase two of continual refinement can begin. Think of this as continuing to smooth out any rough edges as their integration into your team becomes more and more seamless. Continual refinement looks like having ongoing training sessions, maintaining regular check-ins, and even pairing your new agent with a mentor. Not only will this second phase help keep agent performance on par, it will also help them build upon their strong foundation and develop their own flair and strengths as a real estate professional. Making regular training a part of your company culture helps foster teamwork, and also ensures that any new agents can join the business with minimal friction and quicker pipeline to success. What are some other ways to continue to refine your agents' success? Stay Up-to-Date The real estate industry is constantly changing. There's always something new to learn and transformations taking place. In the last three years alone we've seen a tremendous shift in real estate, all of which means it's more important than ever to stay ahead of the curve and afloat of new changes. Some different ways to help your team stay fresh in their industry knowledge include: Downloading industry reports Monitoring market trends Signing up for real estate newsletters and blogs Watching webinars or virtual training Attending seminars and conferences Give Your Marketing Strategy a Refresh Your online presence is everything, and technology is also constantly changing. Best practices for online lead generation are always shifting, and staying ahead of trends to promote your business is key. Consider implementing a social media strategy, search engine marketing best practices, or investing in online marketing campaigns. Keep your eye on the ROI to ensure your refresh is maximizing your dollar spend. Fine-Tune Sales Skills Are you sensing a pattern here? Training isn't a one-and-done event, it should be a constant. This is how you ensure greatness on your team, and keep innovation and collaboration alive in your business. From brand new agents onboarding to industry veterans that need a nudge to adopt new trends, refining sales skills through sales training is critical. Consider investing in a real estate coach, implementing a mentorship system, or requiring your agents to attend annual trainings or conferences, and even earn certifications. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

4 Best Practices for Maintaining High-performing Agents at Your Brokerage
Maintaining a successful brokerage means ensuring that all agents perform at their best. As leaders of brokerages, you might have noticed how challenging it is to manage human resources. Thus, real estate brokers must adopt the best practices to keep their agents engaged to encourage high performance. In today's article, we will share a few ideas for real estate brokers looking to improve agent performance at their brokerages. Here are our top recommended best practices for brokers to maintain high engagement for real estate agents at their brokerages for high performance. Support Your Agents To begin, showing agents maximum support is critical in keeping them engaged. For example, brokerages can offer mentorship programs to agents to maintain and create a positive work culture. Also, brokerages must assist and support their agents in any way possible. Professional branding, marketing, and website building are some ways brokers can help their agents to succeed, which is now accessible through tech tools. Offer Them the Latest Technology Furthermore, offering your real estate agents the latest technologies will go a long way in helping them retain customers, give them new and improved marketing techniques, and facilitate their work. Healthy Work Environment Another best practice for maintaining high-performing agents is creating a good work environment. To attract and keep top agents, create a conducive office environment. Agents are more dedicated to their work when the environment is friendly and stress-free. Focus on Culture Team building is very crucial when it comes to establishing a network of highly-productive real estate agents. Building a culture and organizing team activities, events, and social gatherings to promote networking among your agents is a good practice for excellent agent outcomes. What's More? Investing in your agents is investing in your brokerage's long-term success. So, brokers should research from time to time to ensure they adopt the best practices to encourage agents' performance. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

Nobody Wants to Be Managed
Management, teamwork and leadership – what's the difference? Thriving organizations in the real estate and mortgage industries have leadership teams empowered to be agile, decisive and client-focused. This decentralized style of leadership empowers individuals to achieve extraordinary results. We embraced this culture at Pacific Union International, growing from $2 billion in sales volume in 2009 to $14 billion in 2018 when we were acquired by Compass. Each member of the leadership team developed and owned their budget, had hiring authority within their region, and enjoyed bonuses based on the fiscal performance of their department or region. We led 2,000 real estate professionals with 200 employees. As a multiple sport athlete throughout high school and college, I learned the power of teamwork. One individual can indeed make a difference, but rarely can one create a championship in team sports. The same principles are true in business. The CEO can indeed make a difference, but the operating leverage comes from empowering leaders to be decisive and making decisions as close to the client as possible. Will there be mistakes? Sure, but they will be recognized quickly, and course correction comes "in flight." A centralized decision-making model tends to stifle innovation, creates complacency, and course correction takes time. We referred to large, centralized competitors as the aircraft carriers; we were the fighter jets coming back for fuel and returning to the field. We experienced this firsthand when acquiring Pacific Union. All significant decisions were made by GMAC, centralized on the east coast. We immediately empowered the leadership team – some embraced the opportunity and responsibility, others self-selected out. The right leaders [athletes] are required in the right roles. The best athletes generally love to run, create opportunity and bask in their results. They do not ask to be managed! Let's break it down. What is the difference between management, teamwork, and leadership? Management is the art of conducting a task, a project, or a group of people. Teamwork is the synchronized art of working together towards the same goal. Leadership is the art of articulating vision and inspiring others to pursue the vision with you. Leadership generally does not require authority as the vision is compelling enough. Leadership and vision inspire through the noise of everyday business. Focus is maintained on vision and not distracted by competitive sprints. Peak performance also deserves significant incentive compensation. Pay it timely, if not somewhat early! A team of empowered leaders will always outperform a tightly managed enterprise. How does your organization thrive? This is Where We Are Now! Mark McLaughlin serves as CEO of McLaughlin Ventures and M&A Advisory at WAV Group. To view the original article, visit the McLaughlin Ventures blog.

