Productive, professional agents are arguable the most precious company resource. Agents are the geese that lay the golden eggs. it is a sad fact of life that all agents will eventually leave the company. Good management retards the process and maximizes teh company investment in agent development.

by Chris Heagerty   Any company can increase its retention quotient. But a succinct "how to" on agent retention always seems illusive. It is not a company’s superlatives that are the benchmarks of keeping your agent base with you. The recipe for strong agent retention is a mosaic of sound management and leadership behaviors. Below are sound basics to score big.

Holistic communication – creating personal worth
• Interact often and proactively with your agents. Agents want to know–not just intuit–that you care. That means making sure that you visit with them when they are in, and reaching out to them when there is a lapse between your contacts with them. It also means that on a regular basis you check in with them regarding their production, goals, and well being.

• Say thanks in abundance. This speaks to valuing their contribution. A broker really goes nowhere without his agents. That merits appreciation often and much.

• Take credit for nothing. All credit should be doled out in great quantities. The credit for an impressive sales board, the recruiting of a good agent, the success of a program, etc. should all go to someone other than the manager.

• Recognize often and publicly. That means that you cite agents for jobs well done so their peers can hear how much you appreciate their efforts.

• Allow agents to leave well. A good parting leaves the door open for agents to return well. As disappointed as you are with an agent’s departure, be sure as he goes to let him know that you care about him and want what is best for him. If his wings need to spread elsewhere, let him know that you will "leave the light on in the kitchen" in case someday he wants to come back. Such class-act behavior will most certainly be shared with his agent friends who remain with you.

• Make agent calls your utmost priority. An agent who calls in to you at the office should never have to wait for you. Agents are your priority, and they should know it. Even if you must take the call only to arrange a later time when you can give him more attention, an agent will feel that he is a priority.

• Your door should remain open. Even a closed office door is never closed to an agent. You must never be too busy to help or to schedule a time when you can give an agent your undivided attention. When an agent pops in for a conference, stop what you are doing and give him your full attention.

• Be your agent’s biggest supporter. Encourage and guide at all possible junctures in an effort to make your agents excel at what they do. Avoid all negative criticism and use poor behaviors as opportunities to give constructive criticism to help your agent grow. This also means avoiding judgmental interactions. An agent base that sees a history of fair dealing will give you the benefit of the doubt at future junctures.

• Make your agents feel important. Hold and articulate high expectations of their performance because they are important enough to merit your high esteem.

• Be honest even when it is painful. That can mean admitting when you have erred and discussing how you could have handled it differently, or helping an agent correct bad habits which are uncomfortable for you to spotlight. If your honesty assists them in their personal and professional growth, it is worth the pain.

• Healthy families can talk about anything. Resist the temptation to brush aside thorny issues that need addressing. Inability to discuss in a nonjudgmental supportive environment is dysfunctional. You will encounter issues over and over again in increasing intensity if not dealt with. Agents are very adept at spotting a coward, and this chips away at agent loyalty.

Sound management – staying on track
• Ask the right questions. On a yearly basis, prepare a questionnaire for your agents specifically aimed at gathering their thoughts and feelings about the company and their place in it. No department, staff person, program, or task should be spared. Be bold and find out what you need to know before you learn about it from a departing agent. Ask for feedback on your performance with questions such as, "In my role as your manager, do I interact with you enough? Do I listen well? Am I responsive to your needs? What would you change in the manager’s behaviors if you could? What do you especially like?" Then systematically go through every aspect of your firm and get them to evaluate. "Is our commission split competitive? If not how would you change it? What services would you forego to make that happen?" Enumerate your services and get the agents to prioritize them. Ask what services not currently offered would help them perform better.

• Create a program of work. This is a blueprint of tasks to accomplish to make the office/firm more productive. The prioritization comes from the blueprint provided by your yearly agent questionnaire. The questionnaire followed by the program of work is an excellent hedge against the status quo.

Agents tend to delay departures until they see the next new program. The manager’s task is to keep rolling out the innovations.

• Create a professional environment. This entails setting up standards of performance and articulating your expectations. As the manager, you set the example and never deviate. The standards that you expect must be adhered to by all. No one should be able to bypass what you expect of everyone–not even top producers. Creating an environment where all must conform sets up expectations, fosters a level of pride in what you stand for, and creates an atmosphere of mutual respect within the office. Reduce it to writing in a policy manual that you constantly update and circulate.

