Did you know that the most important part of recruiting is establishing a culture? In this video, we’re going to show you how to attract agents by creating and sustaining a company culture. We’ll hear some real life examples from industry leaders whose tribes have lead to a successful business.

All About Culture

One of the biggest challenges that brokerages face is that they all have the desire to grow and do more things, but it’s often the execution and action behind the activities that don’t get the energy or attention they need. One way to propel success is to attract agents by creating and sustaining a company culture.

Your culture doesn’t have to be the same as any other business. Rather, your culture is building the place that you want to be at. It’s through this that you’ll attract people. Our culture is outgoing, and we like to have a lot of fun, a lot of socials, and a lot of events. Your culture might be different, and that’s okay.

We’re also going to talk about profit, which is adding more ancillary products or services that you own or get affiliate fees or marketing dollars for. We’ll give you a ton of examples and resources for things that we’re doing inside of our companies. You’ll also get a glimpse as to how the marketplace is being built out inside of Sweet Assist so that you see how a lot of this stuff can be built for you.

We’ll also talk about being omnipresent online for recruiting. The key is to build a brand and be everywhere that the agents we’re trying to recruit are.

How To Show Your Culture To New Agents

There are a few things that you can do to show your culture. First, you can make a lot of videos that capture your culture. For example, Big Block’s YouTube encapsulates all the fun they have and that it’s not your traditional brokerage. The videos are targeted to their custom audience, so whether they like it or not, they’re going to see Big Block’s culture. For agents that have opted into their recruiting process, they’re going to get emails showing how Big Block recruits.

Another way to show off your culture is with social events each month. As your business starts to grow, you’re going to have agents at your company that are friends with other agents. Promoting a meetup event to their agents, Big Block has anywhere from 30 to 120 people in attendance. Out of these, it’s usually about 60% of their agents and 40% other agents. This always turns into more recruits and helps build and fortify their culture.

Culture and brand are what customers say about you when you’re not listening. We want our industry’s customers—the agent—to notice a noteworthy and remarkable culture. Remarkable means “worthy of remark,” and you want them to be compelled to go tell other people about your culture. The resulting testimonial videos will then help perpetuate this culture.

Branding On YouTube

When creating branding videos on YouTube, it’s best to have two channels for your brokerage and yourself. Having a personal YouTube page for growing your personal brand is helpful most people are in many different real estate businesses. For example, a lot of Big Block’s content isn’t brokerage specific. You can have one channel dedicated to property videos, recruiting videos, and testimonials and another channel within that page that focuses on other topics.

Hosting channels on one main page results in more authority and ranking on YouTube. So whether you having training videos or consumer-facing videos, posting them under one umbrella channel is the best option.

Using A VA To Set Appointments

When using a virtual assistant to set appointments, a script should be question-based to get the best results. Selling is not telling; it’s asking questions. When you ask agents the right questions at the right time, it’s going to bring out their motivation and get them engaged in the conversation.

It will also help you find out what’s important to them in a brokerage. In this way, you can alter your presentation. Many times, it’s not just support that an agent needs—it’s training and culture. By asking a lot of questions, you can present the right opportunity for them.

Office Space And Working From Home

Big Block uses both in-office and work-from-home strategies. With four corporate stores and additional franchises, the offices have multiple conference rooms available for agents on a first come first serve basis. If they need a specific time, agents can also make appointments to use them.

The corporate offices also have open workstations, including large conference tables and cubicles. Many of Big Block’s agents come into the office, jump on the WiFi, use the printer, work there for an hour or two, make some calls, and leave. Many agents are both working from home and using the office space when needed. Each location at Big Block also has office space available for rent at an affordable price

“We Believe” Video

Another strategy to advertise your culture is a “We Believe” video. It’s included in Big Block’s job posts and gives people an idea of what they’re about and what their culture is. The video—at just about 3 minutes long—includes members of the team speaking about multiple things that the company believes in, accompanied by heartfelt music in the background. The We Believe video is used in many different areas.

