How to recruit the right people
Ask any real estate broker what their biggest business challenge is and they’ll tell you–almost across the board–one of two things: recruiting younger agents and recruiting top talent.
No matter which answer, one thing is crystal clear: brokers have a problem. Old recruiting techniques just aren’t working the way they used to. In order to fill your desks not just with bodies, but with talented people who are a solid fit for your culture, something must change.
Recruiting the right people is critical to your success. Happy Grasshopper & HG-Recruits can help.
Imprev Inc., a Washington state-based provider of integrated marketing tools, recently conducted a survey of approximately 260 real estate brokers in the Bellevue, Washington area. The results bolstered a National Association of REALTORS statistic that says 40% of all REALTORS are 60 or older, and that 1 in 4 is 65 or older.
“The real estate business is aging out,” said Imprev CEO Renwick Congdon in a statement. “Broker-owners and other top real estate executives are under pressure to find new talent.”
Many of those surveyed said that recruiting agents is harder now than it was a decade ago. Further, there were complaints that “brokers are attempting to just put ‘butts in seats’ by giving away the farm as they attempt to recruit agents without paying attention to future profitability.”
What’s the answer?
The best recruiters already know they need more than headcount. Rather than simply filling an office with warm bodies, they are committed to adding people that are a cultural match. As Dan Stewart, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Happy Grasshopper, says “It’s not about the split, it’s about the fit”.
What he says there is spot-on. Brokers that lack vision, those that have only mediocre growth in mind, will settle for simply filling their offices with bodies. Brokers who want to see exponential growth and the greatest success, however, will only be satisfied with people who are just the right fit for their teams.
It’s for those brokers that Happy Grasshopper created and deployed HG-Recruits in Fall 2013. The tool, part of the Happy Grasshopper suite of effortless eNurturing solutions, allows brokers and recruiters a way to get to know potential recruits and make sure they’re the right fit … before they even start. And it does it all through the power of email.
HG-Recruits begins with an assessment of your businesses culture and standards. To create an effective campaign, the copywriting team first works to understand the qualities a candidate must possess to be successful. The assessment process reveals a brokerage’s relative need for qualities such as skillset, technical proficiency, local market knowledge, ability to work virtually, and the candidates desire.
Whatever combination of skills and culture is necessary to make your brokerage more successful, HG-Recruits will help you find it. Our team of writers will make sure your campaign will be written to help you evaluate each potential recruit. By engaging them in conversation on the topics most critical to your success, HG-Recruits will not only cause the right candidates to be attracted to you, but will actively repel the wrong people for your team. From there, the team of professional writers at HG will get to work creating a custom-written email campaign that is designed to start recruiting conversations with those agents who best fit your way of doing business, and who best fit your culture.
Using email–the single greatest communication tool at our disposal today–Happy Grasshopper can simplify and improve your recruiting process. We’ll help put you in touch with not just bodies, not just butts in seats, but with the people that will make your office a team.
Better recruits = better teams = better results.
Happy Grasshopper is hosting a special webinar about how to take your recruiting to the next level and how to recruit the right people for your team. The webinar is for brokers, team leaders and other salespeople who need a better strategy for growth. Get on the path to recruiting a better way: The Happy Grasshopper way.
