Winston Churchill once said, “The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.” In these unique times in real estate, team leaders need to embrace the spirit of this quote and elevate communication with their team members.
The fact is that, regardless of market conditions, we still must remain focused on listing and selling homes for our businesses to thrive. Effective team communication is imperative to combat the onslaught of uncertainty facing your real estate team, so here are a few suggestions on how to make that happen:
Hold daily “kick off” meetings. Have you ever wondered why many well-run hotels and restaurants hold pre-shift meetings with their staff? It’s not simply for administrative purposes (although that’s part of it); more importantly, it is to teach and inspire the staff to serve at peak performance on a daily basis.
As a real estate team leader, you can do the same by scheduling a daily morning call—say, at 9 a.m.—to quickly check in with your team, give updates and focus them on creating new listings and sales that day. Keep it to fifteen minutes or less, and treat it as a pre-game “pep talk” (think NFL football coaches) to quickly reinforce expectations, share opportunities and create success-mindedness. Be sure to discuss your team’s previous day’s efforts, too, because accountability is a huge part of the success of this approach. Team members will not want to be caught flat-footed when asked about their activity, so they will be more likely to have worked purposefully, eventually leading to a positive spiral of accountability, activity and success.
So, try daily kick-off meetings for the next 30 days. They will help keep your team informed of today’s rapid changes in the market and will also keep your team motivated and accountable. And who knows…you may even choose to continue holding them on a permanent basis if it helps your team will operate at maximum productivity on a daily basis!
Communicate in real time. This is so easy to do. At least once per day, and hopefully more often, share a team member’s success or a motivational tidbit with your team via text, email or other group messaging vehicle. Did someone just schedule a listing appointment? Did you just call five or ten past clients to ask for business or referrals? Did your team just have a successful open house? Share all of it with your team! Positive reinforcement is powerful, so form the habit of sharing successes within your team on a daily basis as it happens.
If you don’t have one already, consider setting up a private Facebook group for your team. This will allow you to pin important information to the top of the feed and easily include pictures or links along with your success updates. Be careful not to turn this into an administrative dumping ground, though! Keep this positive and focused on celebrating success and driving new listing and sales!
Touch base individually. Lastly, make individual calls to your team members. The personal touch always matters for both team members and clients, so give them the opportunity to hear your encouragement directly as it pertains to them, as well as lend them an ear if they need it. This does not have to be every day, by the way, but be sure to incorporate this into your leadership communication to make sure that each team member is staying engaged and productive.
In these times, your leadership through consistent communication is more necessary than ever to cut through the cacophony of changes, confusion and uncertainty facing your team. Keep them producing at top-level performance by using methods above and the results will follow!
For a free copy of my exclusive “Team Marketing checklist”, click here.
By Sherri Johnson, CEO & Founder, Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour and the Official Real Estate Coach for McKissock Learning and Real Estate Express. She is also an RISMedia 2020 Real Estate Newsmaker as an industry Influencer. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching strategy session or visit www.sherrijohnson.com for more information.
Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash
