It's been super interesting watching this industry progress over the last 10 years.
Seems like about 10 years ago, there was an explosion of tech. New CRMs, lead gen sources, websites, gadgets, all kinds of things were just coming out of nowhere.
And with the market going pretty dang well for most people, the tech was adopted with enthusiasm. People would hear about a piece of technology at a conference one day, and buy it the next.
I was having a conversation with a well-respected coach in this industry one day, who called it "Shiny Object Syndrome". Which really got me thinking.
What really happens when you throw a bunch of new tech, new agents, and a booming market into a mixing pot?
Everything just gets too complicated
Complexity is the enemy of execution.
Start listening for it. You'll hear how bad it's gotten.
I hear it in two ways, usually.
Let's say you're the leader/visionary type for your team. You have the vision, you know where things need to go. And you present that vision to your team on a constant basis.
Side note—you should never feel guilty for doing this. It is your job. Even when it requires constant changes and switching of focus. If the market isn't stale, how can you allow your ideas and direction to be stale? This industry moves fast. Rather than worrying about exhausting your team with new ideas and direction, build a team that can prioritize, execute, and deal with the reality that this industry moves fast.
Almost always, complexity creeps in.
1. You get people who get so excited about the idea that they start tagging on 17 other ideas onto it and you end up with some Frankenstein-looking monster of an idea.
2. You get people who tear apart the idea with all the reasons it cannot be done
They're two versions of the same beast—complexity.
And 90% of the time, in 90% of markets, the margins just aren't good enough in this industry to support the type of complexity we're letting into our businesses. I've had to help teams doing 200ish transactions who want to bring on a full-time CTO! Do you know how much that costs?
Not to mention, a very high percentage of the time, the Very Expensive CTO just ends up adding more complexity, complexity which only she can handle, and you wind up scratching your head wondering how everything got so expensive and so complicated.
Simplicity is the answer
I have a tool I go back to time after time when things just get too complicated. I refocus on the numbers.
I've always found great simplicity in the numbers. They are unemotional, uncomplicated, and tell the truth.
I've also found that a large percentage of complexity is usually detached from numbers. It seems like the less aware we are of the numbers (which I call being aware of the reality of our businesses), the easier it is to let complexity creep in.
You get even more mileage on this strategy when you shift focus from lagging indicators to leading indicators.
Lagging indicators tend to be more complex. They're a baked cake, and you can argue all day about what ingredients went into that cake.
Leading indicators are the ingredients. "We need more flour" is a lot more simple than "we need to bake more cakes".
And there are two leading indicators that rule them all, when it comes to pushing the priority and focus of your team.
1. Conversations with prospective clients
2. Conversations with prospective recruits
Picking up the phone (prospecting) is a very high friction activity. There are a lot of people in this world, who, if asked, would tell you that the last thing they would ever want to do in this life is cold call someone.
And then we just expect that we have a team of unicorns that somehow doesn't experience this friction, that they'll just continue to pick up the phone week after week and do this high-friction activity without our help.
It's delusional. Keeping people on the phones (prospecting) is dang near a full-time job. The second you let your foot off the gas, the number will slide. Guaranteed. Happens every time.
When you invest in this, and shift your focus to these leading indicators, you'll find that things can really be simplified more than you imagined. You'll be making more money, and your agents will thank you because they'll be making more money too.
Execute on this
What would it do for your business if you saw a 100% increase in conversations through the end of the year?
You can create focus on these two numbers today.
Here's how:
- Define conversation. Who counts? Who doesn't count? How long counts as a conversation? How do I log conversations to get credit for them? (Hint—if it isn't in the CRM, it didn't happen)
- Set expectations. What is an acceptable number to stay on the team? What about to receive leads? What about for each agent to make the amount of money they want to make?
- Make it painfully visible. Leaderboards on your sales floor. Bring it up every team meeting. Every one on one. I do a lot of one on ones with agents. The first thing we always look at is their pacing for the conversations metric. Before I take them on my schedule, we figure out how much they want to make and how many conversations/week it's going to take to get there. If they show up to a one on one and they're not on pace for those conversations, that is the only discussion we're going to be having that week. Makes my one on ones real simple.
So what tech do you need in order to do this?
First, you need a CRM. It is impossible for your agents to keep track of hundreds of leads in their head, or in any other type of system. You probably need to fill that CRM with leads too, and a lot of them offer services to do that for you.
Second, you need something that will take your business from contract to close. Task management. This is how you deliver a great client experience.
Third, you need something to give you the numbers you need to make good decisions. You can't push anyone on anything if you can't keep score. And if you can't push people to achieve more, you're not going to be a great leader.
There are a lot of great CRM options for #1.
#2 and #3 is where 90% of the complexity starts to creep in. If you're not using Sisu, you're going to end up with some Frankenstein-looking monster of systems connected through Zapier, Make.com and who knows what else...
And then you're going to feel the pressure to hire a CTO to manage the Frankenstein monster and/or you are going to pay an exorbitant amount for custom development ...
Don't do that. If you're not on Sisu already...
If you are on Sisu, reach out to your account manager and make sure you grab some time. Lots of teams adopted us a ways back and just don't know what all can be done in the system. When they realize it, they're able to simplify significantly. This often means lower headcount, less man hours per transaction, fewers systems, and most importantly—better profit margins.
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