by Chris Heagerty   The assembly of a crackerjack sales force is the lifeblood of the brokerage industry. Recruiting becomes the manager’s real sales job as the survival of the firm depends on his ability to continually renew his sales force as attrition takes its toll. A manager who cannot sell the benefits of association dooms his firm to a backwards road map.

On your mark: Define who you are
Successful recruiting begins behind the scenes with company identity. Everything anyone in your company says or does is part of the recruiting effort. Are you a niche broker or do you want to appeal to the entire marketplace? Do you want to focus on new talent, preferring to grow the talent in your own image, or do you prefer experienced agents? Do you see your focus as purely geographic? Do you perceive yourself as a cutting-edge broker?

Lack of consistency in your message and identity confusion dilute your recruiting effectiveness. If your image is "a cutting-edge firm" that embraces technology, then an outside agent interfacing with your techno-phobic agents will chip away at the identity. Potential recruits will be confused by the institutional message you articulate and the reality of their experience with your agents. Many an impetus for association with a firm begins or ends at the agent-to-agent interface in the field.

Once you clarify the company image, your target agent becomes easy to define. Focusing on specific needs becomes the logical next step. Examine the materials, tools, systems, commission schedule, procedures, and policies in place. Time spent defining and refining, shoring up and developing before you launch your recruiting efforts will more than pay for itself in the effectiveness achieved. A new-to-the-business recruit will not think to ask you if you have a policy or procedure manual, but a seasoned veteran will view the absence of one as a mark of a loosely run organization. An agent who aggressively markets himself will look for marketing support–administratively, creatively, financially, etc.

Get ready: Retrofitting yourself
The charisma and appeal of the manager is key to the decision to join a firm for most agents. Step back and ask if you would work for you. Is there consistency in dress and appearance? Do you come in some days as the casual you, yet other days you are the professional you? This is a mixed message. If jeans are your standard dress pants, do not be surprised if you are unable to attract the wealthy housewife whose husband will be the source of high-dollar leads. If you are trying to attract the boots-and-jeans rural-property agent, then suit and tie will probably not work. As basic as this may seem, managers do not grasp the destructive aura that they exude.

Do you have the ability to listen well? Can you relate to the challenges agents face daily? Do your internal agents feel you are responsive to their needs? Would they be complimentary of your leadership style? Are there causal patterns in recent agent departures?

Understanding your weaknesses as well as your strengths is the basis of a retrofit. Remember that a compelling attraction is the perceived relationship with the new manager. Relate the new and improved you to the needs of your target agent. Don’t hesitate to ask those associated with you about you. The insight they offer could be your retooling instruction manual.

Get set: Looking for recruits in all the right places
Old standbys like teaching in the licensing school or MCE still are effective in identifying promising new agents. A company that is only fortifying its agent base with novice agents must cope with longer learning and productivity curves. New agents take time to cure and mature and generally have smaller dollars to invest in their professional development.

Your existing agents are fertile recruiting sources. You should articulate well and often the imperative for all to recruit good talent. Your agents rub elbows on a daily basis with agents with whom they prefer to work. Most agents will be active ambassadors for the company if they are asked.

Create opportunities for interface. Set realistic goals at the onset of the process for contacting, prospect calling, interviewing, and hiring. To do this you must have a clear picture of you own recruiting needs, agent attrition rates, and agent production levels necessary to support your bottom-line goals. Know how many recruits you must work to capture the number necessary for profit goals.

Go: The smart interview
The smart interview is choreographed with care, where the manager knows the direction he wants the interview to go, what characteristics he is looking for, and how to ask the questions that get at what he wants to know. The smart interview is a well-thought-through balance of learning about the recruit and showcasing the benefits of joining the firm.

The top ten
Define your Top Ten Favored Characteristics in your ideal recruit. This serves as a guide to learn about the prospect. It also provides a benchmark for agent comparison and evaluation. You will be less prone to becoming confused by an interviewee who is very adept at leading the interview.

The Top Ten should be specifically tailored to your target agent profile. For example, financial stability would definitely rank in the Top Ten for the novice agent. A new agent must be financially capable of withstanding a six-month financial drought. This would not be a consideration for an experienced agent because his financial stability is a given. More important for the experienced agent would be what kind of business he can immediately generate.

Develop a weighted score
Each of the characteristics is evaluated for each recruit. If one of your Top Ten is technology depth, you would rate the recruit in that category on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being low and 10 being high. You would do this for each characteristic.

Then you assign a multiplier to each category based on how important that characteristic is to you. If you consider all categories equally important, then each is multiplied by 10. Thus, the weighted multipliers equal 100. A perfect score is 10 in each category with each multiplied by the weighted multiplier and added up to a composite score of 1000.

If some characteristics are more important than others, then the multiplier would be higher for some characteristics and lower for others. Remember, the goal is to have the maximum weighted sum of the multipliers equal 100. It is instructive to evaluate your current agents who then become benchmarks with which to compare your recruit.

Craft your questions
Craft how you will get at what you want to uncover–what questions must you ask the recruit to find out about the Top Ten. One of the hardest is professionalism. What candidate would ever answer negatively a direct question about whether or not he is a professional? Thus you must ask about the trappings of professionalism. What education beyond license and renewal requirements has the agent taken? Ask about GRI, CRS and other courses that they have taken along the way. An agent who has gone above the minimum requirements to seek out education is one who is invested in professionalism. Ask what he considers the best transaction he ever had. . . and the worst. Why? Inherent in these answers are insights into his professional behaviors.

Benefits of association
The smart interview is a balance of company showcasing and agent articulation of needs and preferences. You must focus on what he wants and needs so that the benefits you are selling match his needs.

As you showcase your offerings, remember to articulate the benefits. For example, it is not enough to say you have an in-house marketing department. You should also point out the benefits: saves time because he is relieved of design and production work, relieves his cost burden, and shifts more of his efforts to selling. The bottom-line benefit is greater income.

Understand what you have to offer and play on the benefit to the agent. Every firm, regardless of size, configuration, tools, and systems, has clear marketable benefits.

Conclude your interview by always asking for the "the business"–his association…even though your game plan is to compare this interviewee to others via a weighted score. If his commitment is not forthcoming, then devise with the interviewee what both of you will expect regarding the timing and outcome from your next follow-up contact with him.

Always keep in mind that successful recruiting is deliberate and well thought through. Behind-the-scenes efforts pay big dividends and help ensure a company future that is bright and profitable.

Chris Heagerty, CRB, CRP, GRI, is market director for eRealty.com in Austin. E-mail her at cheagerty@eRealty.com.

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