How to Name Your Business and Avoid the Branding Errors Fresh Entrepreneurs Make
When establishing a business, you must first gather a deep understanding of your industry, prepare a proper business plan, build a suitable website, and develop a brand strategy that best suits your company and target audience. Your brand identity must communicate a compelling promise to your customers about your business's services. The best way to communicate this promise is by getting a solid brand name. And since a strong brand name will raise client expectations and encourage them to test your brand, using a weak, offensive, or downright insulting name will be disastrous to your products, services, and brand image. Far too many entrepreneurs with weak naming skills succumb to these naming issues, even though they could have simply avoided them by researching and using a product name generator to craft already thought-up business name ideas. And to help you avoid falling into any of these mistakes, we've compiled a list of common naming mistakes you must avoid when naming your firm. Three Naming Errors You Must Avoid When Branding Your Company 1. Extremely Long Brand Names Ensure you avoid names that are very lengthy and difficult to remember when naming your company since clients may struggle to pronounce, identify, or recall your business. Using extremely long words instead of shorter ones, as your brand's domain name will restrict the accessibility of your company website. Also, simpler words capture customers' attention better than longer, more complex ones. If you make the mistake of giving your business a lengthy, boring name, many of your customers will need help remembering it. And that could make them less inclined to tell their friends, coworkers, and family about it. But if you must use a long, complicated name, consider abbreviating it, as MAC or Microsoft did. And since 80% of customers forget branded items within three days, your number one goal should be to give your enterprise a distinctive name that'll help it stay on top of your customer's minds. 2. Brand Name With Adverse Translations Having a powerful online presence for your business allows you to communicate with clients from all around the world. However, having a worldwide identity has drawbacks. For one thing, it exposes your company's name to people from various cultures and languages who may find it insulting or uncomfortable. Potential clients will not be motivated to use your services if they detest your company's name. This was demonstrated when Spanish-speaking customers rejected two popular items, Mazda's Laputa and Nokia's Lumia because the names of both products translate as "prostitute" in Spanish. This shows that you should open up your linguistic research to more than just one language when verifying your brand's name. Ensure you only choose a brand name after thoroughly researching the most commonly used languages internationally and in your target market. By following this approach, you can ensure that your business's name will be acceptable to customers worldwide. 3. Names Built on Touchy Socio-Political Trends While this may appear easy to avoid with proper branding and marketing, most brands with great brand names make the mistake of jumping head-first into any and every socio-political trend. And trust us, it's very easy to annihilate a good chunk of your customer base like Gillette. This is because people care deeply about specific social, health, and environmental concerns and are more likely to support a firm that shares its values. But individuals who disagree with the causes you back and find your message offensive will be unlikely to buy your products or use your services. As an entrepreneur, you must recognize that even though the best method to attract your clients to your brand is to get a captivating name, that would mean very little if your brand has a negative image to them. So, as you concentrate on coming up with a distinctive, pleasant, and exciting company name, also ensure you exercise caution with political issues. Place Your Clients First Although it might appear simple, many business owners are still too concerned with their company's financial performance and lose sight of their business's primary goal, which is to serve their target market. So ensure you keep your customers first in everything your business does from business naming to idea generation and marketing. This will help you build a brand that quickly draws customers. Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. The company is also the world's leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Success Is a Decision
We have plenty of fog and noise in the housing and mortgage markets. Over the past two weeks, I have consumed research from John Burns Real Estate Consulting, Zelman & Associates and MBS Highway. One perspective repeated by Barry Habib of MBA Highway is "success is a decision." So true! We have the choice to wrap ourselves in the fog and noise in the housing markets, inflation and possible recession, or we can use the current state as an opportunity for a new vision and growth. My listening posts around the United States suggest the resale housing markets are nowhere near the gloom and doom reported in the national media. A few data points: Resales are expected in the 5.4 million range this year – very respectable when compared to our historically best years, albeit short of record-breaking years like 2021. Mortgage originations in 2022 are expected to be $2.4 trillion, the third best performance in 16 years. If you have already reviewed and performed the course corrections as outlined in my March 29th writing, now is the opportunity to plan your growth! We have a new brokerage client planning to grow from 2021 sales volume of $2 billion to $4 billion by year-end 2024. Another new client in the marketing/business development business is focused on revenue growth from $18 million in 2021 to $100 million by year end 2024. Strategic planning starts with a vision. Vision is then shared, refined, and embraced by a leadership team. The shared vision is so powerful as it creates focus, and it is not distracted by fog or noise. Source: Barry Habib presentation 7-15-2022 By way of example, when growing Pacific Union from $2 billion in sales volume in 2009 to $20 billion in 2021, our team did not constrain our vision by our finances. We always took the position that if vision was solid, financing it would not be our most significant challenge. Over the next 18 months, we will see the good will become great! Those slowed by the fog and the noise may lose market share. Now is your opportunity for growth. Success is a decision! Mark McLaughlin serves as CEO of McLaughlin Ventures and M&A Advisory at WAV Group.

Embrace Your Company Culture
We hear the term constantly: company culture. Building it, honing it, creating something that defines a company is often at the crux of that company's success. But while they're familiar words and sentiment, we still have to ask ourselves: What is company culture all about? In many other industries, "culture" is everything a business does to motivate its employees outside of paying them what they're worth. Trying to build a culture that values the team on a foundation of cut-rate compensation is saying one thing and doing another. Naturally, actions speak louder than words. In real estate, however, company culture is a totally different ball game. Because commissions are the norm for agents and brokers, everyone in the office brings some intrinsic motivation to the table. Like other sociable, sales-driven industries, you will meet plenty of colleagues driven by the fact that they are the biggest factor in their own success. Every agent in an area faces the same housing stock, local economy, and "lake" of clients, though they might choose to fish in different spots. Company culture is a massive differentiator in how individuals make the most of these resources – and whether they stick around long-term, look elsewhere, or go solo. The worst thing you can do is let culture happen by accident! Some kind of culture develops any time a group comes together for any purpose. Really! But even if your culture has been on autopilot, it's not too late to change for the better. By focusing on supporting your people – with technology and humanity – you can create a culture that works. There's no better time to do it than now. Wrapping Your Mind Around Company Culture The idea of "company culture" has been used a million different ways by a million different businesses, many of which use "culture fit" when looking to fill open positions. For this reason, culture can seem devilishly slippery. If it's something that bends to every definition, is it all really just hot air? Company culture can be discussed in a way that's superficial and, ultimately, not very helpful. But there truly is something to the concept. Once you get a sense of how it affects your tangible business results, it becomes much easier to see how you can change it for the better. There are two big things company culture is not: Company Culture Isn't Just a Package of PerksCompany culture doesn't just mean free coffee or a foosball table in the break room. The idea you can boil down culture to a certain idea of fun – one that's wacky and zany within carefully prescribed limits – comes largely from high-tech startups. Companies like these aim to recruit recent college graduates who haven't necessarily developed healthy boundaries or expectations around what work asks of them. Company Culture Isn't Just Your Company's ValuesThese days, companies of all sizes are being asked to articulate their values around various subjects. Millennials and Generation Z are growing their share of the economy, and they want to know they are spending their money in harmony with their worldview. But, while culture can spring from a clear statement of values, the values are only the beginning. They are not the whole story of what culture is. So, then, what is company culture, exactly? Company culture can be described as "the unwritten rules," the way things are done in an organization. It is less about written policies and more about how, whether, and when they are followed. Since it is more an art than a science, it is best understood through analogy. You might want your culture to reflect a positive orientation toward learning and growth. But mistakes and oversights are often made along the path. If a manager's response to mistakes is punishment and scorn, that person values perfectionism and rules-following, not growth. Luckily, it's simpler to understand how to fine-tune your culture to realize one specific goal, in this case, agent retention. And since company culture is very responsive, all you have to do is commit to a more intentional stance around culture and start taking some of the right actions. Positive change will follow, and then it will be easier to chart a course forward. The Seven Best Ways to Create a Culture that Values, Cultivates, and Retains Agents Give Your Agents Clear Opportunities to Grow Their SkillsAn agent's performance revolves around two things: Skills and confidence. Confidence grows when skills are developed and mastered. There's always something new to learn in real estate, and your willingness to define a clear path to professional growth is a big part of your investment in your team. Plus, you'll reap the benefits of greater productivity that come along with that expanded perspective. Equip Agents to Succeed with the Right TechnologiesIt was not that long ago when the average agent needed to dedicate hours every week to ensure they were on top of the latest changes with their prospects, leads, and customers. These days, Customer Relationship Management software centralizes all these functions in one place. A real estate CRM offers complete visibility and may even help you know when to follow up using artificial intelligence. Remember: Priorities Emerge from ValuesWhile values aren't all there is to company culture, they do matter. Values act as the North Star that everyone can consult when choosing between two conflicting priorities or courses of action. For example, a company that upholds compassion as a key value might make customer care a top priority and would choose to help the customer feel heard over handing calls off as fast as possible. Tune In to Individuals' Different MotivationsMany real estate professionals are driven, competitive, and attuned to opportunities to make money. That said, everyone is different. People will vary in the kind of incentives that motivate them. They also differ in how they prefer to be recognized for their achievements, whether one-on-one or in a group setting. The better you know your team members, the easier it is to tap their attention and energy. Encourage Support and MentoringTeaching others is often the fastest way to sharpen your own skills. With that in mind, it's wise to spark an interest in mentoring within your office. Allow junior team members the opportunities to think through their challenges without having to reinvent the wheel. As a result, genuine relationships are built that help you to integrate your company into the wider industry community and thus attract top talent.  Celebrate SuccessSuccess happens every day, on both an individual and team level. Of course, when the team reaches its goals, it's cause for celebration. But personal milestones are also important, assuming the individual consents to have their story heard. So whether it's the big sale or a firstborn's birth, don't be afraid to cheer others on. Create an Inviting Work EnvironmentMany agents and brokers are more productive when they have a quiet, enclosed space where they can do blocks of focused, uninterrupted work. That said, you can create opportunities for collaboration by setting up plenty of common areas where ideas can be shared. That makes for the best of both worlds. Retention all comes down to whether someone feels valued. Agents and brokers often have a dozen other opportunities right in their own backyard, so crafting a retention-focused culture is crucial. These seven tips will put you on the path to long-term retention and the outstanding results it can lead to. To view past Real Estate Marketing and Technology articles and read more from the February 2022 issue, click here. RE Technology readers can try DeltaNET 6 FREE for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

