Business Management- 6 things you need to streamline your real estate team successfully

1. A CRM Software

I’ve mentioned this in times past, but I have to start here because there has not been any other thing that has helped as much as this thus far! When you use a CRM software, you can communicate with your staff by assigning tasks, setting automatic reminders for follow ups, putting deadlines in place, and having all our business contacts and leads in one place!

If you do nothing else, implementing this step will help free up your time, communicate with your team and provide structure to your new hires.

In times past, I used to use nothing but spreadsheets, and boy, was it messy! Nothing really made sense and when I’d hire people, helping them to understand our “working” system would take so long because it simply wasn’t organized.

If you use a CRM software, it will take some setting up, but it’s almost as if you’ll have instant organization once you do. It is a night and day difference when you compare the time it takes to teach people how to use a CRM software versus that of a loose collection of Excel spreadsheets.

2. How-To Manuals

When you create a work manual that highlights step-by-step instructions on how to conduct every aspect of your business, it’s like teaching a master class one time, and then never having to teach again!

It takes a lot of work on the front end, but once a manual is completed, when you have a new hire all you have to say is, “Hey, read this,” and it will take away 90% of the time that you would have spent teaching every new hire.

3. Video Tutorials

The benefits to this are similar to those of tip #2, only it’s good to use video when written form isn’t the best.

For example, if you are showing someone how to run comps off of the MLS, writing down each step could get really confusing really quickly.

It’s a lot easier just to record your screen and make a video that they can then go back and refer to as much as they need.

Again, it’s like having to only teach once, but you can have multiple ongoing “students” benefit from it.

4. Weekly Meetings

Even if you have a remote team that works from home, conducting a weekly meeting to go over all the happenings in your business is extremely crucial.

This is the time for you and your team to revisit your company goals, ask questions, brainstorm ideas and generally grow stronger together as a community and as a business.

You may not agree with this, but in my business, I want to be friends with the people I hire. I want us to share life, not just work, and having weekly meetings is a great way to practically facilitate this.

If your team is remote, at the least have weekly Skype sessions, and I’d suggest having get-togethers throughout the year. It may not make a lot of sense initially, but when you build rapport with your team, you’re actually training them in an unconventional sense.

You’re training them on your company culture. You’re training them on how to think and act like you, so if ever they are ever facing a hard-pressed decision, they can likely make it the way you would.

Typically during our meetings, we loosely discuss a few questions, namely:

• What’s going well?
• What’s working?
• What is needing to improve?
• What’s not going well, and how do we make it better?

5. Generosity and Incentives

When it comes to developing and training your team, it’s super important to have a system in place where if they excel, they will be rewarded for it. You want people to take personal ownership in your business, as if it were their own, and to do that you have to provide motivation.

Again, this is more of an abstract way to train your team, but it is training nonetheless.

If you teach them that if they crush it, they get rewarded, then you teach them they are valuable to the success of the company and they will know (and want) to give their best.

It’s super important!

Give generously! If the company had a really good month, give everyone a bonus! Don’t be greedy — the more money you make, the more they make. It’s just that simple!

6. Empowerment to Teach Others

Then, finally, empower others take initiative in teaching and helping others.

Going back to my kids, my older children know that they’ll be rewarded for helping out the younger kids. They know it pleases me, and so (on a good day), they will help teach our younger children how to do the chores well, which means I don’t have to!