Building a High-Performing Real Estate Team: Strategies for Recruiting, Training, and Retaining Talent
As your business grows, you'll see increased clientele, more closed deals, and far more awareness about your offerings in your local market. But you know you can't do it all alone, and the more consumers you have to serve, the more you'll need top talent to help. This is where building a high-performing real estate team is key. By assembling — and retaining — a real estate dream team, your business can expand alongside your profitability. Recruiting, training, and retaining superstar agents is within reach. Here are the steps you need to take to build out an effective, all-star real estate team. Attracting Top Talent Through Effective Recruitment Strategies As you're building out your team, you'll see a lot of parallels between attracting top talent and attracting prospective clients to work with you. You know you're the best, but they don't — yet. When you're seeking to recruit agents to build out your real estate dream team, it's important to highlight what sets you apart as a team lead or broker, as well as what they can expect from working on your team. Effective recruitment strategies to draw in top talent include: Showcasing your own expertise, history as a real estate pro, and your wins and achievements Sharing the training and support you offer when they're onboarded, as well as over time Displaying key team members they can partner with, learn from, and their own respective accomplishments and real estate experience Highlighting the tools you use to ensure your team's success in the long-term to help them work smarter and continue to drive business forward Agents have a drive and hunger to succeed, and they need a strong foundation to land on when they're choosing a new team to join. By shining the spotlight on what you offer as a leader, your team's successes and expertise, and how you'll support new agents as they join your team, you'll have a more seamless run way to attract top talent in your market. Providing Ongoing Training and Development Opportunities for Team Members Like we noted previously, it's crucial to provide ongoing training and development for your team. It's not just for the newbies: by investing in ongoing education and development for your current team members, you have a powerful opportunity to retain them. Providing training and education to your current team is crucial for: Demonstrating your willingness and commitment to investing in their ongoing success and growth Saving them time and effort on finding the right training, or selecting training not relevant to your business Supporting them in developing a stronger career trajectory Helping them explore new interests, skills, or areas of real estate By investing in your agents' growth, learning, and development, you can help support retention and drive them to continue to work on your dream team. Creating a Positive Company Culture that Fosters Loyalty and Retention If you want your agents to be loyal to you, your team, and to want to keep working with you, having a positive company culture is non-negotiable. Creating a positive work environment is one thing, but infusing positivity into your company culture is another — and it's a key component to long-lasting employee retention. The culture of your company is its heartbeat, the fabric its made of, the foundation it rests upon. In short, it's incredibly important! To create a positive company culture, you must lead by example and build trust with each and every one of your employees. Say what you mean, mean what you say, operate from a place of respect, and hold yourself — and others — accountable. By developing and instilling strong systems for your business, investing in your agents' growth and development, and setting goals effectively, you can start to foster a positive company culture. Yes, things like team building activities and offsite events certainly help. But having a culture centered around positivity in your company starts from the top and is reinforced all the way down. Leveraging goal-setting, effective communication, and supporting your agents, and committing to doing so consistently, will help build, strengthen, and reinforce your positive company culture. To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate blog.

Brokers: Doing This One Thing Can Keep You Ahead of Your Competition
As the real estate landscape continues to shift, broker-owners find themselves grappling with a critical question: how can they keep their brokerage a local market leader? The answer lies in an area that may have been overlooked amidst the hustle and bustle of a hot housing market: training and education. The value of training in the real estate industry cannot be overstated. It is a vital tool that can empower agents to understand the intricacies of the market, provide exceptional service to their clients, stay motivated, and, ultimately, drive success. By investing in training and education, brokerages can ensure that their agents are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to stay ahead of the competition. What is the value of training? This value is backed by research. According to a study from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), agents who participated in ongoing education had 11% higher incomes than those who did not. This shows that well-trained agents are not only more competent but also more successful. Training can take various forms, ranging from in-person seminars and workshops to online classes and courses. In many cases, the pandemic shifted the focus towards online education, as traditional in-person training was disrupted. However, while the market was hot, the onboarding process, which traditionally included in-depth training, was often expedited or even eliminated for new agents. This move was made to meet the heavy demand quickly, but it came with a cost. The importance of training to broker-owners In a recent Delta Real Estate Leadership Survey of more than 100 individual brokers, who are leading firms collectively responsible for more than 60% of all real estate transactions last year, real estate brokerage leaders gave themselves a "C" grade (74%) when asked to assess their training of new sales associates during the pandemic (2020 and 2021). Moreover, 60% of brokerage leaders said they would increase their coaching and training of newer agents in 2023. As the market normalizes, agents, especially those who missed the initial training, are left grappling with a steep learning curve. It's why most broker-owners are stepping up and re-establishing the importance of training in their onboarding process – and beyond. Training is not only for new agents; established real estate agents also benefit immensely from continuing education. The real estate landscape is ever evolving. Laws change, consumer preferences shift, and market dynamics fluctuate. To stay current and competitive, agents need to update their knowledge and skills continually. Another compelling reason for ongoing training is the local licensing requirements. Many jurisdictions require real estate agents to complete continuing education courses to maintain their licenses. By providing these training opportunities, brokerages not only support their agents in meeting these requirements but also ensure they are always at the top of their game. Training and continuing education are key As we move into a post-pandemic world, brokerages need to reassess their approach toward training and education. The ones that will thrive will be those that prioritize their agents' learning and development. Broker-owners should leverage various training tools available, including online courses, webinars, workshops, and even mentoring programs. This investment in training not only boosts the competence and confidence of agents but also fosters a culture of learning within the brokerage. When agents see that their brokerage values their growth, they are more likely to feel engaged, motivated, and loyal. Staying ahead of the competition Clearly, training and education hold the key to staying ahead in the competitive real estate industry. As a broker-owner, the time to prioritize training is now. Not only will this empower your agents to succeed in a normalized market, but it will also solidify your brokerage's position as a local market leader. Meeting the need for training has been a vital strategy at Form Simplicity, a leading end-to-end, digital real estate transaction management solution to expedite real estate contracts. In fact, during the pandemic, more agents were trained in a single year than ever before. For brokerages powered by Form Simplicity, their agents have free access to a robust online training center. It offers live webinars, an online resource library, tutorial videos and FAQs. Plus, the real estate's No. 1-ranked tech support service, Tech Helpline, provides support in English or Spanish. The bottom line Broker-owners benefit when they ensure that training and education become an integral part of their strategy – and culture. By doing so, they can equip their agents with the necessary tools to navigate a rapidly changing market and maintain their competitive edge. Remember, a well-trained agent is not just an asset to the clients they serve but also to the brokerage they represent. Other related articles: Broker Benefits: 3 Ways Brokers Can Maximize Their Use of a Transaction Management Solution Improve the Customer Experience – 4 Ways Transaction Management Software Can Help Survey Shows Pandemic Fuels Importance, Usage of Digital Transaction Management Do you know these 10 real estate and tech acronyms? Tricia Stamper is Director of Technology at Florida Realtors®, which owns and operates Tech Helpline and Form Simplicity.