Culture Is Critical to Success
What is your company culture like, and how does that culture impact the success of your team? These are crucial questions in any industry, and they're especially important in real estate. Building a strong culture starts from the top, but it also depends on every team member doing their part. Here's why culture is so critical to success and how you can foster a strong culture for your real estate team. Individual excellence may improve results, but team culture is the key to building a reliable, sustainable business where team members look forward to working each day and providing an excellent experience for your clients. A healthy culture makes it easier for your team to collaborate, support one another, and seamlessly integrate new members into the team. Your culture is reflected in everything that your team does. It makes your real estate business a more attractive place to work for top-performing agents and helps every team member perform to the best of their abilities. It's also reflected in how your clients are treated, how well your team helps them accomplish their goals, and how likely they are to generate referrals after those goals are accomplished. How to Build a Strong Culture with Your Real Estate Team As a team leader, other team members will naturally look to you as a culture setter and an example. When you bring a positive, team-focused attitude, a collaborative spirit, and a strong work ethic to the table, team members are naturally more likely to follow your lead. Establish Core Values That Your Team Can Be Proud of What motivates your team as a whole? Are the values of your team members aligned with the core values of your real estate business? Those values provide a guiding light for team members, both in how they treat clients and how they treat each other. Providing an outstanding experience for your clients is something that every team member should be able to get behind. It motivates them to work together to provide that experience and to make an effort to treat team members just as well as they treat each client. Learn What Motivates Each Team Member While team goals and values are important, it's equally critical to remember that every team is made up of unique individuals. Understanding what motivates each individual will help you create an environment that allows them to maximize their skills, work toward their goals, and understand how those goals fit within the larger context of the team. Take the time to get to know each member of the team and learn about their career goals. The more you know about your team, the easier it is to build a strong culture. Encourage a Culture of Collaboration and Respect The most successful teams work together toward common goals, with each individual doing their part. In real estate, collaboration comes in many forms – experienced agents helping new agents, buyer's agents helping seller's agents, and vice versa. In order to encourage collaboration and trust, it's important to foster an environment of respect. When team members treat each other the right way, respect the goals of each team member, and accept new ideas, it's much easier to succeed. Help Your Agents Learn and Grow The best agents never stop learning, are aware of how they can improve, and are willing to listen to advice from experienced voices on how they can grow their careers. Encourage agents to grow by providing learning opportunities and coaching. Make mentorship a priority so that each generation of agents can help the next generation thrive. Celebrate Team and Individual Successes Real estate is hard work. Agents of all experience levels invest extensive effort in achieving both team and individual goals. Celebrating those successes is a great way to bring your team closer together and remind them of why individual success is so closely linked to team success. Create an Inviting, Social Work Environment Even the layout of your office can make a positive contribution to team culture by encouraging agents to socialize and collaborate. An open floor plan makes it easy for agents to interact and connect. Regardless of the floor plan, you can create common areas where agents can easily meet up, discuss real estate matters, or even just relax for a few minutes and connect on a personal level. No matter the size of your real estate business, team culture is a key ingredient in your recipe for success. Whether you're launching a new brokerage or working to boost the performance of your existing team, actively building a positive culture will help you accomplish your goals. No two teams are exactly the same, but the core elements of a strong culture apply across the board. Set your team up for success with the right technology. RE Technology readers can try DeltaNET 6 free for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

