How to Turn Hellos into Escrows: Building a Team with the Best Tools

by Renee Helten Founder and President of HIRED Schools

BY ZACH @ CHIME

Real Estate Technology with Chime

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Share: March 31, 2017 01:08 AM

There are currently between 35,000 and 50,000 real estate teams in the U.S., according to Tom Ferry, CEO of Tom Ferry International, and by 2020, Ferry predicts there could be up to 100,000 teams nationwide! Building a real estate team of your own might sound like a daunting task, but the ROI is impressive.

According to a REAL Trends survey in 2016, teams with an average of two people with 3 years combined experience closed an average of 60 transactions in 2016. Teams with a combined experience of 8 years closed 158 transactions! With a failure rate of 33% according to Jay Niblick, President of Wizehire, why wouldn’t you start your own team?

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An Activerain Community Special Offer! Two free gifts: A free infographic and an ebook on how to build and run your own real estate team from the ground up!

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Your first hire will often depend on your goals. If you want to focus more on the core of your business, you might consider hiring a virtual assistant. If you want someone to double your output and generate passive income, you might consider hiring a buyers agent. Before you start writing a single job description, think about why you want to build a real estate team, outline your goals, define your vision, and determine what skills you bring to the table and what skills you need to onboard.

Building a Team with the Right Talent.

Who is more beneficial: The personal assistant or the transaction coordinator?

Personal assistants are a smart first hire, especially if your bandwidth hasn’t scaled to match your growth. Personal assistants can be virtual, paid hourly, and can manage all of your appointments, phone calls, and can coordinate travel arrangements. Personal assistants are your front line of defense but do come with drawbacks.

If you need an assistant who can touch restricted real estate duties, including running open houses, consider a licensed transaction coordinator as your first hire instead. Transaction coordinators are often licensed agents and can legally perform (depending on the state!) many standard roles, including property showings and interacting with leads to name a few.

Bring on the buyers agents!

After your first administrative hire, your next hire should be a buyers agent. Buyers agents are your key to increased volume and decreased bandwidth. Hiring a buyers agent will allow you to focus on other aspects of your business, including listings, marketing, and following up with past clients to generate referral leads. With an industry average 70% increase in transaction volume, what is there to lose with a buyers agent?

“Hiring a new buyer’s agent should be like turning on another tap which pours out cash… you’ll take 50% of all their net commissions which should easily cover your costs early in the relationship.”

Do I need an Inside Sales Agent, too?

Known also as “sales support staff” and “sales development representatives,” inside sales agents (ISAs) play a crucial support role for your buyers' agent and for yourself. According to Realtor Mag, 66% of buyers leads select the agent who contacts them first. When an agent responds to a lead within five minutes, the chances of conversion increase by 100%.

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Mark your calendars: Travis Robertson and Chime Technologies will be hosting a panel on “Building a High-Performance Real Estate Team” at Inman News on April 27th, 10 am PST. See you there!

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Modern Tools for a Modern Age.

Fact: More than 81% of agents believe technology is helping the way teams work. What tools do you love to work with?

I love to learn about all the multiple tools agents use to run their business. There is no right or wrong answer. Some of the most prolific producers balance multiple devices, each running a different tool! Crazy! But despite the wide variety of answers I receive, one thing is abundantly clear: At the core, a modern CRM is required to run a team.

Fact: 34% of potential leads move on if you don’t respond within the first five minutes. Can you capitalize on the golden window of opportunity …without even lifting a finger?

An intelligent CRM will automate your workflows and take the human factor out to maximize productivity, team cohesion, and of course, profits. Here’s how a modern CRM provides modern-day solutions:

Customized lead routing delivers leads to your agents with smart pipeline

Chime delivers customized welcome messages the second they are added as a lead

Set up property alerts allows you to send properties that may appeal to your lead

Communicate and collaborate with any device with Chime’s team chat and a virtual number feature

Create action plans and tasks for your team and manage their efforts, whether you’re at the office or on the go with your mobile phone

Reporting and analytics allow you to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of each team member, including email open rates and conversations with leads.