Are you fit for a team?

I recently travelled to the National Association of REALTORS® conference in New Orleans where I soaked up a ton of information to help me in my business. But my favourite session of the conference was all about teams. Not just about how a team should be structured but how to determine if someone is “fit” for a team.

Determining if you are fit for a team could be at two levels.

A) are you fit to be a team leader?

B) are you fit to be a team player?

There are many ways to determine this but the category I found most interesting is ATTITUDE. Other categories included production and experience.

The consensus in the room indicated that though experience and production are important they shouldn’t be the only thing you consider, especially when deciding if you should be a team leader or a team player.

There was a story told by a Broker of Record about a new REALTOR® in his office. He talked about how this REALTOR® had no real estate experience but had a huge amount of connections from his previous job (restaurant owner) and experience managing a team. This new REALTOR® quickly became very busy and needed help (within a matter of only months). He went to the broker and the broker gave him his blessing to start a team. His team has grown quickly and the REALTOR® is extremely successful in his new business. Experience in real estate was clearly not necessary for this new REALTOR®, but his ability to manage a team sure was.

A team leader needs production obviously and should be generating a minimum of 50% of the business. A team player should have the ability to follow through and convert the leads without someone holding their hand.

When looking for team players the speaker suggested doing a DISC assessment to learn about the REALTOR®’s personality (www.onlinedisc.com or Anthony Robbins offers a free DISC assessment on his website). And to discuss with your broker to see if REALTORS® within your office are allowed to join your team. And what the role of the broker will be, the roll you will play as team leader, the roll your team player will play and what your compensation package will look like.

To be a team player, you need to make sure your personality works well with your team leader and that you have the ability to follow the systems the team leader has put in places. Systems are the key to any team. Without systems your team will be difficult to manage and difficult to work for.

The speaker referenced a site called 1000watt.com/index where you can find a full list of systems for real estate to help put your systems in place including CRM’s, lead captures and more. She also recommended joining both “Tech support group for real estate agents” and “What should I spend my money on” on Facebook to learn what systems others have been tested and recommended.

Teams are an interesting aspect to our business. There fairly new in my market and wrapping my head around how they work is not always easy. How do I get paid, what’s the benefit for me and what systems will work for all involved are some questions that still remain unanswered for me.

I’d be curious to hear comments from those who work on successful teams. What you like or don’t like about them. Please share them on our Facebook group (OREA YPN) or right here on this blog.

Written by Amie Ferris, YPN member and guest blogger