How Strong Leaders Can Make All the Difference
The most successful real estate agents are always looking for ways to evolve, improve their craft, help their fellow team members, and advance their own careers. Those qualities make some top-performing agents ideal candidates for leadership roles, and placing the right agents in the right positions is crucial for overall agent retention. Leaders will feel more valued and fulfilled when working in roles that allow them to grow their careers, while promising new agents are more likely to stick around when they have trusted mentors on the team. Prioritizing agent leadership and retention are two of the biggest components in any real estate team's long-term success. Growing Agent Leadership and Retention Why Agent Retention Should Always Be a Top Priority - According to the National Association of REALTORS®, the average tenure for agents at their current firm is four years. Naturally, you want your best agents to work with you for much longer than that, not only because their skills benefit your team but because the cost of replacing an agent is incredibly steep. The financial cost of training, onboarding, and equipping a new agent is significant, with no guarantee that the fresh hire will be a perfect fit for your brand or culture. Team morale can be negatively impacted by the departure of experienced agents as well, and new leaders will have to fill the void. Retaining your best agents has so many benefits, starting with avoiding the challenges that come with trying to replace them. How to Identify Agents with Leadership Potential - The best leaders are always looking for the next challenge. They want to learn, grow, adapt, improve, advance, and use their own experiences to help other agents who are following in their footsteps. These agents are often team players who will unofficially take on leadership roles before receiving any type of official recognition. They will help new agents learn the business and deal with the unique emotional challenges that can come with launching a real estate career. Their door will always be open when someone needs to talk, and other team members will often turn to them for advice. An agent who is a patient, knowledgeable, and personable team player will usually have the tools necessary to take on a leadership role. Not Every Top Performer Will Be a Leadership Fit - Let's be honest—being a top performer, on its own, doesn't necessarily qualify an agent to be a leader. Someone who's great at selling homes won't always be similarly skilled at leading other team members, and not every top performer will be interested in taking on the added responsibilities that come with being a leader. And that's okay! Those agents can still be valuable team members as long as they get along with the rest of the team while setting a positive example through their performance. Even if they don't take active leadership positions, there are plenty of ways for them to positively affect the day-to-day business. The most important thing is finding the right role for everyone and allowing them to thrive in it. Leadership Roles and Retaining Your Best Agents - The best leaders are often the agents looking to get more out of their careers than just a healthy paycheck. These individuals succeed in real estate because their skills as an agent are topnotch, and they're confident that those skills will help them excel no matter what market they're working in. They seek a level of professional fulfillment that goes beyond dollars and cents, which is why a leadership role can be a perfect way to retain them for the long haul. Leading other agents helps to provide that fulfillment while opening up unique paths for career advancement. How the Right Leaders Can Help Retain and Grow New Agents - Starting fresh and becoming a successful real estate agent is not easy, but it's also a path that many individuals have already walked. Use that experience to your benefit and to help everyone on your team. Whether it's a new agent trying to learn the ropes or a more experienced agent who has hit a rough patch, having a trusted, team-focused mentor is crucial to finding success. A leader does more than help other agents sell homes. They also help with all of the complexities that come with pursuing a real estate career. Their knowledge allows them to put challenges in perspective while providing real, proven solutions to help team members succeed. Add it all up, and it's no surprise that the most successful, cohesive real estate teams rely on great leaders. Why Leadership, Team Building and Agent Retention Go Hand-in-Hand Think about a time in your own career when you may have felt a little lost, were unsure of what to do next, or simply needed some encouragement from a trusted source. It's often in those small, personal moments that the best leaders genuinely shine. Leadership can be as simple as providing some encouraging words to someone who's going through a challenging time or an open ear to help someone vent their frustrations. It can also be as complicated as assisting a team member in identifying an underlying issue that's impacting their performance and helping them create a detailed plan for how to overcome it. At some point in their career, every agent will face challenges that are difficult to deal with alone. In some cases, those challenges will be make-or-break moments where the agent is thinking about possibly moving on to a new firm or even pursuing a new career altogether. A skilled leader has the wherewithal to deal with those obstacles and knows how to approach other agents in a way that gets through to each unique personality. They are the glue that holds any successful team together, and playing that role gives them the fulfillment they need to be satisfied with their own career. In other words, leadership is ultimately a symbiotic relationship, which helps with agent retention in multiple ways. Of course, new or less experienced agents benefit by having a leader they can rely upon, but the leader also benefits by having team members who count on them for help. As newer agents grow their skills and accumulate experience, they can look forward to taking on their own leadership roles. When the whole team is working toward the same goals, the workplace environment is positive, leading to a strong team and making it that much easier to retain every member of the team. How Will Your Leaders Shape Your Real Estate Team? Finding leaders isn't always easy, but it's more than worth the effort. Every agent is unique, just like every team is unique. Leaders help to set the standard for the culture of your team and can elevate those around them. Some leaders are naturally skilled at the role, while others grow into it over the course of their careers. By identifying the right people and encouraging them to take on more active leadership roles, you're ultimately shaping the future of your real estate team. And with the right people in place, that future will be looking bright for years to come. Help your real estate team or brokerage lead the way with powerful technology. Try DeltaNET 6 FREE for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

5 Ways Brokers Can Help Agents Succeed Right Now
These challenging times are testing the strength of teams and brokerages across the country. What are you doing to step up and make sure your agents are thriving? Brokers must equip their agents with the best resources and the latest knowledge to tackle today's challenges and build a strong framework for success. See five ways brokers can help agents succeed right now!

3 Lessons for Real Estate from a Mid-pandemic Millennial Homebuyer
On July 20, my boyfriend and I bought our first house together. I wanted to share our story for a few reasons. Aside from buying during a pandemic (and experiencing a process in real estate that didn't really exist before), part of my role here at Lone Wolf is to keep an eye on trends in real estate, and I can't tell you how many articles I've seen written on the topic of my generation, the millennial homebuyers.

Pivoting from 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' to 'Survivor: Corona Island'
What do Walt Disney, Rambo, and two hit TV shows have to do with tackling the challenges posed by the Coronavirus? Check out this post by Rental Beast founder and CEO Ishay Grinberg on how businesses can adapt and come out of COVID-19 stronger. In TV lingo, that's the transition most businesses experienced over the past three painstaking weeks. Early on, we all had 2020 goals--most of them ambitious, given that the economy was humming along nicely. Rental Beast anticipated another year of growth—on all fronts. The universe had other plans.