Start with Training and Education to Defend Yourself and Your Organization from Phishing Scams
It was a Sunday morning, and I was taking a break from doing chores around the house. The house phone rings and my mom (a Baby Boomer) picks it up. I can only hear this side of the conversation, but quickly I gathered that it was "DirecTV" on the phone. The call went on for a fairly long time. Finally, when my mom hung up the phone, I asked her who it was. She told me it was DirecTV and they claimed to need to replace some of the equipment for our satellite to provide us with a better signal. The equipment normally costs $1,000, but it would only cost us $300, and after six months, we would get the money back. But something did not feel right. My mom called DirecTV from their number posted online, and guess what? DirecTV did not call her. It was someone trying to scam her out of $300. The scary part? It was really convincing. However, she knew to second guess the caller before providing her information. Why? Because it is something we have talked about as a family. The FTC reported that Americans lost billions of dollars in 2021 from scams. Americans are not the only ones losing billions of dollars because of scams. So are businesses. The exact dollar figures are not important. What is important is what you should be doing to protect your MLS, brokerage, or association. You must start with the first layer of defense against scams: educating your people. Start with educating yourself and your staff I'm not saying it is that simple, but the reason phishing scams work so well is that they are designed to target even the brightest people. Some scams are more obvious than others. Here is a phishing scam that someone tried recently targeting WAV Group's Facebook page and its followers: This one seems fairly obvious that it is a scam. But they wouldn't be doing it if it didn't work at least some of the time. You must stay diligent even when your team says, "Yeah, yeah, I know." Our data and technology experts at WAV Group have helped many clients over the years examine their technology stacks and consult with their staff to keep the scammers out. If you would like an expert to examine the vulnerabilities of your digital platforms or get help educating your team on the dangers lurking in their inbox, cell phone, text messages and social media, WAV Group is here to help. David Gumpper, our digital security expert, will be happy to help protect your team and your company from disaster. Click here and we will be happy to schedule a time to talk to you. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