Using Funds Wisely

Events, socials, and rewards are a big part of the culture at Big Block. Some have asked, ‘how can you afford to do all these events and rewards while being a 100% commission brokerage?’ The answer is that you have to think about the way the average brokerage is run.

Before any ancillary services, Big Block is going to make, around $4,000 per agent, guaranteed. With 1200 agents, the revenue adds up. However, with all the ancillary services they offer, the costs start to stack on themselves. Look at the average brokerage; the average commission is $8,000, and their average agent does three deals on a 20% split. That means they’re making $1,600 per closing.

With three closings, those brokerages aren’t making much more than Big Block does—but they have way more overhead. This includes managers and many more offices. Big Block’s structure is lean and mean, which really starts to grow and compound on itself.

Sending Out “Checks”

Another strategy to recruit is sending physical mail. Big Block has made a list of the top agents they’re interested in, and they then do a reverse lookup to get their home mailing address. In an 8.5”x11” envelope, they’ll send them a big check. The check unfolds to show their name printed, and in the amount, it says “100% commission.”  It also includes a handwritten sticky note as a personal message.

Big Block also sends something similar to the agents on the other side of the transaction. The check includes the actual amount they could have received on that transaction if they were working for Big Block. This is a great way to recruit more people in transactions that Big Block agents are already handling.

The Golden Ticket Dinner

Another special event that Big Block does is called the Golden Ticket Dinner. An invite will come to an agent’s house—nicer than most wedding invites, with a wax seal stamp and fancy lettering. When opened, gold cardstock papers invite the guest to a night of elegance and entertainment on the 34th floor of the Symphony Tower. The night includes a top-notch meal with perfectly crafted cocktails.

The people invited include a dream list of agent recruits. On the invitation, Big Block makes it known they’re inviting them because they’re looked at as a leader in the industry and they want to build better connections. The invites also include an Uber code for guests to get to the dinner and back, on Big Block’s dime.

Nowhere in the invite, however, does it include anything about Big Block. Half of the invited people will call and ask what Big Block is trying to sell them. They tell them, honestly, nothing; they simply think they’re awesome and would love to get together for dinner. The other half will simply register. Big Block is never brought up at the dinner, and it’s never about business. The Golden Ticket Dinner is a great way to pull back the curtains on Big Block’s culture, giving them an idea of what they can expect.

Adapting To COVID Restrictions

With COVID restrictions, recruiting may need to be altered. Big Block currently does all of recruiting on Zoom. If an agent wants to tour one of their offices, they’ll schedule an appointment for them to go see it. By focusing on online methods of recruitment—such as SEO—they’ve been successful despite any changes in COVID restrictions.

SEO is a key tool for online recruiting. For example, Big Block has two or three websites that show up on the first page of Google when someone types in “100% commission real estate San Diego” or any one of 20 different keywords they’re targeting. Those leads are the best leads the company gets because the intent of those searching for a new brokerage is really strong.

New Agents And A Mentor Program

In Big Block’s early years, they didn’t allow new agents to join. This is because they take a lot more work and there’s a high failure rate. About two years ago, the team rolled out a few different programs to support and bring on newly licensed agents.

If an agent is brand new to the state or industry, Big Block requires them to do four transactions with a mentor. These transactions all have a commission split around %35, which pays for the mentor and gives Big Block a small cut, too. The agent will need to go into the Mentor Program or they can join a team.

A big value for Big Block is that they have a lot of teams. They do the recruiting for them and then get a lot of leads. If they join a team and the team supports them, then they don’t need to be in mentorship. Big Block will also play matchmaker to connect agents with a team; they then have their fees with the team and the team structure.

Everybody pays the same team lead agent on the team, and everyone’s going to pay their cap. However, there are a couple of things that are available where they can pay their n advance for the year for the whole team. This will save them on admin fees. Still, everyone pays the same amount.

