In Great by Choice, Jim Collins describes a ship at sea with a hostile vessel bearing down on it and only a limited supply of gunpowder. If you load everything into one cannonball and fire, you’ll probably miss. Then you have no gunpowder left. The better move is to fire a bullet first. See where it […]
Author: Mark D. Johnson
Mark D. Johnson, MBA, is Managing Partner of Recruiting Insight and the former CEO of the nation's 35th largest brokerage firm, which he grew roughly fivefold to $8 billion in annual sales. A real estate broker since 2000 and a California licensed broker, he is adjunct faculty at Chapman University and South Orange County Community College District, and author or co-author of six California real estate textbooks and the book Up In Your Business. He coaches broker-owners, managers and recruiters on recruiting, retention and leadership.
How to Retain Top-Producing Real Estate Agents in Any Market
Top producers are the agents every competitor calls first. Here is what the data and the brokerages that grew through the downturn teach us about keeping them.
The Stay Interview
Most brokerages have an exit interview. That’s the conversation where you finally ask a good agent what went wrong, right after they’ve already signed with someone else. That isn’t a retention strategy. It’s an autopsy. Ask before they leave Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, authors of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, have long championed a simple […]
The Core Capacities Index: Select the Right Agents Before You Sponsor Them
The Core Capacities Index (CCI) is Recruiting Insight’s assessment that shows real estate sponsoring brokers how a candidate is wired before they sponsor them.
What I’d Tell Every Student Before Year One
Every semester, I watch students light up when they pass the final. They’re ready to go. Here’s what I wish I could tell every one of them before they walk out the door. Your license is permission, not preparation The exam proves you know the rules. It doesn’t prove you can get a stranger to […]
What We Can Learn from 13.1 and 26.2
As some of you know, I’m training for the Long Beach Half Marathon. Part of that training includes cross-training on the bike and the rower, and on the bike I’ve spent a few work out sessions with Ashley Paulson, an iFit trainer, indoor cycling instructor, and marathon runner. Somewhere between the intervals and the climbs, […]
Your 2027 Twenty-Mile March
In 1911, two teams raced to the South Pole. Roald Amundsen’s team held a steady pace every day. In good weather they stopped at their mileage goal, even when they could have pushed farther. In bad weather they still made their miles. Robert Falcon Scott’s team pushed hard on good days and waited out the […]
From 44% to 29%: A Retention Case Study
A large multi-office Midwest franchise brokerage cut the share of departing agents lost to other brokerages from 44% to 29%.
Could Your Agents Write It for You?
In The Compass Came First, post I ended with a question: can you write the one sentence that tells you which way is north? Then the harder one: could your agents write it for you? Here is a way to find out. At your next sales meeting, hand out index cards with one question: Where is this […]
Coach the Agent You Sponsored, Not the One You Imagined
Every new agent arrives with three plans: the one from their last brokerage, the one in their head and the one you described in the interview. Most first-year plans fail because they’re written for an average agent who doesn’t exist. The Core Capacities Index gives you something better: a picture of how this specific agent […]