Wendy Forsythe on Cultivating Relationships within Your Brokerage to Drive Success
"Get involved in your local board. Get involved in your state association. Get involved in the National Association of Realtors. Get involved in YPN or the Women's Council of Realtors or the Chamber of Commerce. Whatever it is, get involved, because that is only going to bring benefit," says Wendy Forsythe, Chief Operations Officer at HomeSmart International. Here are a few highlights from the video above: The importance of relationships as an agent, broker, executive and industry leader The importance of stepping forward. The power of not giving up. Rather read it? Check out the transcript here: Mike Schneider: Welcome back to another episode of our First Person series. Today I have Wendy Forsythe, the chief operating officer at HomeSmart International, and we're gonna be talking about the intersection of relationships and business, particularly in real estate. So-- Wendy Forsythe: Great. I'm excited to be here. Mike Schneider: So, our company's called First, and we like rewind all the way back to, how, when, and why did you get into real estate? Wendy Forsythe: Yeah, so, my real estate story started when I was in college, in Northern Canada. Mike Schneider: Wow. Wendy Forsythe: And I got into real estate as a summer job. So I got my real estate license in the summer in between my second and third year of college. And, sold a bunch of houses that summer. Went back to school, continued selling houses, finished my degree, continued selling houses, and here we are now. Mike Schneider: And here we are. Wendy Forsythe: Many years later. But, I fell in love with the industry and I knew that it was my career and I knew that it would give me opportunities that I hadn't even imagined at that stage. Being in my early 20s and, fast forward and I've just been so fortunate to be a part of this industry and, now I live in the United States and here we are. Mike Schneider: Yeah. Well, and now you're running a really big brokerage. Tell us a little bit about HomeSmart and your role there. Wendy Forsythe: Yeah. So, HomeSmart International, has 166 locations across the US. We have, as of this recording, just under 16,000 agents-- Mike Schneider: Wow. Wendy Forsythe: --and growing. Mike Schneider: Congratulations. Wendy Forsythe: Yeah. It's an amazing company. Very much focused on providing our agents with great service with a business system that allows them to reach their goals for their personal lives and professional lives and really a business model of the future in our industry with all the changes that are happening. So, it's an exciting place to be. Mike Schneider: I love that. I love the innovations on business model and technology and all of that. One of the things that's a mainstay pillar for our tech company, and I think for the industry is that relationships are really central. So, you've seen a huge spectrum of the industry. Wendy Forsythe: Yes. Mike Schneider: Can you talk a little bit about how relationships drive this business? Because a lot of people say that, but what does it actually look like? Wendy Forsythe: Yeah. I mean, there's so many different perspectives. So my days selling as an agent, I mean, relationships were key. You had that sphere of influence and those were the people that transacted with you multiple times, sent you referrals. And I think that's very consistent today. Mike Schneider: And that was a big percentage, the majority, what was that of your business? Wendy Forsythe: Uh, a big percentage of my business. Mike Schneider: Yeah. Wendy Forsythe: I mean, like any new agent starting out it, it took a while to get there. Mike Schneider: You have to build it up. Wendy Forsythe: Yeah. And then as I progressed into management and I owned my own brokerage for a number of years working with agents. That transition into their business, that relationship component. When I started working in more of the corporate roles that I work in now, we still see those relationships from the agent to the consumer perspective, but there's a whole other dynamic that opens from the relationship of leaders with-- Mike Schneider: Yeah. Wendy Forsythe: --agents, you know, in the company, with other people in roles like management and support roles, operations and training and, and all of those roles, to the industry. I mean, we work in an amazing industry. And, I've always looked at it from a point of abundance. So we come to conferences. We go to events. Maybe we're kind of competitors in a way with other brands and other companies. But, I believe in sharing and building those relationships and they can do well and we can do well and our companies can do well. And, you know, we can all prosper from that regard. So, I've been very fortunate to have long standing relationships with a lot of people as we've moved through different stages of our careers. And that's, ultimately what keeps us motivated and what really, sort of, nourishes the energy level that we need to do what we do everyday. Mike Schneider: That's great. I think that's becoming a theme too as we talk about relationships, the network component, that you really are building, and to your point, not just an individual agent's core asset, right, which is their network. But what you're talking about is the industry that you now are able to tap into [inaudible] at a broker level, at an executive level, as you're taking new business models to market. Wendy Forsythe: It is. And even at a local level, for agents, I always encourage agents, you know, "Get involved in your local board. Get involved in your state association. Get involved in the National Association of Realtors. Get involved in YPN or the Women's Counsel of Realtors or, the Chamber of Commerce." Like, whatever it is, get involved, because that network effect of those relationships is only gonna bring benefit. And when you isolate yourself, when things aren't going exactly as you hoped, you don't get the support of those relationships and that network around you. And, ultimately we all go through ups and downs, so that support system makes a big difference. Mike Schneider: That's a great recommendation, push. As you think back through being a broker, owner back in the day or from, some part, a lot of our, our viewers are agents, uh, is there a tip or a trick that you used or that you coached or that you still do today in terms of nurturing and maintaining relationships? What's something-- one thing somebody could go and say, "I'm gonna do that in 2019?" Wendy Forsythe: I don't know if it's a tip or trick. I mean, being yourself and being authentic I think is, the best thing you can do. And, I particularly remember as I was listening to young agents starting out, you meet other people that are maybe more seasoned or you aspire and you think, "Look, they've got it so together. They know everything. They know everyone. You know, I'm not there, so maybe I would sort of, hang back because of that." Mike Schneider: Sure. Wendy Forsythe: And, I just really encourage people just to like, just step forward and be yourself and say hello to somebody that you've never met. Introduce yourself. And then, just care. So, be in that moment in that relationship. And some of the people that I have the greatest admiration for have that quality of, when you and I are talking, we're in that moment together. Mike Schneider: Right. Wendy Forsythe: And then we may shift to the next conversation, but I'm in that moment, and I think that's a great quality to really foster as you think of developing your relationships personally and professionally. Mike Schneider: That's interesting. It does seem like that's something that you can learn and develop if you're intentional about it. Wendy Forsythe: Right. Mike Schneider: Um is there a question you ask? Is there something-- so you're getting to know someone new. I mean, I think that's where we get to the tip and trick level. How do you take the conversation there and be in that moment? Wendy Forsythe: It depends on the setting, but I love to ask people-- and particularly in my role, because I'm traveling across the country, I'm spending a lot of time with our HomeSmart agents, our franchise owners. I get not as much time as I would often like to spend with those people. But-- I get some time to connect. So if I'm just meeting somebody, I love to just ask them about their real estate story, cause I think we're all, like, living and writing our story every day. Mike Schneider: Yeah. Wendy Forsythe: So, you know, if we're just meeting, I'd be like, "Tell me about your real estate story." And they'll tell me about how they started in the business, why they started in the business, where they're at now, where they wanna go. And that gives me a lot more of a interaction that I can really build upon then, "Well how long have you been in the business? Well, do you like real estate? Well, why did you get your license?" So, uh, that's one of my favorite questions that I ask a lot. Mike Schneider: I like that. I like that and that you could have lots of different questions that fit that mold. But it's both, what's the story and you have the opportunity to talk about dreams and, future too. Wendy Forsythe: Right. Mike Schneider: Where do you wanna go next? Wendy Forsythe: Because what it tells me is what's important to them. Mike Schneider: Yes. Wendy Forsythe: Right? So, however they decide to take that question and answer it back to me, tells me what really is their passion and what are they excited about. So if they start telling me about, kids or vacations or debt or divorce or-- Mike Schneider: Right. Right. Wendy Forsythe: --anything, cause I get lots of interesting answers. Mike Schneider: Responses. Yeah. Wendy Forsythe: And I genuinely like people and I really like the psychology of human science. Mike Schneider: Yes. Wendy Forsythe: And, you know, why do we act the way we do? Why do we react the way we do? What is predictable about it? What is unpredictable about it? So, I've always had, that curiosity from that, element of things. So, I like hearing those answers. I think about them often at the end of the day, the people I talked to and the conversations that we had. Mike Schneider: I love that. I love that. Is there anything as you think back to either when you were running a brokerage or with, HomeSmart as a brokerage too, that you are, are implementing or coaching or trying to, you know-- what does the relationship side of the business look like there in terms of how you help your agents with that? Wendy Forsythe: Yeah. I'll focus on-- actually, I'll answer that-- I'll focus on working with our franchise owners. Mike Schneider: Yeah. Wendy Forsythe: Cause we do a lot of work on leadership. Mike Schneider: Okay. Wendy Forsythe: So, we're a large franchise company. We have independently owned and operated offices in multiple states across the country. So that's kind of our front line to the agents, cause the agents are actually making the choice to work with that local-- Mike Schneider: Of what they're gonna do and how they're gonna implement it. Sure, Wendy Forsythe: Yeah, that local owner is part of the HomeSmart brand. So, spend a lot of time, coaching and helping those business owners build their businesses. So, of course, leadership is a big component of that. Building culture is a big component of that. And, you know, when you're focusing on that, kind of, giving back mentality, you see amazing things happen with that. So that's part of what is a constant development phase, is, how do I be a good leader? What does it mean to be a leader? Are we providing the support, the tools, the relationships that the agents need and want when they're with our brokerages? Mike Schneider: That's really helpful. Well, we'll end on this one, but is there anything that you wish you had known or that you would've done differently if you had known a few years ago? Wendy Forsythe: Oh, yeah. I try to practice this now, but I have an awareness of it now that I wish I had told myself younger, and a few years ago. And that would just be everything's gonna pass. Take a breath, it's gonna pass, it's, it's gonna be okay. Whatever the outcome that I'm striving for when I don't hit that outcome, that it's okay. I'm gonna get another chance. Mike Schneider: It's alright. Wendy Forsythe: It's good. Just, keep moving forward. And it-- and I have a phrase, relentless forward momentum. Mike Schneider: Relentless forward momentum. Wendy Forsythe: Yes. So, just keep moving forward. Mike Schneider: Just keep moving forward. It'll pass. Wendy Forsythe: It, it'll pass. We'll figure it out. We'll make it okay. Mike Schneider: Wendy, thanks for being on. Wendy Forsythe: Thank you. Mike Schneider: I appreciate it. Wendy Forsythe: Thank you, it was my pleasure to be here. To view the original article, visit the first.io blog.