Refer Five And It’s Free

Another program that helps Big Block recruit is called Refer Five And It’s Free. Anytime an agent joins and refers five agents to join the company, they don’t have to pay any fees except for the admin fee. That helps with the team because if five people join, they’re essentially free. Additionally, these agents are already moving from somewhere that they’re paying a 25% to 30% split.

Cheri Benjamin’s Culture

Cheri Benjamin has had successful teams in multiple states and runs a very successful brokerage in Las Vegas. She’s experienced strong growth and coaches agents while actively learning herself. Additionally, she’s also a client of Sweet Assist.

Her brokerage, Village Premier Collection, is based out of Atlanta—though Cheri lives in Las Vegas. With five offices in Atlanta and the suburbs and a little over 200 agents, Village Premier Collection is in the process of opening up in Florida. While Cheri’s business is thriving, it didn’t quite start that way.

Nothing Happens Overnight

Cheri’s company was fortunate enough to recruit over 130 agents this year using zero ad spin. She and her team accomplished this 100% by word of mouth. However, nothing happens overnight. After a first round in the business from 2000 to 2008, Cheri jumped back into real estate in 2013.

Starting off as a loan officer selling those infamous 228, no-income, no-asset style loans, she made a bunch of money at just 21 years old. Her brand grew into 24 loan officers in a class A building in Colorado with crazy overhead. They were bleeding money every single month, and Cheri got out of the business right before the crash of 2008.

After moving from Colorado to Atlanta, Cheri went into insurance and quickly grew that business, too. One thing she learned about teams is that they cost a ton of money—and a lot of the agents brought on don’t want to work. When she rejoined real estate in 2013, there was a lot to learn about the business that she hadn’t before. She finally decided to leave her team and go it alone, until she joined village Realty as their first hired agent.

Finding Your Tribe

Being pregnant at an early age while growing her business, Cheri couldn’t do showings. She hired a buyer’s agent in 2014, and that one agent let to a team 34. There was a crazy amount of work and a ton of money being spent on agents who didn’t understand the value she was providing them. She had to learn to not always be so nice, letting go of the people who weren’t working despite her soft heart for sob stories—like the few agents she had who even faked cancer.

Having a team of 34, however, gave Cheri a little bit of a broker edge. Still, she never wanted to be the broker because she felt like it was way too much liability. When she found people she could learn from and bounce ideas off of—like her friends at Big Block Realty—she realized that finding her tribe meant all the difference.

Cheri always aligns herself with people who are doing far beyond what she is doing. That’s because those are the people she wants to aspire to. It’s important to keep those in a growth mindset around you. Not being the smartest person in the world in the room is always the best idea.

Since Cheri couldn’t stand the liability of being the broker, she checked out a few brands—though none of them spoke to her about their culture. While she might be a 40-year-old wife raising five boys, unlike some agents out there, she embraces millennials. She finds that they have fun and don’t like stuffy, snooty environments. She also realized that she could make a change, and approached her company about doing a franchise.

From Franchise To Owner

After some back and forth, Cheri and her company agreed. They decided to trim the fat from her current team and let go of dead weight. As a result, Cheri went from 34 agents down to just 12. They opened Village Realty Midtown, but the franchise cost money.

After all the wonderful training and everything else offered, agents of a franchise are left on their own. While you do get some brand recognition, you’re not really the boss. Cheri felt like she was building somebody else’s brand and legacy—and they were not always as willing to adapt to her ideas. She’s a culture-first person, and Village Realty was more of a corporate-style company. Although she loved their core values of be nice, dream big, work hard, play hard, and pay it forward, something was missing.

A stroke of luck happened for Cheri in late September; the owners of Village Realty decided they were going to sell the whole business. They went back and forth with Reology and got a nice offer, but then Cheri slipped in. She offered a lot less than Reology, but they decided to choose her offer. On October 1, 2019, Cheri purchased Village Realty, now called Village Premier Collection. It was a scary decision for someone living 1,900 miles away, but it was exciting at the same time.

