The listing agent needs to have the same philosophy, temperament, mind set, behavioral style, and sales skills that you do. They need to have the potential to be a carbon copy of you. I know successful listing agents who are not a “mini-me” of the lead agent, and work gets done. However, the road is fraught with challenges, frustrations, and setbacks until a successful track record and trust is built. In that model, the lead agent will be Monday morning quarterbacking a lot of what and how the listing agent operates.
When considering adding a listing agent, the two areas that most agents fail to evaluate well are sales skills and behavioral style. Do they currently possess or can you train and coach them to have the sales skills that the position demands? Do they score well on sales skills assessments? Do they have their highest scores in qualifying the prospect, presentations, objection handling and closing? Are they capable of going head-to-head with other lead agents and winning? If not, do they have the willingness to work until they do get it?
The truth is they probably have to have better sales skills than you because they aren’t the lead agent. If you are the lead agent for a successful team that has built your career to a solid level, you have the credibility of having done it. They don’t carry that walking in the door . . . you do! They are presenting your credibility for you in your absence. They are working to convey the competitive points of difference, track record of results, and conviction of the team’s beliefs while only playing a minor role compared to your role in achieving that level of success.
In the case of new listings agents, they haven’t had their hand on any of the success thus far. Their sales skills carry tremendous weight in securing the listing in spite of the other agents competing for it. They must get all of the listing contracts ratified at the listing presentation and finally secure the listing at the right terms and conditions to ensure the commission will be earned. The right terms and conditions includes correct price; long enough term; and realistic expectations of the sellers in terms of marketing, advertising, showings, open house frequency, communication frequency, type of communication, how the team works, negotiation of the contract, and overall results. Anyone can easily take more listings if they take them without the right terms and conditions.
In my view, the listing agent you hire must have the same or very similar behavioral style as you.
A good behavioral style assessment will help determine how they will react in certain situations. If they view the world the way that you do because of a similar behavioral style, they will be more likely to replicate you out in the field in terms of communication to the prospects, and sales presentations in nature of sales skills, sales processes, and sales structure. Your training will be more effective with them because you, in effect, speak their language.
For example, it will be easier to replicate your listing presentation. You will experience fewer new challenges and problems and won’t be investing your time in new solutions based on behavioral make-up.
Through our years of validated research on behavioral styles at Real Estate Champions, we can tell you the exact problems a salesperson will have in their sales business before they occur, based on their behavioral style.
The most frequent result of non-behavioral alignment comes in the terms and conditions of the listings that the listing agent does secure. I discovered this when working with a very successful agent in Dallas, TX, who had a listing agent. When we were analyzing her inventory of listings, her listing agent took the majority of the listings that had a low probability of selling in thirty days. We calculated, on average, that the listing agent took the listings at 109% of value and for 31% shorter term. They were expending considerable resources to market the properties longer, secure the price reduction, and sign extensions to the length of the listing term. When we looked at the client surveys after completed transactions, the client satisfaction level scores were in the high 60’s for these clients. The non-listing agent clients had satisfaction ratings exceeding 95% on average.
The vexing part was this was a very experienced listing agent. She knew what she was doing and had good sales skills – much better skills than the results indicated. It had to be the behavioral style, since the lead agent was a high dominant/high influencer. The listing agent was a high steady with a middle influencer score. The listing agent’s behavioral style was worlds apart from the lead agent. The listing agent couldn’t replicate what the lead agent was doing, due to her behavioral style. Once we knew the problem, we could create targeted training and standards that improved performance dramatically. We saw the poor numbers rise over time. They never matched the lead agent’s, but they improved.
I then took a look at all my clients with listing agents and found the most effective lead agent/listing agent teams to be the ones that had similar behavioral styles.
Take the time to have your listing agent evaluated before filling that role in your real estate team and you’ll save money by making the right hire first. Or evaluate your current listing agent to create targeted training and standards to improve performance.
