Our CEO, Brian Charlesworth, made an appearance on Jeff Cohn's "Team Building Podcast", where they chatted about accountability going into the new year. Jeff is owner of Omaha's top producing real estate team, innovative coaching company Elite Real Estate Systems, and The Team Building Podcast, which discusses leading-edge strategies for building real estate teams.
"Yep... You know, in 2011 we went and visited all the top real estate agents in the country, Bob Sokoler in Lousiville Kentucky; and he motivated us to do this very thing in a very analog way." - Jeff Cohn
When I first met with Jeff and his team, I was blown away by what they were tracking and how thoroughly they had integrated their coaching and accountability practices with real, business-driving metrics.
I think he was blown away, too, by what we had built. In fact, he told me (and mentions on this podcast) that "we had built exactly what he was going to build".
This was months ago, and since then, it's been great to partner with Jeff in building the most complete system for tracking your KPIs, holding your agents accountable and creating a unique and differentiated team culture.
We had a great time chatting on the Team Building Podcast, and here are some of my top takeaways.
Inspiring Agents to Track KPIs
At their core, agents want to thrive. They want to close massive amounts of business and, if inspired, are absolutely capable of achieving their goals.
However, it takes some strong leadership at the top to help each and every agent to run their business like a business.
This means tracking each and every KPI that will ultimately determine their yearly income and influence.
Time and time again team leaders come to us expressing their difficulty in getting agents to track even the most basic of metrics—such as the number of appointments attended. My advice to them comes in three parts:
- Make the tracking process as painless as possible
- Make sure the agents actually see value from tracking. If they don't see value, tracking will be the first thing to go out the window when they get busy. If they do see value, it will be the first thing they think to do when they sign a listing or close a deal.
- Pull data from your core systems as much as you possibly can. Integrations are difficult in this industry, but you can often make Zapier or other third party integrations work to pull from your main systems. We've actually managed to pull of a Boomtown! integration (by the time I'm writing this) that pulls the number of dials, contacts, and appointments straight from your CRM system. It's amazing and reduced the burden on agents to track.
Driving Accountability Using The Four Disciplines of Execution
The point of tracking your numbers is to use them. They should be the core of your accountability meetings and 1 on 1 mentoring.
We have a few reports built out based on the four disciplines of execution, which are:
- Focus on wildly important goals. For us this means contacts (conversations), first time appointments attended, signed clients, clients under contract, and clients closed. Of course, there are other goals, but these are the core metrics that create income.
- Act on lead measures. These are the metrics you can control right now that create next months income. For example, the number of conversations you're having each day. Focus on those and help your agents hit their goals on these lead measures.
- Create a cadence of accountability. You should meet with your agents on these goals to help provide support and motivation. The dashboard will cut your meeting time in half because you'll spend your time coaching to the numbers, rather than asking questions to figure out where each agents' business is at.
- Keep a compelling scoreboard. There's nothing compelling about a spreadsheet. So make things look good, and get your agents involved with the numbers using beautiful design and display on monitors in your office.
KPI Dashboards For Key Team Decision Making
Of course, theres more to these numbers than holding your agents accountable.
You can use them to make important decisions about the direction of your business. For example, where will you spend your advertising dollars? Which lead sources are producing the best return?
We built out reporting in our system, exactly to Jeff's specifications, that gives you this information. What's your cost per lead? Conversion rate for each lead source? Lead source ROI? Cost per closing? all of this is computed from inside our system. It's really slick.
No Scoreboard=No Competition
Going back to the compelling scoreboard, I have a great analogy:
There's a reason that NBA games have scoreboards in every single corner of the arena, displaying just about every meaningful stat. Without it, the games would just be a couple of guys shooting hoops. Without a scoreboard, there is no competition.
Our platform allows you to create enticing contests based on whichever metric you choose, with three different styles of play. This creates a unique culture of friendly competition, motivation, and fun.
So don't be shy. Our platform comes at a very affordable pricing model and no yearly contracts. Our team will help you get up and going quickly so that you can run a contest in the first month and get your agents excited about the numbers that drive their business.
Schedule a quick call with our team here!