GO Network Grows Through Training
The Keller Williams GO Network is among the largest franchisees at Keller Williams. They operate in multiple states with more than 4500 agents selling over $13 billion in volume over 37,000 transactions. In my experience, the one undeniable superpower of the Keller Williams brand is training. Undoubtedly, Keller Williams emphasizes training, and the GO Network has taken education of their agents to the next level. Today, the real estate agent is recovering from the exhaustion brought by the booming housing market in 2020 and 2021, where the relationship between an agent and buyers or sellers only lasted a week. Offers were being managed and closed at a pace that is rarely seen in a real estate career. For the GO Network, the training didn't stop or slow down. They elevated the content and attendance continues to increase. All 14 locations — 10 in North Texas, three in New Mexico, and one in Memphis — have in-person, live training with additional virtual options as well. The GO Network has focused on getting "Back to the Basics" of real estate. Here is a snapshot of their October 2022 training calendar. These are just a few of the offerings agents can choose to attend — Getting Started, Habits of Successful Agents, Building Your Unique Value Proposition, Becoming a Local Expert, Working Your Database, FSBOs, Lead Generation with Social Media, Working with Expired Listings, Working with Sellers and Buyers, Finding Market Value, Moving Forward to Your Big Life, KW and GO specific technology classes. This standard training calendar then gets "plussed" as each Market Center location adds their specific training offerings. Classes continue to change with the shifting market to ensure their agents are ready to be the best advocate for their clients that they can be. The GO Network also hosts a weekly Industry Update and a weekly Broker Chat to discuss the most important information for the agents to know in this ever-changing market, keeping them aware and ahead of the changes to best serve their clients. High Points Consistent – It happens every month, and five days a week. Comprehensive – Covers almost everything you need to know as an agent. Your Choice – These virtual classes are also hosted inside the offices to help build the agent community so agents can pick what is right for them and their business. While Keller Williams is not the only company focused on training, they do happen to be revered by many, to be the leader in education and training in the real estate industry. We have seen extraordinary training programs across firms active in The Realty Alliance, the Broker Resource Network, and Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. Training programs like these mentioned aim to deliver results at improving sales performance, improving recruiting, and stimulating merger activities with smaller firms that do not have the staff or organizational structure to deliver high levels of training. Being a leader in training means you're able to attract high-energy, new talent. It means raising the leadership lid of existing agents, and lending support to struggling agents to put them on a path to succeed. Thanks to Smokey Garrett and the folks at GO Network for sharing. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Keller Williams Announces Diversity Certification
Keller Williams (KW) unveiled Agent of Distinction, a diversity certification for agents and leaders. "We're excited to announce Agent of Distinction, our new business certification that draws upon the power of diversity to fuel business growth and innovation," said Carl Liebert, CEO of kwx, an integrated home experience company. "We unleash unlimited potential when we lean into equity and inclusion." A five-module, professional education offering, Agent of Distinction provides the training, resources, and tools needed to tailor and grow a real estate business to appeal to a wider customer base. "The residential housing market is becoming more diverse and homeownership in America has an increasingly multicultural future," said Julia Lashay Israel, head of DEI, kwx. "With Agent of Distinction, our agents have access to the best tools to serve this ever-changing market," said Israel. "And it's all part of our strong commitment that the future of real estate has opportunity and promise for all." Agent of Distinction training modules: Grow Through Our Differences Dimensions of Diversity Inclusive Advertising and Marketing Grow Your Business Through Community Partnerships Create an Inclusive Business Plan Agent of Distinction benefits: Identify best practices for working with clients from various dimensions of diversity. Learn steps to build and implement a diverse business strategy. Learn about demographic trends affecting real estate. Locate community organizations to partner with to grow your business. Prior to registering for Agent of Distinction, agents are required to take two prerequisite DEI courses, "Unconscious Bias" and "Color of Real Estate," which are available to all industry agents free of charge. Available to KW agents, Agent of Distinction is offered in a self-paced, on-demand format. In 2022, KW has plans to open the new certification to all industry agents. Find more information here. Israel chairs the Social Equity Task Force (SETF) for associates and kwx's internal employee DEI committee. In 2020, KW announced the creation of the SETF. At that time, Gary Keller, executive chairman of kwx and co-founder of KW, charged the SETF to "come forward with recommendations for action to eliminate any racial disparity within our company, our industry, and how we can lead the way in the communities where we live and work." Agent of Distinction stems from those ongoing efforts. In 2020, KW also added a new core belief "Equity: Opportunities for all" to the KW Belief System.

RE/MAX Debuts 'Reinvented' RE/MAX University
RE/MAX announced a comprehensive reinvention of its RE/MAX University platform, an exclusive-to-RE/MAX learning hub designed to help each agent level-up their professional expertise. Built on intuitive new technology, RE/MAX University offers affiliates a modern, simplified experience as they access relevant educational resources via desktop or mobile devices. Designed for RE/MAX professionals at any stage of their career, the platform leverages artificial intelligence to recommend learning courses and materials based on each affiliates' learning interests. The enhancements advance the strong educational foundation at RE/MAX, which disrupted the industry by unveiling its one-of-a-kind RE/MAX Satellite Network in 1994. The original RE/MAX University grew from that RSN innovation, and RE/MAX has been a leader in learning ever since. In fact, RE/MAX has found that agents who engaged with RE/MAX University, on average, closed 29%-38% more transactions and earned 31%-233% more in commissions. "This is a major enhancement to our industry-leading services. We've built an app and system that helps make great agents even better at helping homebuyers and sellers achieve their real estate goals," says RE/MAX President Nick Bailey. "The reinvented RE/MAX University puts agents in control of when, where, what and how they learn. Like never before, they're in the driver's seat when it comes to building their business and sharpening their skills in the areas they find most important. At RE/MAX, we believe the more you learn, the more you earn." With the reinvented RE/MAX University, RE/MAX agents and brokers can: Access thousands of educational videos, downloadable resources, webinars and more. Browse courses and other content by the task or goal they would like to improve, such as: Marketing their expertise Generating and handling leads Caring for buyers and sellers Nurturing repeat business and referrals Organize and share courses, uploaded content and streaming links in training playlists. Brokers can even coach individual agents with content recommendations and monitor agent progress through private coaching reports. Receive support from a virtual coach to keep their learning on track. Experience intuitive search. The new RE/MAX University search engine makes it easy for agents to find what they're looking for by topic or description, even if they don't know what the course or resource is called. Because a big challenge with education is cutting through the noise, the new platform recognizes each visitor and presents content that is relevant to them and their location. For instance, Canadian affiliates will see content applicable to laws and systems in their country rather than having to dig through U.S. programming. The result is a better experience and deeper engagement with education that matters most. Adds Bailey: "Having been a leader in the real estate industry for decades, RE/MAX understands markets are constantly fluctuating. Ensuring our affiliates have the resources available to them to be successful in any type of market is our top priority as it is the key to their long-term success. The RE/MAX University we've had for years has always been great, but this reinvented RU is off the charts. It's going to make a real difference to our affiliates and the consumers they work with."

