Eastern Connecticut hasn't grown many teams. We have a few agents who call themselves teams. Most of them are really partners with an assistant. And that's ok! Some of the same good systems can be used with that model. Some agents take comfort in knowing someone can cover for them if they are away or they just need extra support.
To me a team is made up of a rainmaker who generates leads, agent team members and support staff. My team has been around since 2000 and we've created a nice little niche for ourselves. I have lots of agents ask me when they should start a team? The answer is "it depends". It depends on what you are trying to accomplish when you form a team. Are you trying to work fewer hours? Do you want to specialize in one aspect of the business? Are you losing business because you can't keep up with it? All of those are great reasons to start a team but you need to be sure you can "feed" a team if you start one. You need to be able to generate business for your team members.
As I mentioned in my last blog on the topic, I actually started a team because I wanted to work fewer hours so I could golf more. In 1999, I closed a boat load of transactions on my own with one part time assistant. Oh...and I was dabbling in politics too. And doing some volunteer stuff. But there was little time for anything else so something needed to change. And besides, I was getting too old to work so hard! I really liked generating leads, marketing, the internet stuff and working with sellers. So I hired myself a buyer's agent and then another and another and a great little team was formed. With a plan and good systems in place, my team of 5, including an awesome licensed "client care manager" manages to kick butt in our small market area.
How many transactions should you be doing before you form a team? "It depends" on how much you can generate beyond what you can and want to handle yourself. Before you start taking on buyers agents, you have to be sure you can feed them. If you are not generating enough leads to keep a buyer's agent busy, then perhaps just a very good licensed "client care manager" is enough for now. A good support person can free you up to do more on your own without the pressure of supporting a buyer's agent.
I can do a lot of transactions on my own. (My sister got the good looks and the model figure. I got the organizational abilities.) With good systems in place, each of my sellers receives the same level of service and pretty efficiently. Buyers are different. In my opinion, buyers take more energy, more patience and more time. In order to save time, I decided to start gradually giving away buyers. I slowly got over the opinion that no one could work with buyers as well as I could. In fact, my buyers agents are much better than I am with buyers. They are younger and more enthusiastic. One of them is downright perky. (I don't do perky.) Today, I don't work with any buyers personally. And I only list property in my town of Ledyard, population 14,900. I have less than 2500 miles on my car for the past 6 months. I don't travel far from the office.
Before you build a team,you should have some basic buyer systems in place including contact management software, (I use agent office), a producting IDX website with a drip campaign to keep a steady stream of buyers coming, a homebuyer workbook, a homebuyer questionairre, followup systems, and good forms and checklists. You want your buyer's agents to hit the ground running.
Howard Brinton's Star Power University courses are an excellent resourse for building a team. His annual conference always pays for itself in my opinion. I know Brian Buffini has now jumped into the team training arena as has many of the big franchises.
In part 3 of 97. (This is supposed to be funny.) I'll talk about the basic buyer systems I have in place.