Task Expands to the Time Allotted
In time management, I have a phrase, "Task Time Expansion" which happens to all of us and we need to be aware of the consequences. Have you ever had a day where you had nothing pressing, no deadlines to meet? Yes, I know that just about never happens, but you did have maybe one or two things you wanted to do that day? By the end of the day, you have not accomplished one or maybe both things despite your desire to get them done.

Multitasking Can Be Hazardous to Your Brain!
Multitasking is a touchy subject. It's drawn so much fire when I've discussed the subject in the past. We all think we are experts at multitasking, when actually we are just fooling ourselves. Before we do a deep dive into the negative effects of multitasking, let's compare our brain to a few other things we can relate to and envision.

What Real Estate Brokerages Need to Know about Gen Z
This week at RGX, our focus is all about the future of real estate and the technology that powers it. So to go along with that, let's take a look at the future of real estate—and who will have a big role in it. Yes, I mean Gen Z. It wasn't too long ago we were talking about why real estate brokerages need to put the spotlight on marketing to millennials—and how to do it. But with millennials now reaching 23 years old minimum, they're making room for the next generation, too.

Lessons from the Navy Seals on Getting Teams to Hit Goals
Plenty of us already struggle with hitting our own goals. Getting a team to hit their goals? That's a whole other challenge. There are plenty of strategies and ideas to steal from, but why not learn from one of the most elite team organizations in the country: the Navy Seals.

Tips on Managing Real Estate Offices Remotely (From People Who Actually Do It)
So your real estate business is doing well and you've expanded. Or you're considering the possibility. Expanding with new teams in different markets can be a highly profitable path in real estate. It also brings a handful of new challenges. We had a chat with some experts in the industry who are managing their remote teams successfully and seamlessly — and we're bringing you the insider tips.

Building a Gratitude Brokerage Culture
When was the last time you took a moment out of your day to pause, observe your agents and staff, recognize that they are doing really great work, and then personally express your gratitude? An article by Fast Company suggests that all of us suffer from "gratitude deficit disorder." "We are hungry for genuine appreciation and thanks," the article states. "We want to know that we matter, that our efforts are making the world a better place." Do your agents and staff feel appreciated? What about your clients? And how much does gratitude really matter?

4 Steps for Easier Agent Adoption
Recently, we talked about how to boost agent adoption of brand-new technology. It's not always easy to convince them to use a new tool, especially if they already have one that they know and love! It's one thing to get them to switch. But it's another thing completely to get that switch to stick. So how do you keep the learning curve going? Here are a few handy tips!

Increase Agent Adoption Rates by Following These 3 Steps
Agent adoption of brokerage tech is one of the major obstacles facing virtually every brokerage out there; it's just part of the industry we're in. You work hard to carefully choose and curate the perfect tech stack for your brokerage, so I personally would understand if a lack of adoption stings a little – or a whole freaking lot. Don't let your confidence take a hit from it, as it likely has nothing to do with you, or your quality of choice.

Are You Holding Your Organization Back?
As an executive, we all get caught up in the day to day hum of problems, challenges, opportunities and tasks. We feel good when we get a project completed or have a productive conversation with a staff person or customer. It's great when we get to check something off our list! Many of us are most comfortable when we are "doing"

What Real Estate Brokerages Can Learn from Spider-Man
Recently, Marvel Studios posted this image on their Instagram feed: The photo, which shows our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, head bowed, standing in shadow, is the studio's way of honoring one of its own, Steve Ditko, who passed away at the end of June. Even as a dedicated Marvel fan myself, I was unfamiliar with Ditko. Although he spent the majority of his career trying to stay out of the limelight, Ditko was the artist who worked with Stan Lee to bring Spider-Man to life. Spider-Man made his debut back in 1962, and quickly became the foundation for Marvel's approach to superheroes. He was uniquely human, making him relatable and understandable for his audience. Although Ditko didn't stay on with Marvel for long, his creations continued to have a big influence on the studio and the superhero universe as we know it today. Even though they're fiction, there's a lot we can learn from them. So what can real estate brokerages learn from Spider-Man?

Why Brokers Should Plan a Summer Retreat for Their Team
It's late summer – a time when many have their minds on other things, and the real estate sales cycle is just beginning to slow down. That means it's time to work up a renewed sense of purpose and drive with a summer retreat. Company retreats aren't just for big corporations. Brokers can have them for their agents and employees, too! Your team will be happy to know that you value them enough to take them on a trip, near or far, and invest in their growth at your company. No matter if your retreat has intense team-building activities (like white water rafting) or more laid-back fun (like relaxing at a resort), a retreat can renew and invigorate your agents' and staff members' connection to your mission, values, and goals. Here are our top five reasons why you should plan a retreat for your team:

Retention: How to Keep Your Agents Happy
The industry is buzzing about recruiting strategies due to the competitive market. Equally important, however, is a brokerage's retention strategy. You not only need to win agents over, but you have to keep them happy as well. According to NAR, a real estate agent's median tenure at their current firm is only four years. That gives you a fairly tight window to make them want to stay for the long-run. With competitors entering the market with loads of cash and aggressive recruiting tactics, it's imperative that brokerages focus on how they're going to retain their existing agents. This is particularly important for new agents as their first year in the business can be discouraging, causing a large portion of new agents to leave the industry. Focus on your people and your people will remain loyal to you. Here are four tips for continuing to win over and retain those superstar agents:

Did You Know These Seven Potential Deal Killers for Buyers?
Veterans of real estate marketing know that sellers are infamous for overlooking home flaws. From the serious to the seemingly silly, even infinitesimal imperfections can be huge deal breakers for buyers. Which ones come out on top? Point these flaws out to sellers in advance to keep closings sailing full speed ahead. Are These Deal-Killers Sullying Your Seller's Site? Old electrical boxes It might 'work just fine,' but archaic electrical boxes are a real estate marketing nightmare. From code and safety issues to inconvenient, expensive repairs, tackling this is mission-critical.

6 Guidelines for Effective Delegation
Often our to-do lists become a big messy pile because we struggle with effectively delegating. The truth is that unless we can master delegation, our business will suffer. Deciding what not to do in your business is as important as deciding what to do. We cannot possibly be good at everything, and some tasks aren't the best use of our time. Let's take a look at some best practices for improving the way we delegate. 1. Delegation vs. Dumping

The Benefits of Charity: Why Independent Brokerages Should Partner with Nonprofits
Charity Benefits the Giver as Much as the Recipient And that's OK. When we give, we experience joy, empowerment, purpose and can appreciate our own good fortune. From a business perspective, donating time and/or money can give you brand exposure, help you connect to your community and give you tax deductions. Why Independent Brokerages Have the Advantage Franchises are often bound by agreements to larger charitable organizations that may not be relevant to their community. Conversely, independents make their own rules. Independents can partner with anyone they like, whenever they like. They can partner with niche or community nonprofits and have more influence in ways they can get involved. This flexibility allows independents to make a more meaningful (and visible!) impact in their communities.