What Is a Healthy Adoption Rate for Real Estate Technology?
When it comes to "technology adoption rates," I have seen a plethora of articles from technology vendors as to what should be expected from brokers/owners. Some vendors in the marketplace boast an eye-popping 90%+ agent adoption rate for using technology tools. Other vendors settle for adoption rates as low as the 30% mark. After years of analyzing trends and data from brokerages utilizing the DeltaNET tools, I believe that I can share what should be the honest, realistic answer. First and foremost, we must address what the definition of "adoption" is. In the context of technology adoption, the definition provided by Merriam-Webster is "the act or process of beginning to use something new or different." The reason I bring up this definition is because you will find an abundance of varying opinions when it comes to technology vendors advertising their adoption rates. I am choosing to follow the worldwide accepted definition of adoption for this article. I have found throughout my tenure educating real estate professionals that the word "training" has quite a strong negative connotation. Nobody wants to sit through another two-plus hour training course detailing the latest technology being deployed by their brokerage. The fact of the matter is that real estate agents endured a bevy of technology rollouts over the last 20 years, all of them driven by dozens of factors. Asking your agents to sit through another new technology class to learn something new is an uphill battle. Our philosophy at Delta Media Group is that technology needs to be intuitive, and it needs to work for you. The question isn't "How do I use this technology?" but "What does this technology do?" Inside the DeltaNET® 6 CRM, which is the underlying technology I will share adoption numbers for, we've focused on innovating how agents think about technology tools. Most CRM trainings focus on the step-by-step process of conducting various aspects of the platform: Click CRM, select customers, select add new customer. Within the DeltaNET 6 CRM, that three-step process is accomplished simply through our patent-pending "Quick Actions." Rather than the agent needing to know HOW to add a customer to the system, they can simply type into the quick actions bar "Add Customer," which will bring that feature directly onto the page they are working from. It transforms our training from a "Here's how you do " type of training into an "As long as you know what the system can do for you, it just works" type of training. The other differentiator I wanted to share before I dig into our true adoption numbers is that our CRM is not a simple "what you see is what you get" solution. We designed our entire intranet platform to be customizable for each unique brand and brokerage partnering with us. That means if you want to "white-label" the DeltaNET to look and feel more like an internal tool developed by your organization rather than an out-of-the-box third-party CRM, that is possible. As just one example, one of our partners, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, based near the Chicago region, launched the DeltaNET as the "Galaxy" platform. Their agents don't just have the DeltaNET CRM; they have a version called the "Star CRM." This type of customization encourages agents to utilize the unique tools provided by their brokerage as they won't find that same experience elsewhere. So what is a realistic and accurate adoption rate for new technology being implemented throughout a brokerage? In my experience, the vast majority of brokerages follow what I call the "30-30-30 rule." Thirty percent of agents are begging for new tech and tools to use. They are usually a part of the younger crowd and are the people who should become your champions of tech, pushing how amazing it is through the rest of your organization. This is the group that should be primarily involved in the decision-making of any new tools you are looking to bring into your suite of services. The second 30% of users are what I call the inbetweeners. They could really go either way. Any adoption/training strategy should focus on getting as many of this group on board as possible. They are the career real estate professionals who fall right in line with NAR's standards for a real estate agent. They do a healthy number of annual deals and are committed and focused on improving their careers. Your job as a leader should be focused on getting this core group of users excited about your tech tools, as they are the crowd that focused training strategies will really resonate with. The final 30% of users are the group that you are better off leaving to their own devices. Even as I write this, it sounds harsh. Still, any professional in a leadership position within a brokerage understands that the reality of running a real estate company means you will have a group of agents that just will not use the technology or marketing services offered by your firm. This group of agents is primarily made up of those holding a real estate license more as a hobby than as their career. They may have a handful of transactions each year, but they are not really focused on growing their own business. Being an agent is a post-retirement career or a second job for many in this group, so taking time out of their day to learn a new technology tool just isn't appealing. You likely won't ever get them to engage. That last observation is not in any way meant to be disparaging to those agents or to display a defeatist attitude. I believe in business there is no better way to convey an open and honest conversation than by trusting the data and having a dialogue about what it shows. Logical thinking often wins out on emotion in the realm of business. Something that I often hear in my "30-30-30 rule" conversations is a question regarding the remaining 10% I haven't already discussed. What I've found is that the remaining 10% of agents typically fit into one of those three categories I mentioned above, but where they fit changes based on the culture of the brokerage. Many smaller boutique brokerages have a stronger technology adoption rate because they have technology spread within the company's DNA. It's a part of their recruiting efforts. Many legacy independent organizations have a lower adoption rate because the top producing agents in the organization have been using a strategy that has worked in their business for 30-plus years, pre-dating the modern tech trends. So what is the healthy and realistic adoption rate for a new technology offering within a real estate brokerage? Our data shows that 60% is the magic number you want to push your team to achieve. If you can get 60% of your agents logging into your technology platform and taking advantage of the services you provide, then that's a win. Many CRMs on the market have key automations built in that can help all agents capture more business, but we believe automation should be defined as "the process of using something new." Our automated technologies, such as automated newsletters like our My Customer for Life campaign, automatically-generated social media posts, automated task lists driven by agents' clients, and more, all qualify as something new. I'll conclude with some real data from one of our brokerage partners that has been using our technology within their organization for the last three years. This firm has more than 600 agents in its company and ranked in the top 150 brokerages within the RealTrends Top 500. In the seven days before this article was written, 455 out of 653 agents logged into the platform and performed CRM-related actions (70% of total users). In the previous four weeks, 567 of their 653 active agent accounts logged in and interacted with the technology tools within DeltaNET 6. That is 86% of agents regularly engaging every month with their brokerage-provided CRM/lead generation system. Do you see those types of numbers within your toolset? If not, please consider reaching out to us for a consultation. RE Technology readers can try DeltaNET 6 free for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

5 Hard Skills Every Broker Should Teach Their Agents in 2020
In this article, I will share five of the most valuable hard skills every broker must train their agents on in 2020. These recommendations come after the global pandemic and the necessity to adapt to a digital landscape. Before we get started, let's review the definition of a hard skill: Hard skills include specialized knowledge and technical skills. They refer to an employee's ability to perform a measurable task. Examples of hard skills: lead generation, sales, cold calling, local market knowledge, local housing regulations, etc.