Setting Her Standards

When Village Premier Collection began, its 118 agents were all over the place when it came to commission plans. The structure was not conducive to growing an agent’s business the right way. Because of that, Cheri made several changes.

Not everyone liked the things changed, like being held accountable and being told the word ‘no.’ When an agent asked me to do something like pay for them to go to school to get their broker’s license, that was a no. One of the things Cheri had to do was get everybody on the same commission plan.

This meant no more negotiating every single time an agent’s cap was renewed. It also meant no more switching around plans just because that agent’s business model changed due to whatever their friends were getting at another brokerage. Of course, this did cost Cheri a ton of money. There were some people on her team whose plans were a lot nicer. However, the problem was that some of those people were not who she wanted to be in business with.

One of the first things Cheri learned when she decided to start a mortgage company in 2001 is that you have to set your standards, and you don’t deviate from them. Be unwavering with who your ideal agent is. When Cheri needs to part ways with an agent, she calls it “freeing up their future.” Only hire those with high integrity, regardless of what that agent is producing.

Culture Starts With You

Finding a tribe to perpetuate your culture is important. Never worry about how many transactions an agent did before they come to your business. In 90 days, Cheri went from 118 agents down to 67. Some were let go, while others departed on their own merits when they decided they weren’t on the same page as the company. However painful, Cheri’s goal was to flip the brokerage—and she did it.

It’s important to understand that culture starts with you. This means that you will attract your tribe. For Cheri, her culture is truly about the people. After talking to hundreds of agents, only a small few are invited to join the tribe. That’s because they’re more focused on the person and how they fit in the culture compared to the money and production they bring to the table. Cheri can teach a person how to gain more business, whether through social media listing, presentation, or CRM. What she can’t teach is the mindset of reaching behind you and pulling the next person up.

Every agent must embody some of the core things about the culture. Brokers need to make sure that the environment is conducive to the agent feeling safe. They need to make sure everybody feels connected and has a shared vision.

Questions To Ask Your Agents

When Cheri is interviewing potential agents, she doesn’t just ask about how many deals they want to do. Rather, she wants to know what their legacy is. She wants to understand what they’re ultimately looking to do.

There are a variety of questions to ask that can gauge if an agent is the right fit. What is your exit out? Do you have a family? Who do you plan on leaving this business to? How do we build your brand? It’s about them, not about the company. Each agent must have an environment that’s conducive for them to be able to thrive.

One of Village Premier Collection’s sayings is an African proverb that means, “I am because you are.” Cheri wants each agent on her team to feel like they go to Disney World when they come and interact with her company.

Breaking Down Barriers

As an African American woman who runs a brokerage in the south, some people won’t join Cheri’s brokerage just because of what she looks like. She does have to deal with things that other people don’t have to deal with—but she’s okay with it. Those aren’t her agents. However, she does understand what it’s like to be a woman, especially an African American woman, doing business in the south.

After everything that’s been happening in the world regarding racial disparity, Cheri formed a meeting of the minds with some of her colleagues. She included a therapist so that the group could break down barriers and be a part of the change. She makes sure to keep her doors open for all questions, and a broker hotline is open 24/7 in case their qualifying broker and other associate brokers can’t answer the question.

One of the things Cheri learned is that you have to meet people where they are. Facebook, in the age of COVID, has helped tremendously. The company has a private Facebook group that gets a ton of engagement from its agents. As a staff, they also help with agent shoutouts, meeting reminders, invites, and welcome every single agent to the tribe with their own separate post. This has been especially encouraging and welcoming for the agents, connecting the entire team.

They also have a Village Voice that gets sent out every Thursday to all of the agents that don’t use Facebook. This details what’s happening in the company, the latest news, and dates and times of meetings.

Helping Agents Find Their Legacy

Having a shared vision is key for agents that want to find their legacy. Cheri strives to make sure she creates an environment conducive to each person’s success. You can never make a person successful; all you can do is facilitate the best environment for them to choose to be or not.

