Module 2: Develop and Retain

Roadmap to Growth

Roadmap to Growth

LAUNCH THE BLUE

Onboard and train agents in your office by:

• Understanding and utilizing the tools/resources available. » e.g., Launch The Blue, onboarding checklist, Launch Pad, Schmidt Resources, CB Desk, CB University, Schmidt Education Calendar • Ensuring completion of the activities to onboard agents.

ELEVATE THE BLUE

Coach and support agents in your office by:

• Mastering techniques, questions and language needed to engage your agents. • Understanding and encouraging your agents to use the programs/resources available » e.g., Elevate coaching program, transaction coordination, marketing strategies • Completing the activities to engage your agents in your effort to lead them to success. » e.g., Business planning, sales meetings, recognizing agent accomplishments, interacting with agents via social media, visiting agent open houses

Business Planning with Agents

One of the most important things an agent can do to grow their business is to have a plan. A business plan. In its simplest definition, a business plan sets out future goals and the strategies to achieve them. As a manager, one of your responsibilities includes helping your agents with their business plans to ensure their success.

Most agents in real estate have goals, like financial freedom and being their own boss. Yet, sources in the industry estimate that upwards of 85 percent of agents fail out of real estate in their first few years. The key to success in real estate goes deeper than the goals — it’s the strategies. And in Team Blue — Business Planning, we take it even further — down to the specific suggested activities you can choose to do on a daily basis to ensure you and your agents have longevity.

On SchmidtResources.com, we offer a variety of resources for business planning, including a budget template, agent biography writing assistance, and the workbook linked below.

Click here to see the other business planning resources we’ve provided for you and your agents!

Click to check out our Business planning workbook!

Birthdays / Anniversary Dates

Paying attention to our agents and our staff helps us stay connected and aids in retention. The little things make a difference — a little bit of recognition can go a long way! Keeping a log of your agents’ birthdays and work anniversaries will help to make sure that no one is missed. It can also serve as a reminder for license renewals, which will alleviate stress when it is time to complete the required Continuing Education courses.

Recognition: Agent Ranking / Showcase

Look for opportunities to publicly recognize agents as often as you can. Genuine encouragement and support goes a long way. Recognize agents in each office meeting for achieving:

• Quarterly/monthly awards • Milestones: each $Mil YTD, surpassing goals, surpassing prior year’s production, lifetime volume, trending ahead of prior year, anniversary with the company • Big deals closed • Association election • First listing (for new agents) • First closing (for new agents)

Equally as important is 1-on-1 recognition of effort, results, or market position. This can be done with hand-written notes, a drop-in to their office, or an email to them copying senior leadership.

Develop & Retain | 29

ENGAGE SYSTEM

Employee next goal and growth experience

The purpose of the ENGAGE system created by Schmidt Family of Companies is to promote communication and provide useful feedback about job performance, to facilitate better working relationships, to provide an historical record of performance and to contribute to professional development. These reviews are purely performance based and not tied to compensation.

ENGAGE reviews will be conducted at least once a quarter to give employees and their managers the opportunity to outline priorities and objectives, and to ensure continuous check in with progress and performance. The conversation shouldn’t end when the meeting is over. After the conversation concludes, you and your manager/employee should review notes, define next steps, and follow up with shared comments and feedback.

PART 1 | CORE VALUES

The first portion of ENGAGE is the Manager’s portion, based on the Schmidt Family of Companies core values. Our company hires, evaluates, and promotes its employees based on our core values. This section of the performance review is based on the employee’s cumulative alignment with those values.

PART 2 | COMPANY INITIATIVES

Whenever possible, the Schmidt Family of Companies tries to make the company and its employees measurably better. The second portion of this system is for the Manager to evaluate the employee’s alignment with the company’s goals and initiatives, and how they tie to your specific region.

PART 3 | PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL INITIATIVES

The first portion of ENGAGE is based on the Schmidt Family of Companies core values. Our company hires, evaluates, and promotes its employees based on our core values. This section of the performance review is based on the employee’s cumulative alignment with those values.

PART 4 | DIRECT FEEDBACK

In the fourth portion, the Manager gives direct feedback to the employee. This feedback can be based off of a 360 review. We want to provide direct feedback, both positive and constructive.

ENGAGE SYSTEM

Employee next goal and growth experience

PART 5 | GOALS, OBJECTIVES, & TRAINING NEEDS

This portion is for the employee to reflect on their own performance. What goals do they have to improve themselves? Do they have any objectives they want to accomplish? Any training needs?

Designing an employee’s goals should be a joint effort between you and the employee. Employees who help set their own goals are more motivated to achieve them. Use the SMART formula to write goals and objectives:

• Specific: What exactly do you want to achieve? Good goals are clear and defined. • Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved it? You’ll need to be able to track daily progress. • Achievable: How can the goal be accomplished? List the specific tasks you’ll need to complete. • Relevant: Why is this goal important to you? Does this goal help add to your plans for the future? • Time-bound: When do you want to achieve this goal? Set your target date so you can guide your work toward a successful completion.

TIPS & TRICKS

Your success is our success! The review process doesn’t need to be a painful or uncomfortable experience. Your growth and development as an individual contributor is essential.

• Show your adaptability. One way to demonstrate this attribute is to become more proficient in the latest software or to attend seminars, webinars and courses. Explain how you’ve shown initiative to build your job skills. • Be innovative. This could be anticipating an upcoming task and tackling it beforehand, mentoring or providing assistance to a colleague, or doing something for the greater team, like volunteering to lead a project not yet assigned to someone. Have you had an idea that was successfully implemented, or did you find a way the department’s budget could be used more effectively? Bring it up.

ENGAGE SYSTEM

Employee next goal and growth experience

• Speak positively. Talking energetically about the company and the people you work with contributes to a positive workplace. • Listen. Remember, the goal of feedback is not to make you feel bad. Rather, it’s intended to help bring out the best of your abilities. So actively listen to what your manager is saying and consider how you can apply the words to your responsibilities. • Dig deeper. If you have questions about the reviewer’s feedback, don’t hesitate to ask them.

After all, you can’t improve unless you completely understand what areas need improvement and exactly why you’re not meeting expectations. Also, many managers will see your active interest as a positive sign indicating that you’re planning to act on their feedback. • Be engaged. Performance reviews are a conversation between you and your manager, which is why you need talking points. “Winging it” is rarely effective and could waste the allotted time you have each period for this one-on-one.

Showcasing ASC

Our Agent Service Coordinators are the “feet on the ground” in our offices. Although we don’t expect them to be masters of all of our technologies, we do want them to be knowledgeable of what is offered to increase the success of our agents.

To this end, we train them on how to connect an agent with a need over to either a support person, the Marketing Group, or a technology. We have a weekly training cadence for the ASCs, RSCs, and Managers on Thursdays at 9:30 am. This training is always recorded and loaded into the BlueSync playlist featured on SchmidtVideoClassroom.com. The following Monday, the content is shared to the general Agent population via Blue Matters Monday. We then ask the ASCs to attend the Sales Meeting for the week to share the topic that they trained on the previous Thursday. This gives the agents the content in email format and “live” format via the Sales Meeting.

Further training is provided to the ASCs every first and third Wednesday at 3 pm. This training is also recorded on SchmidtVideoClassroom and is available on the 1st & 3rd @ 3 playlist.

Positioning our ASCs as the “go-to” for our agents is important to us to service the agent in the best possible way with local support and the power of our full suite of technologies and company-wide support.

Click below to check out the entire collection of training videos on SchmidtVideoClassroom!

Module 3 Focus on the five