How to Train Your Real Estate ISA
How effective is your ISA onboarding process? The inside sales agent, or ISA, is an integral part of the real estate industry. They're the ones "dialing for dollars" and quickly generating leads, making them a basic part of your company's revenue generation process. If you want your ISAs to do their best work on your real estate team, you've got to provide a strong foundation for their performance through onboarding. We'll walk you through how to set goals and provide hands-on training sessions to your new ISA, so they are prepared and excited to succeed in their role. And though we'll highlight ISA-specific examples, these onboarding principles could be applied to support any type of employee. Let's dive in!

RESO Open for Curriculum Topics to Working with Real Estate Data
RESO Broker Advisory Group's workshop last September pushed some hotly debated topics among its members. One subject receiving a fair amount of back-and-forth dialogue was Marilyn Lund's concept of a "TSA-Precheck" program for data consumers requesting access to real estate data. What emerged was a collaboration of industry associates to begin crafting a curriculum for a training course on "Working with Real Estate Data."

How Tomlinson Sotheby's Uses Innovative Tech to Recruit and Train New Agents
How do top brokerages recruit and retain new agents? For Tomlinson Sotheby's in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, it starts with an iPad. From listing presentations to showing off virtual reality capabilities in casual conversations, new agents are trained from the start on the technology and marketing strategy that differentiates Tomlinson Sotheby's agents from their local competition. In a recent webinar, three new agents from Tomlinson share why they switched to a career in real estate, the challenges they faced, and how Tomlinson Sotheby's innovative use of technology helped them earn their first commission checks far sooner than the industry norm. Read on for standout highlights from the webinar.

Create Your Own Mailing Labels in RPR: A How-To Video
One of RPR users' most frequently requested features is now live! REALTORS can now create mailing labels or export owner information from their RPR search results. These ready-to-print mailing labels will give agents another tool in their RPR toolbox for farming, prospecting or direct mail marketing within custom geographies. This "how-to" video will show you, step-by-step, how easy it is to create mailing labels within RPR. And there's no need to take notes, just click on this handy Quick Start Guide for detailed, written instructions and visuals.

Friday Freebie: The Only Guide You'll Ever Need on Agent Safety
Your brokerage, MLS, or association can help keep agents safe by building a "culture of safety." That's according to a new guide to Realtor safety--a comprehensive 65-page ebook that includes everything from a full safety training guide, to lead assessment worksheets, free resources, and more. Want to snag your own copy? In this week's Friday Freebie, we'll show you how (no contact info required).

New RPR Videos Help Agents Learn at Their Own Pace
REALTORS want to get more listings and be more successful, it's as simple as that. Your brokerage can show them how to achieve these goals by utilizing RPR, the nation's largest property database, built for REALTORS. We've made it easier than ever to educate and empower your agents with a new series of video tutorials and supporting materials.

The Student Becomes the Master
A few years ago, a student at the University of Tampa called and asked if I'd be willing to serve as his mentor for a class in entrepreneurship. He was bright, articulate, and had an unusual level of focus. I was impressed. He had done his research and made it very easy to say yes. What he may not have known then is that a mentor usually benefits as much as the mentee, which was exactly my experience with Scott Shuman. For example, in discussing his ideas, he didn't just want my advice. He wanted to understand the reasons behind my advice. This was a great gift because it challenged me to reconsider some long held beliefs. Today, Scott is the Director of Operations at the Sue Adler Team. Oh, and by the way, he's also finding time to be on pace for about $25mm of real estate transactions of his own. (Whaaaat?!?)

5 Tips on How to Get Your Agents to Adopt New Technology
It's not easy switching to a new technology. It can be kind of scary to change the way we do things. But who doesn't like getting better, faster, and stronger? Even though change can be difficult, it's also extremely beneficial. Here are five things you can do to help your team embrace change and adopt new technology.

RPR Introduces Learn-as-you-go eBooks
Now is the time to take your RPR knowledge to the next level by checking out these brand new learning materials. Each of these topical eBooks, accompanied by corresponding videos and an online workshop, will show you how to apply RPR's data tools and reports to every aspect of your everyday business. Simply choose the format best suited to your learning style, interest and schedule, and you're off and running. Getting Started With RPR We'll begin by establishing your RPR comfort level—setting up your account and profile, covering different aspects of the homepage and then taking a deeper dive into the real guts and glory of how this all-important tool will become your most valuable, professional asset for years to come. You'll learn to research properties, markets, neighborhoods and schools. We'll show you how to gain a competitive edge by creating branded property, seller's, and market activity reports; as well as valuation workbooks and flyers. And along the way, we've woven in tips and tools on how to use the RPR app when out and about with clients. eBook | Online Workshop | Video Learning