At Village Premier Collection, they’ve built in offers for agents. This includes covering their MLS membership, offering masterminds with agents all across the country, and a free concierge service. Whether they need flyers, listings, lockboxes, client closing pictures, or anything else, Cheri and her team provide it. They also offer Sweet Assist, which has been a gamechanger for agents.

In addition to masterminds, Village Premier Collection offers team leader coaching for those who have aspirations of growing their team. Everyone starts somewhere, and if an agent can coach and train other agents and grow them, this can build a great team. Another African saying the team uses means “one plate, but we all eat.”  Where Cheri is today is because of the growth of her team. It’s a totally different mindset from an ego-driven one that is typically seen with most agents.

The Happiest Place On Earth

Disney World is the happiest place on earth for everybody. Cheri tries to make sure Village Premier Collection stays the happiest place on earth for her agents. She tries to make sure that they keep the fun in it by having events with agents, bringing them out to Vegas for masterminds and wind downs.

From the first time agents meet them to the first time that they need them, every interaction needs to have a Disney World mindset. This starts at orientation, where member standards are presented right from the start. The agents will also get all of their questions answered, like who are the staff, what are the next steps, and where do they need to go to get stuff done. Agents need to know what they don’t know—and this includes all the details about marketing, emails, and the offerings that Village Premier Collection provides.

When onboarding agents, it will be similar to drinking from a firehose. It’s important to build a follow-up plan after the orientation so they can fully benefit from their partnership with the brokerage. Village Premier Collection also checks in with agents every six months. It’s important to always think about retention when you think about recruiting, because retention means that you are always recruiting your agents.

Let Your Agents Know You Care

COVID forced everyone to make a ton of changes, switching many things to the virtual world. During the height of the pandemic, Village Premier Collection offered online training to agents—and they still do. They rotate them daily and keep the content up to date and fresh.

When they first started the meetings, about 12 agents would attend. That number jumped to 25, then 60. Now, Village Premier Collection sees more than 90 agents in attendance. On average, about 50% of the brokerage joins in on their virtual meetings—which are scheduled at 4 per day. This keeps them connected with the brokerage in a safe way.

During the summer and leading into October, Village Premier Collection offered their agents porch family photos. They hired a photographer to travel all over Atlanta to take the pictures, which was a perfect way to maintain safety in the pandemic. The agents got to select which portrait they wanted to send out, and some of them used them on their holiday cards. It was a way of showing that Cheri and her team understand and care about their agents.

Additional perks include the chance to win a Tesla every year along with an award ceremony that agents love. Cheri also owns an affiliate school for agents to continue their education. They offer scholarships, post-license and pre-license classes, and advisors to help them out where needed.

Take The ‘You’ Out Of It

Cheri has grown Village Premier Collection from a company with 3 Google reviews in 5 years to 26 in just 12 months. When people ask her about her success, she always tells them they need to take the ‘you’ out of the business. Put the agents first, and remember the end goal is to help each other and help each agent leave their legacy for their families or their community.

One of the lines that Village Premier Collection always uses in their recruiting process is that they’re in the business of supporting the agent. The agent is the customer. And if they do right by the agent, the agent will do right by the client.

Success Starts And Ends With Your Environments

As Cheri brought out, it’s all about the environment. Brokers that spend time outside of the office meeting, masterminding, and collaborating with people that are doing better than them allows for more growth. Success starts and ends with the environment you put yourself in. When that environment includes people that are doing better than you, it changes the way you look at challenges.

It’s important to surround yourself with a team that fits your culture. Humans go through cycles and stages, so it’s important to analyze how you interact with agents and how you understand what stage they are in their life right. You also want to ask yourself what support you can provide to them. If they don’t fit the culture, it’s best to cut ties and free up their future.

It’s important to have the right tribe and the right people behind you. They should support you and understand that there’s more to business than just buying and selling houses. When you help people, they’ll be much more appreciative and contribute to your company’s culture.

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