• Facilitate techno-phobic and change-resistant agents. Be prepared to support and encourage those agents who resist the changes that are inevitable in the industry and within your firm. Be sensitive to their phobia, yet do not allow it to impede either the office progress or their development. This is a hands-on, tedious task. Your diligence in this respect is interpreted as true caring and is for the agent at once a scary and validating experience. Make a big deal publicly when a phobic agent masters a new technology or embraces a change. Engage agents in each others’ successes.

• Instill your staff with a dedication to agent needs. This translates into a staff mandate to provide the agents with the systems, supplies, tools, training, and information required to be successful. That means dedication to an office environment where equipment breakdowns are minimal and dealt with immediately, where there is zero tolerance for ever running out of supplies or forms, where systems work and where training and information is provided to the agent in multiple forms. If an agent is uninformed, then management and staff have failed. Provide training and information in multiple forms so there is no way not to "get it." Never allow the fact that an agent wasn’t present when a program was rolled out to be an excuse for them not being informed. Keeping agents informed is your responsibility and not an option to be left to agents.

Servant leadership – driving the train
• Set a course for innovation. Status quo should never become a modus operandi. Such translates into a stale environment where agents are ripe for the picking. Agents derive pride in their company and their manager when they know that you have put them on the cutting edge where innovation is the order of the day.

• Enable agents as architects of change. Enlist agent brainpower to solve problems and create direction that is in sync with the company’s focus. Set up an agent council that regularly gives you feedback and helps you wrestle with problems. When the agent becomes an architect of change, he gains enhanced buy-in. His ownership of the company direction becomes a retention magnet.

• Articulate your company culture. Your agents should know what it means to be an agent in your firm. Specify what you stand for and what behaviors support that culture. This creates pride and specific expectations of the agents as they interact with you, staff, each other, the buying and selling public, and other competitors.

• Talk often about balance in a healthy organization. Agents should be counseled to understand that there are trade-offs between what they want, what they can have, and what you can afford. Help agents be at peace with these real-world consequences. Thus, if agents want a greater commission split, it will come at the expense of other costly programs. The old adage that there is only so much juice in the commission orange is even truer today.

• Craft an identity for agents to wear internally and externally. If you see your image as an upbeat, progressive, on-the-move company, then this should be expressed to the agents and linked to innovations, systems, and all aspects of your firm. Likewise if you want an identity that your agents are great to work with, then you must instill in the agents your expectations of their behaviors in the field. Identity crafting should not be left to chance. Be very clear with your agents regarding how you want them to be perceived. This creates pride and staying power. Sell the benefits of this identity to them often.

• Create rituals. This supports identity and an agent sense of who they are and where they belong. Rituals come in all forms and can be attached to many behaviors. They create a sense of belonging. For example, you might want to make it a ritual that no agent passes through your lobby without greeting any client who is there. Or you might create a ritual surrounding everyone’s birthday, a monthly brainstorming lunch, or a promise never to let the phone ring more than three times. Such rites are linked to pride and belonging and the feeling that "I am in a company that is special."

• Be one with your agents but apart. The manager’s mission is to be 100% behind the agents’ efforts, goals, and success. However, there should never be any doubt that you are the leader and not one of the gang. Once you become a buddy, you compromise their respect and their willingness to follow you as their leader.

• Become an advocate for bettering all. Focus your direction on how it will improve the lot of all agents on one or all of three levels–personal, professional, and financial.

• Entice agents into helping you create a powerhouse. Agent recruiting of like-agents increases their willingness to stay. Agents prefer to be surrounded by agents of similar caliber. When agents help you build the team, they are more reluctant to leave since they have helped create it.

The proper tools, systems, commission split, supplies, and training necessary to practice real estate are a given. Strong agent retention encompasses so much more. It is a fine art – a balance of management, leadership, and communication. You must create an environment of pride, trust, respect, and a strong sense of belonging. This atmosphere leads to a great attraction that keeps agents with the company longer to the benefit of all.

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

Illustration by John Greene.

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