Make the Most of the Summer Selling Season! (6/2)
Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 9:00 AM PDT News of this week's online training session is causing the real estate rumor mill to spin, so let me end the speculation right now... Yes, it's true. Thursday's webinar is going to feature 3 of the easiest-to-use campaigns we're ever discussed publicly. It's time to make the most of the summer selling season, which means you need to sell properties fast, find business in your sphere, and get more listings ASAP. Agents love easy, which is why we're expecting a huge turnout for this one. Here's just some of what we're going to cover with you: 3 New Sizzling Summer real estate marketing campaigns to fill your pipeline with red-hot leads while other agents struggle to gain traction An amazing new Facebook feature that is revolutionizing the way agents do property tours The little-known secret to bring life back into any expired listing, along with quick-and-easy scripts you can use to win the listing and close the deal Live Q&A session with two industry experts so you can get your most pressing real estate marketing questions answered Register now!

Top Training Topics for Realtors
In late 2015, we conducted about 120 interviews with brokers from all over the country about their priorities and goals for the coming year. One of the major things we discussed and asked these brokers was what they were planning on training and educating their about agents in this year. Not only does this indicate what skills they're looking for in agents they're recruiting, but it gives you a good idea of what brokerages' priorities are when it comes to what they want their agents working on. Some of these top priorities included Contracts, Sales/Leads/Referral generating strategies, and New Media. While training in something like how to handle contracts may seem like a no brainer, the other two may come as a bit more of a surprise—because what's "New Media" considered to be anyway? We'll break it all down for you. 2016 Top Training Topics for Realtors Two of these skills are near and dear to our heart: understanding new media and lead generation and referral strategies. If these sound like something outside of the normal realm of what agents do, then read on. We can assure you that having a better understanding of these areas not only makes agents more profitable, but also more attractive to brokerages looking to recruit.

Drip Training
I love a morning call with a report of success. A broker that I am working with moved their chips around the board, renewing a core vendor agreement and adding five new services without any incremental costs. Bust out the champagne, right? Not so fast. The panic moment hits you when you understand that you will be launching five new products. A few of them are background products that support the operation of the brokerage – accounting type stuff. But a few of them are consumer launches and agent launches. Put the champagne away and start to whiteboard out the launch of each product. Launch event, video training, webinars, tips of the day, help desk training, manager training, individual agent training and support, consumer advertising, website update, public relations, reporting, benchmarking, satisfaction monitoring. All of that is being added to a staff that is already fully utilized. The term drip training popped into my mind. Drip training is not an original concept. I Googled it and found an article from BrainStorm dating back to September 9th, 2015. It's a great article that you should read. Drip system Seed (input) Nourishment Delivery method Harvest (output)

Solving for Technology-Confused Agents
WAV Group supports organizations (brokers, MLSs, associations, franchises) to develop support services for the technology applications used by agents. To kick off these programs, we audit the systems that an agent has access to. This is an administrative process where we inventory all of the tools that they access from any source. 7 Sources of Real Estate Agent Technology (with one common example) National Association of Realtors – RPR State Association of Realtors – Forms Local Association of Realtors – Lockbox Multiple Listing Service – MLS system Franchise – lead management Brokerage – eMail Self – website The Big Problem: 7 different channels of training and support Forget about training and support for a second. Let's start with a basic observation: For an agent to even know what each of these tools do, they would need to spend at least one hour on a demo to get an overview. In reality, something as sophisticated as the MLS system would take at least two hours just to show an agent around. A fundamental problem with real estate today is that this basic process of introducing an agent to the tools they use is optional.

Is Your Training Tired? Try These 4 Tips
Guest contributor G.M. Filisko of REALTOR®Mag says: Even the best brokers can get into training ruts where they sympathize with restless and bored salespeople. One problem is that as markets and technology have changed, you're probably having fewer associates coming into the office for education, says Karlton Utter, director of learning technologies and solutions for Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate in Parsippany, N.J. Here are Utter's workarounds: 1. Make videos available for when associates are free. "Associates are looking for more self-paced training," says Utter. "If they're up at 10 p.m. and have a couple minutes, they can watch a video. One thing that works for us is to hire subject-matter experts who put together programs. We also take the training sessions we do, whether they're live or through a webinar, and record them. We add all those to our company's learning library." 2. Ask experts to record videos. "Find an expert on the topic you want to cover," explains Utter. "Then instead of doing a live webinar or training, ask, 'Can you take what you'd talk about in a training and break it into six videos for us?'" Keep videos to 3-5 minutes, advises Utter, and don't worry so much about the quality. "The question is whether it has actionable information," he says. The cost varies depending on the glitz of the production. "I've had social media experts give us videos they did on a webcam or by recording themselves giving a webinar, so then you have a PowerPoint presentation associates can flip through while listening," says Utter. "Those cost about the same as a webinar, which could be $300 or $3,000."

T3 Experts: Will Their Real Estate Tech Training Help You?
Some pretty big heavyweights released a brand new training product that I think a lot of real estate professionals are going to be interested in. There has been a lot of talk in forums, websites, and blogs about T3 Experts, founded by Stefan Swanepoel, Jack Miller, and Michael McClure. In a nutshell, T3 Experts offers digital training through a series of webinars, podcasts, Q&A sessions, interviews, checklists and buying guides. If you want a full review/preview of the membership, there are plenty of great articles out there that will give you a nice overview. Here is a great one from my pal Tracy Weir to brush up on the program. Since there already is a lot of published content about T3 Experts already, I wanted to do an interview with Michael McClure, the COO of the company and ask him some tough questions that I thought agents would like to ask themselves. Michael had no clue what I was going to ask him in the interview and answered every one off the cuff.