Stop Struggling to Create Content: 5 Steps to Simply Get It Done
There are plenty of advanced tips available to teach you to get the most from Facebook Ads, Snapchat, Twitter, and every other social network. However, before you learn the ultimate tips for any social site, you should nail down your content plan. You can't have an effective social media strategy without a content plan, and social content plans work best when kept simple. With that in mind, here are five tips from Katie Lance's recent Secrets of Top Selling Agents webinar for creating a simple but effective social content plan.

How to Compete as Redfin Lowers Their Listing Fees
Redfin recently rolled out an initiative to drop their listing fees, significantly undercutting the industry average listing fee. The company tested the strategy in major markets—such as Washington D.C., Seattle, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego—and, not surprisingly, saw a substantial increase in business. In many of these markets, the typical listing fees are around 2.5 percent, yet Redfin has lowered their fee to 1 or 1.5 percent. Redfin has claimed that their listing count has grown in every market where they've dropped their listing fee. The new low-fee strategy is spreading into residential real estate, which is leaving many brokerages concerned about how they'll compete. Lower listing fees will put pressure on your pricing, which is painful in an industry with already dwindling margins.

3 Do's and Don'ts in Choosing a Technology Partner for Your Brokerage
It's not easy choosing the right technology partner for your brokerage. Your brokerage's website, communication, accounting and ability to generate leads all depend on your technology. So how do you choose a technology partner? Here are three do's and don'ts for choosing who to partner as your technology provider: Do's 1. Demo! One of the best ways to see for yourself what a technology partner can offer you is by booking a demo. Demos give you a chance to ask questions and test specific capabilities of a technology to see if that technology is right for you.

5 Keys to a Worry-Free Vacation
I am the child of a small business owner. It was hard for my father to close his business, but taking a vacation together as a family was important for him. You could always tell when it was getting close to vacation time—Dad was stressed out! So how can you take a worry free vacation? Here's what I've learned from my Dad: 1. Plan your vacation and keep to your plan!

Can You Sell More with Fewer Adjectives?
Among the 25 most commonly used words in real estate listings are descriptive words such as beautiful, spacious, luxury, huge, and must-see. Now, there's nothing wrong with these words. Consumers are familiar with them. But when it comes to listings, is familiarity a good thing? Home shopping is a frustrating experience. Listing after listing, picture after picture, consumers develop shopping fatigue. My theory is that listing descriptions can be a factor in this fatigue. Adjectives make listings vague and unclear. As a result, listings look the same during the home shopping experience—regardless of what they contain. Wordy listings full of adjectives and irrelevant information can take 30 percent longer to sell.

5 Technical Benefits to Upstream
I think that a lot of people are confused about Upstream. Some people think that it is a consumer facing site like the Broker Public Portal/Homesnap. Others think that it is some kind of broker owned MLS. It is none of those things. It is a database for brokers to create, store, and distribute data. For the most part, every large firm and franchise organization is doing this today, but as an industry the process is broken. Every broker who is managing their data is doing it in different ways, and their data is not interoperable with applications without custom integration, data conversion, and data migration. Smaller firms have nothing, or they outsource it to a part time vendor. Upstream fixes all of this by delivering a solution for all brokers that's better built, comes with support, provides security, gives brokers complete control over data access, and is less costly. Moreover, it makes their data a lot more valuable because it can be instantly put to work as easily as turning on a light switch. Upstream is the result of compiling the needs of brokers. The broker industry leaders and technologists developed Upstream to streamline and address inefficiencies that plague each and every one of them. Here are five technology benefits that Upstream provides that have nothing to do with listings:

5 Tips on How to Get Organized and Streamline Your Brokerage
No matter what you do for a living, you spend most of your day at a workspace. Keeping organized can be challenging, but, if mastered, will greatly improve your productivity and reduce stress. Here are our five recommendations to help you stay organized:

3 Ways Real Estate Brokers Can Find Work and Life Balance
Many people think that real estate is a flexible career that enables agents and brokers to make their own schedules and work at times that best suit them. As lovely as that sounds, people often forget that real estate professionals are essentially on call throughout the day, and how successful brokers often have to sacrifice valuable personal time in order to close those high dollar deals. For most people, time management is a valuable skill to have. For the real estate broker, however, it’s an essential quality that separates good brokers from average ones. Generally speaking, there’ll always be a juggling component to the real estate industry, but there are steps that brokers can take to improve their work-life balance. Here’s how you can have free time in your life:

10 Time Management Tips From The Experts
The difference between those who accomplish a great amount and those who don’t is simply that more productive individuals have learned how important time management really is. That’s according to productivity expert Clay Clark. Here are 10 time management tips from the expert which can help grow your business. Is Time Management Really That Important? Time management involves the task of planning and organizing the way that you will organize specific amounts of time during each day. Some of the benefits that come from using this type of technique include: Lower stress levels. An increase in your professional reputation. Additional advancement opportunities. More efficiency and productivity. Better chance of actually reaching your career goals. The time spent practicing better time management techniques can positively impact your entire life, not just your job.

Growth Hack Your Real Estate Teams
By now, you have probably heard the term "growth hacking" and while you may have thought it was a trendy buzz term used by techy startups, it is in fact a strategy that can be just as readily applied to real estate teams as it is to the tech industry. Growth hacking is the idea of experimenting across various marketing channels in order to find the best way to speed up lead generation and conversion. The Goal: fast, cheap, growth. The Tactics: laser-targeted campaigns via less traditional channels like mobile apps, email or social media. By leveraging the right tools, brokerages can find many more ways to engage with their audiences than ever before. Here are three tips to expand your digital marketing, growth hack your real estate teams and generate more business: 1. Renovate your real estate website With 98 percent of people start their home search online, having an effective website is no longer a matter of choice. Your first step in scaling your business bigger is making sure that when people visit your website and other landing pages, there's a good chance they'll convert into leads. Having a website designed specifically for real estate is essential; you need IDX optimization and search portal capability. Ensure your site is optimized for both desktop and mobile and give your team a platform that gets a high percentage of visitors to register and engage.

Things Every Broker Can Learn from Elon Musk
Elon Musk is an American entrepreneur, inventor and investor who is now considered one of the world's foremost future-thinking entrepreneurs. Best known for his role as CEO at Tesla Motors, Elon is regarded as one of the most inspirational thought leaders of our time and a success driver in the world of tech innovation. Unlike technology, the real estate industry can be fairly slow to evolve. Brokers have employed tried and true methods for the past 50 years. Although there have been small improvements with the use of technology, like smartphones and the Internet, the processes have largely remained unchanged. As leaders in real estate, imagine what could be accomplished if we were to employ the same approach and tactics to our brokerages as Elon Musk has applied to technology? Here are the top things every broker can learn from Elon Musk: Shoot for the moon with a powerful vision The most effective leaders are able to share a powerful vision for the future and influence others to get on board. Articulating your vision with your team sets the stage to move your brokerage in the right direction. Maybe you have some big ideas about revolutionizing the way agents buy and sell real estate in the same way Musk envisioned changing the way people commute with the Hyperloop. When you believe in your vision and put everything into the practice of attaining it, you have a recipe for achieving the impossible.

