Leaders in the real estate industry are FANATICAL about accountability and productivity. It's the topic of almost every conference we go to nowadays.
Why?
Well, it might be a little work, but as a team leader or broker/owner, it's the only way you're going to be able to remove yourself from production and focus on growing your business.
The way I see it, having an accountability program on your team is like doing the 11th-13th repetitions when lifting weights at the gym.
It's great when you do 10—definitely something to feel good about. But where do you see all the results? It's all in those extra three reps. That's where you see the transformation. That's where you grow and become stronger than ever before.
And, of course, it's what separates the elite from the average or slightly above-average.
Challenges for Those Looking to Run Real Estate Accountability
So, just like any new implementation or process change in your business, getting your accountability machine rolling has its hurdles. Our Customer Success team works with real estate teams all across the country to overcome these. Here are the most common themes we're seeing:
It's Hard to Get Your Team to Track
We've heard this constantly, but hardly ever from top producing teams.
Why?
Top producers understand what's really happening here: It's not that tracking is hard, it's that accountability is hard. If you don't have key performance indicator, or lead and lag measure tracking, you won't have accountability. It's about as simple as that.
Yes, this doesn't take away from the fact that tracking takes time (and we'll talk about how to shorten that time), but tracking is where personal accountability happens.
Possible solutions:
- Make accountability tracking as easy as possible (use a mobile app)
- Actually use the data. Nothing is less motivating than logging numbers when you know no one will ever look at them. If you don't have a structure of team meetings (where you call out/analyze numbers) and 1-on-1 coaching sessions, you need to run them in conjunction with your accountability program.
- Create the habit of daily tracking. We do this with notifications and through great team culture (for example, one team has a slack channel where they celebrate each other's successes. Any time they set an appointment, sign a client, or close a deal, they're celebrating it there. It motivates the entire team to keep tracking and focusing on what matters.)
- Make daily tracking competitive. Let's face it. We are all in the sales game for a reason. We are competitive, we get excited at the end of the month, closing as many deals as we can, and beating out our peers. So why not do this with your daily tracking? Leaderboards, scoreboards of who has made the most contacts, most referrals, monthly closed volume makes tracking and keeping score fun and highly competitive.
How Do You Maintain Accurate Data?
Another common question that goes hand in hand with the first—how do you keep your data accurate?
The first step is creating a tracking culture, which is outlined in the previous section.
After that, your transaction coordinators or administrators can step in. The video above outlines some ways that we've done this. If you can have a systematic tie between your transaction management and accountability, you'll see more accurate data.
Possible solutions:
- You can have your agents manage their lead measures (contacts, appointments, signed buyer/broker or listing agreements) and have your administration team watch and update lag measures (closed volume, gross commission income, commission income paid to agents, etc.) We've seen teams have a lot of success with this.
- Make your accountability platform the main source of record. Why? Because it's what your agents are actually looking at.
Where to Start
Everything starts with your goals.
Define what you want to track.
Set goals for how much production you want to hit.
Then set your processes for tracking.
Get started here by defining your baseline goals.