Friday Freebie: Free Training from realtor.com®
Brokers, did you know that realtor.com® offers free training for your agents? It's part of the company's comprehensive Brokerage Services program. Classes are conveniently offered right at your office by realtor.com®'s experienced brokerage specialists. Read on to learn more. Free Training from realtor.com® Realtor.com® offers a variety of services that agents can leverage in their business. Do you know if your agents fully utilizing the options available to them? Do they keep their free profile up to date? Are they collecting and posting recommendations? Using the listing tools? If not, realtor.com®'s agent engagement training can educate your agents on how maximize the tools that they're already entitled to. Those tools include: Agent Profile Listing Presentation HyperSocial™ Tools Collaborative Search Mobile App Mobile Website Builder Business Planning Tool Housing Trends Newsletters Facebook app Learn more about free training classes at your office.

Useful Listing Syndication Terms Learned at Mid-Year
Today I was present in various meetings (before the fire in my hotel, of course) and one takeaway I thought would be useful to others was information from the CMLS Workshop on listing data syndication. There are often terms out there that people don’t know exactly what they mean, so I thought it might help to get these written down in the blogosphere for others. Consider it my listing syndication dictionary thanks to CMLS and volunteers to helped pull the first “Brings It To The Table” meeting together. A special thanks goes out to the organizers for a provocative discussion.

Aim for Generating Referral Leads
When it comes to technology and the real estate agents, I believe agents want to use technology to its fullest extent to serve customers better and in the most cost-efficient way. But they have been overrun by technology. Some real estate agents are are searching for a technique, tool, software or system that will eliminate the task of prospecting, when in fact it will only eliminate prospects. It's time to get back in touch with some real, fundamental principles about the reality of prospecting. Tip #4: Generate more referrals

How to Motivate Your Team
Peter Grazier says: Motivation. We hear the term often. Generally we associate the word with human behavior, meaning, a state of mind that moves us to action. And even though few of us have had formal training in it, it's one of those characteristics of life that seems to fit the old adage, "I know it when I see it." For most of my years working in the field of workplace collaboration, this word has held a place of stature and importance, because it has been, perhaps, the most significant outcome of worker involvement. As the collaboration trend, and more specifically, the use of employee teams continues to grow, one question that is taking on greater importance is how to keep the team motivated over the long haul. What are the ingredients or characteristics of teams that seem to sustain high levels of motivation?

What Is the Right Keyword Density for My Real Estate Blog Posts?
Take a look around real estate blogs and you’ll see nuggets of wisdom posted that look similar to this: The Phoenix real estate market is a mess! If you want to buy a home in Phoenix, then you should consult with a Phoenix realtor who knows and understands the Phoenix real estate market. Never buy a Phoenix home without utilizing a Phoenix realtor! Feel free to search for Phoenix homes on our Phoenix real estate blog, but be sure to call your Phoenix realtor before you go too far! Yeah, they’ll even bold all those keywords because some “SEO guru” told them that helps Google understand that those words are important.

MySpace - Stake Out Your Space
MySpace works similarly to Facebook, but the pages can be made fancier with themes, which can be downloaded for free, or purchased. It also appeals more to people who like to share information on music, hobbies, sports teams and TV shows. Where Facebook has more pull with college students and professionals, MySpace has more pull with teens and pre-teens. As a result, it is a goldmine for parents who have MySpace accounts used to monitor their children online. Through the process of checking on their children, they connect with other parents and find that MySpace is actually quite fun and easy—hence, the reason why they have amassed more than 100 million members.

Go Big or Go Home – Network with Google Using Gmail
The next place you will want to do networking is with the largest online company on the internet – Google.com.  Specifically, you want to establish a Gmail account. Do not fret! You do not need to use the Gmail email address, although it is free, has unlimited storage and is the best at protecting you against spam. The goal of the Gmail account is to put your contacts in a place that will allow you to easily join other social networks and find your friends who are already there. As you may have noticed when joining Plaxo, all popular social network sites allow you to connect to your Gmail account to retrieve your contacts. When you do this, they search their registered members to see if there is anyone using their network that you might know. This is not unique to Gmail, although it is the most commonly offered service. You will find that many social networks allow you to use your hotmail.com or yahoo.com accounts also. Another great benefit of Gmail is that they make it easy to get your email anywhere, anytime. They support mail on your phone, and you can access your mail from any computer by simply logging in. Here is how to get started: Go to www.gmail.com

A Customer Service Confluence
There has been this weird confluence of customer service experiences for me over the last few days. It’s like a disturbance in the nexus of the customer service universe. I’m a big fan of great customer service. I love being on the receiving end of it, and I try to make premium customer service the primary focus of our real estate brokerage. There are several stories of customer service experiences strewn about this blog, from the great — the Broadmoor Hotel and a mattress store — to the not so swift horrific at Nationwide Vision. And then there was this…