Larry King's Advice on How to Become an Industry Leader
When it comes to dominating your market, you want to learn from the best. Watch as renowned broadcaster Larry King reveals his secrets on becoming the king of your industry. 3:15 is enlightening!

How to Manage the Slow Season
It's winter and the traditional slow season for real estate sales is upon us. I have heard many people say how real estate is seasonal and that brokerages find it challenging to sustain business during these months. We all know we can't control the market, but that doesn't mean that we can't be productive! Here are four things to do during the slow season: 1. Upgrade your brokerage It's time to upgrade all your marketing material. Don't use the same materials year after year. Upgrade your brokerage and your agents with fresh marketing materials every few months. Take this downtime as the perfect opportunity to review and make updates when needed!

5 Behaviors that Develop Culture in Your Brokerage
Real estate brokers often talk about their culture. The odd part about the conversation is that the culture a brokerage has is often developed by happenstance, without intention or effort. Often, when WAV Group measures the attributes of a brokerage culture, we learn that it is people based. Simply stated, they like their manager or the broker without much understanding as to why. Ergo, culture is typically a popularity score. However, there are certain behaviors that will directly develop culture in your business if you make them an intentional behavior of your leadership. How ya doin'? The most common greeting among people is to ask, "How are you?" And the most common response is, "Fine, how are you?" However, if you are trying to develop culture in your business, you take an added step of developing a personal and sincere answer that goes deeper. To develop culture, share something specific about how you feel in that moment. When having meetings, go around the room and ask each person to share what they are excited about or anxious about before jumping right into business.

5 Amazing Proverbs on Business Insight
Running a business is like flying a plane. You're the pilot. You're trained, experienced. And you've got dozens or hundreds of people on board putting their future in your supposedly capable hands. You're responsible for these people (not to mention yourself!), so you need to know what's going on with your plane at all times. Any failure on your part might have serious consequences for yourself and many others. That's a lot of pressure! Let's check out some relevant proverbs on business insight and see how they might help relieve some of this pressure! 1. Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped – Africa Meaning: Do not look at the effect of your action, but the cause. What this means to you: It's easy to look at the results of your business mistakes and be critical. But it's also pointless. Everybody fails. It's more important to look at why you failed than what happened afterwards. Chances are, you'll learn something valuable that will prevent you from making the same mistake in the future.

5 Small Business Organizations You Should Know
Small business organizations and associations can be beneficial for many reasons. They can offer a wealth of knowledge and practical tips for growing your business. The networking opportunities can also help you and your company. Let's look at at a few small business organizations you should know about. Don't forget, some business association membership dues are deductible. But this is only if the membership is ordinary and necessary, as well as if it actually helps you carry out the duties of your trade. Chambers of Commerce You should get to know your local Chamber of Commerce, particularly since real estate professionals have a business with a local audience. Here, you can get access to education, network with fellow business owners, and more. It may also help that these can connect you with your local politicians. You can find accredited local chapters here and the national site is here.

What's in a Number? Get More Sales with Number Psychology
Selling or buying a piece of land property, such as a house, is usually the biggest financial decision that a consumer will make in their lifetime. With the high stakes of the transaction, a host of psychological factors come into play that decide the price at which the property is to be sold. You can also use a basic knowledge of psychology to set the price for the property that guarantees the maximum chance of a successful sale: 1. Say no to the 99.99 dollar habit There's a myth as old as business itself that removing one unit of currency from the price will convince buyers they're getting a bargain. This old wives tale is about as helpful for procuring a sale as getting a ritualistic cleansing performed on the house by a gypsy witch to attract more buyers to it. In the new online world of price searches, listing your house in such a manner will exclude it from the searches for houses that actually fall within your price range.

The Best Real Estate Tech Tips at Record Speed! PART 2 (8/25)
Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Your time is valuable! Take your skills to the next level in this quick, 30 minute webinar. Join our Tech Savvy Agent National Speaker Kristi Kennelly as she uncovers another round of the best apps, websites, systems and marketing strategies from top agents around the country - in record time! You won't want to miss it! Register now!

4 Elements of More Productive Office Meetings [INFOGRAPHIC]
Raise your hand if you're guilty of calling a meeting to discuss the exact line items of the previous meeting. How about asking questions that could have been addressed via text, phone or email, or to simply talk about a bigger meeting that will happen soon? If you were able to slowly nod yes to any of those questions, you could be pushing your top agents into the arms of another brokerage. According to information shared in TED talks by David Grady and Jason Fried, meetings can be a waste of time and money when they lack effectiveness and efficiency. Here are the facts: There are more than 3 billion meetings per year 40-50% of working hours are spent in meetings On average 7.8 out of the 23 hours spent in meetings are wasted (practically 2 months gone to waste!) Meetings costs the United States $37 billion a year 90% of meeting attendees admit to daydreaming in meetings 73% admit to doing other work in meetings Most shocking of all, research from New York consulting firm Communispond, Inc. shows that 75% of people have received no formal training on how to conduct a meeting. If your brokerage falls into that 75%, then you're all but dropping your agent off at another firm's doorsteps. So what can you do? Adopt these four elements to ensure your next meeting rocks!

Customers Don't Give a S@&# About Data
Next week at Inman, I get to give a talk about the power of data in consumer engagement. Paradoxically, it's called: "Customers Don't Give a S@*# About Data." And it's true. They don't. There are several things happening simultaneously in the lives of consumers today compared to ten years ago. The first is that they are bombarded with messaging, content, chatter, clutter, and noise. No kidding. The second is that their ability to discover content is like no other time in history. Consumers dictate, to a certain extent, the volume, pace, and selection of content they choose to engage in. Gone are the days of three TV channels where we had to wait through commercials to get to the 18 minutes of Seinfeld or Friends. Now we start and stop content when it's convenient for us. We fast forward through time outs in sports, we stream movies at 2AM, and we prefer to watch the best five minutes of the Tonight Show on YouTube over breakfast rather than sit through the entire show at night.

Tips for Responding to Counteroffers Over the Asking Price
Sellers coming back with over-asking price counteroffers typically create a lot of drama. Though it may come to a surprise to many buyers, there are many reasons a seller may decline a full price offer. Do you have the right real estate buying tips to help your buyers navigate these shark infested waters? Take a bite out of emotion Buyers, who become emotionally attached by picturing themselves in a home, need to be brought back to some rationality, specifically: The MLS doesn't guarantee prices like an area superstore; it's a listing service for the industry, holding participants to certain standards, and protecting commissions. The owner, not the agency, makes the decision on final sales price. You do not know, nor do they have to disclose, the financial situation of the seller. The owner may not have 'changed their mind' or thought they could get more following full price offers. Homes are often listed, underpriced, at 5-10% to generate over-asking price offers. The seller may have another offer, or be unhappy with the terms. The property may be recently listed, generating high-interest.