How To Use Your VOW Website To Retain Clients for Life
In this fifth of a series of five articles about Virtual Office Websites, or VOWs, we are going to discuss the ways to use a VOW to work more effectively with past clients. Many REALTORS® fail to stay connected to clients they have already done transactions with. Evidence of this is borne out in NAR's 2008 Homebuyer and Seller survey. Nine out of ten consumers would use their agent in a future transaction, but only one in ten use the agent again for buying, and only two use the same agent for selling! Granted, the opportunity for working with a client in a future transaction must be overcome by circumstances that the agent does not control. But staying in touch with past clients today requires different tactics. Greeting cards, newsletters and an array of other marketing mush are good touch points, but a new form of client engagement on a business level is far more compelling and can be delivered with a Virtual Office Website. Consumers have an expectation that their stockbroker provide them with a monthly report on the performance of their portfolio. The report is automated, but offers the customer an opportunity to connect with their broker to ask questions about buying, selling, investment strategies and the like. If the client has a concern or is interested in making changes to their portfolio allocation, the stockbroker stands at the ready to serve. With a VOW, real estate agents may provide the same level of professional service. Clients will gain an understanding of the marketplace; it will build confidence in your integrity, professionalism, and encourage referrals. Think of your VOW as a relationship enabler.

Using Your VOW Website to Communicate with Buyers
In this third of a series of five articles about Virtual Office Websites, or VOWs. We are going to discuss the ways to use a VOW to work more effectively with buyers. Whether you are new to real estate or a seasoned veteran, you must be aware that consumers are using the Internet as the cornerstone of finding a home to buy. Year after year the influence of the Internet is measured by many—including the 2008 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers Study which reports: 33% started their home search by looking online for properties for sale. 38% if a repeat buyer. 27% if a first-time buyer. 87% claim that they used the Internet as an information source. 89% if a first-time buyer and 86% if a repeat buyer. 81% found the Internet as a useful source of information. It is clear that brokers and agents must meet consumer demand for property information online if they are to have success in marketing homes to today’s home buyer. Until now, brokers have relied on IDX data feeds that typically update every active MLS listing everyday. The fields that are contained in the IDX feed vary by market, but fall short of displaying all of the information available in the MLS. With a VOW (Virtual Office Website), brokers may now obtain a data feed from their MLS that contains ALL NON-CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION AVAILABLE. This represents an enormous opportunity for brokers and agents to differentiate themselves from other websites by providing home buyers with the best website listing content available.

Building a Strong Brand
The best thing to do when the economy slows, is to focus on building your brand. The real estate industry has a number of technology products and services to help position your brand in front of potential home buyers. Products categorized as lead generation, online marketing and advertising all provide your brokerage the exposure you need to ensure your brand gets visibility. But before it comes to using technology to market your brand, there are a few underlying principals to consider to make sure your brand is strong. The best brands focus on building value and tying that to a brand. Only after your brand has been thoughtfully developed should it be sent out in various media channels. Jean-Claude Saade is a brand strategist living and working in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Saade publishes branding articles and marketing strategies in many publications. We thought his insight into real estate branding was poignant for this economic low. Although the core underlying principles are always the same, branding in the real estate business is facing its own challenges and has found special creative ways to deal with them. In certain markets where this sector is now developing in an unprecedented way due to a number of economic and conjuncture reasons, being aware of certain concepts and dynamics about real estate branding might be priceless to real estate developers. At a time where the effects of the US credit crunch have not reached all markets, being prepared by building a strong brand could be the best strategy facing any possible real estate recession.

7 Steps to Powerful Online Seminars
As the global marketplace moves real estate communication and closing transactions online, online seminars create the ability to move a sales or training presenation online. Online seminars are increasingly replacing face-to-face meetings. In the real estate industry, online seminars are not just for NAR speakers to record their presentations, although that is useful. This technology can be harnessed for the real estate industry. It can be used to provide valuable and engaing information to potential clients or current clients. It can be used for brokerage educational meetings, all online. Online seminars can also be a profitable and cost-effective alternative to hosting live events. For those agents, brokers interested in learning how to create powerful seminars, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing recently posted a blog containing seven steps necessary to creating online seminars. Continue to read John's seven steps...

Ten Tips for Using Twitter to Drive Traffic!
Real estate professionals are tapping into the marketing resources Twitter facilitates! They know it is more than a vehicle to complain about your coffee spilling in route to work. Agents and brokers know the power Social Media has to drive traffic to their company site, or blog. Social Media guru Mark Hayward, who writes for Problogger, has learned how to harness Twitter and use it to drive traffic to his blog, which drives traffic to his business. He states that Twitter is not easy to learn. So he recently shared ten tips for using Twitter to drive traffic to a blogsite. These tips, however, are just as valuable for driving traffic to property virtual tour, your single property website, technology business or brokerage. Using Twitter can take time, but these tips will help you generate traffic by making sure you do things like complete your bio or add branding to your background.  Online networking is a science, but it is worth learning. To read Mark's ten tips for using Twitter, please continue...

Twitter Marketing Tips
Social media is all the buzz in the real estate space. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more are commanding a lot of attention in the real estate space. Twitter is now talked about in the mainstream media, and is one of the fastest growing and most heavily trafficked website on the planet.But where does the real estate agent start?

If You Don’t Offer S’mores…You Should!
Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things. ~Lawrence Bell It was just a s’more. Yes, I’m talking about a graham cracker, a little chocolate and a marshmallow. It probably had a cost of a half-cent to the business offering it, but that s’more made an impact. It symbolized a small act of kindness and generosity—with no expectations attached—that made a lasting impression. And THAT, my friends, is what each of us MUST replicate if we want OUR businesses to last and thrive in today’s unpredictable economy.