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You’re listening to the Focus Radio with Alyssa Granlund. My goal is to share some tips and ideas to help you grow a thriving, and healthy real estate business that you love.

Good morning everybody. Thanks for joining me today.  I just got off the phone with a client, and we were talking about a person on her team, and her question to me was, “How do I get this person engaged? She’s busy. She’s got a young family, little kids, and a new relationship. She’s really distracted, and not showing up, or even responding to text messages or emails.”

Alright. Have any of you ever been in this situation? This is really, really common when we bring on buyer’s agents to our team, because generally, they’re coming on to the team, because they were struggling on their own, because they probably didn’t have great habits, and they weren’t prospecting consistently, but there’s a reason that they came into the real estate business in the first place, and that is because they probably value their freedom, and it is a little bit of a disconnect when they join the team, and then a team leader has some expectations that they want this buyer’s agent to meet. That is a struggle that I see a lot, and so I thought this is something that probably a lot of people would be interested in. I thought I would just share my thoughts on this with you today.

The first thing is when we do bring on a buyer’s agent, a lot of times we are maybe a little overly optimistic about what their commitment level is going be, and also I think sometimes are a little bit too generous on the splits, and so when we do that, when we’re too generous on the split, and we’re not really making a lot of money on it, it’s hard for us to set aside that time to work with them, because it’s not really that profitable, and we have to keep the roof over our heads, and we have keep our doors open, and we’re busy out there trying to get deals done, and we don’t necessarily have time to nurture our team, and nurture their growth. That’s one problem that can happen.

Another problem that can happen is that we’re all in. We’re super excited. We set up team meetings, and we try to get people engaged, and they just don’t show up. They want their freedom, and so they’re a little bit passive aggressive about it. “Oh. Yeah, yeah. Sure. I’ll come to prospecting,” and then all of a sudden you don’t see them, and then they had something that came up, and they were busy. Right? This can happen a lot when I have agents that get into coaching, and we start to look at their team structure and realize, “Gosh. We’ve got a lot of leaky buckets here.” We’ve got things that could be tightened up, and shortened up, and when we try to tighten them up, or shorten them up, then the buyer’s agents will get mad and quit, because they don’t want to be micromanaged, which isn’t really what we’re doing. We’re trying to run things like a business, but that can happen.

In a perfect world, ideally, we would set it up right in the beginning. We’d have our core values, and we’d have our expectations pretty clear, and we would be careful on our splits so that the time that we have to give to nurture that buyer’s agent we’re compensating for. Alright, but a lot of that is water under the bridge for us, and if that is your situation, and now you’re just struggling with some potential buyer’s agents, or agents that are working underneath your umbrella that aren’t motivated. They aren’t making sales. They aren’t showing up. Let’s talk about some strategies on how you can help them to be successful.

The first things is, you’re going to want to get together with that agent, and have a private talk, one to one, where you can ask, “How are things going for you? You seem like you’re busy and distracted a little bit from the business. Is real estate still your passion? Is it still something that you want to do?” They might say, “I don’t know, I’m just not that motivated,” or “It’s too hard,” or “I don’t have any clients,” or whatever.

We’ve got to dig a little deeper. We need to find out, “What was the original reason that you got involved in the business,” and then we need to find out when we hear what that original reason is, is that reason still valid? Are they still interested in saving money for retirement, or maybe they need to earn a living. That’s another good question. “Do you need to make money,” and if they don’t need to make money, then we’ve got to find out what does motivate them, and a lot of times we can uncover that a little bit with a disc test. If you haven’t done the disc test yet, yourself or your team, I think that’s really important for you to look at the disc test.

You can get a free version of that through Tony Robbins. You can Google Tony Robbins disc, or you can go to my website after the podcast, and I’ll have a list of resources. You can go to thefocusradio.com/89. Thefocusradio.com/89. This is episode 89, and you’ll be able to take a look at my show notes, and you can see some resources there that can help you, and I’ll put a link for Tony Robbins disc test there, but that is super helpful, because if you see that there are certainly personality type like a D, you generally aren’t going to have a problem, because they’re going be out there digging up business, but an I, they’re want to do this business, because they want to have fun right? That’s their main motivator is having fun, and if it’s not fun, then they’re off to the next fun thing.

Okay, or if it’s an S, they’re motivation is to serve. They really want to do the right thing, and do a good job for people, but unfortunately, they get a little mired in being afraid, because they don’t want to bother people, but maybe if they need to make money, then we can help them to see how they can serve others, or if they’re a C, then what happens with C’s is they’re analytical, and they are always kind of getting ready to get ready, so they don’t necessarily get off the dime. They’re always getting all their ducks in a row, because they want things to be perfect, and so in that case we’re going need to help them see the process that we’re going to follow, and you’ll probably have to step in and help them through it, show how the process works, so that they don’t think or feel they are making a mistake or do things the wrong way.

Take the DISC test. You can find out what your team personality styles are. You’re going to see that people are a combination of styles, but you’re going to be able to talk with them about it. Ask them, “How do you feel? Do you feel the test was accurate? What do you think your motivation is? What is it that drives you,” and it is very insightful, and it’s a great team meeting to share that with each other, and really helps everybody on the team to appreciate each other’s strengths which is the key here, but anyway, if you’re meeting with your person, you need to uncover what’s their motivation?

Number one. Do they need to make money, and if they don’t then why are they doing it? Is it self-fulfillment? Is it saving for retirement? Is it they just want to have some extra money to go on some trips? What is the motivation, and you want to see if it’s still there. Then we want to identify if their motivation let’s say, is that they need to earn a certain amount of money per month, then we need to break it down. We have to figure out how much they need to make in order to meet those goals, and if their motivation is to go on a trip to Disney world, well then how much money do you need to do that? Okay, well let’s set up a date that you’d like to go, so okay, next March. A year from now.

In order to make that happen, what do we have to do? “Well I need to sell 5 houses,” so they have enough money, and have a little money in savings, or to make it worthwhile, and then you help them to get clear on their vision, because when you do that, that’s going to got them more excited, and motivated and reengaged. Then, what you’ll want to do once you get them clear on their vision, is to try to, I would say get them to recommit to the team, and to the team meetings, and to just being apart and taking advantage of the things that you have to offer, and the way I would do this is with small baby steps. You’ll want to help them to set small, manageable goals.

If you’ve got someone who is a little overwhelmed, like my client today who’s got a gal who has three babies, and a new relationship, then the manageable steps that we might want to take with her is one small thing. What would be the thing that would make the biggest impact, and in my opinion, most people where they’re not having enough impact is getting the list of the people that already know, like, and trust them together. They’re SOI. They’re Sphere of Influence, and they’re past clients. If they don’t have any past clients, then we need look at people that they care about, and people that care about them. Whether it’s an activity or a hobby, or past life that they’ve had, and they need to start gathering that list together, and then to consistently add to that list.

What you’ll want do is help them. Maybe their first goal is to reengage, is to get a list of say, 25 people together by the next week, and we’ll talk about how we’re going use that list. You get them excited. You do a little bit of coaching with them to find out what is it that’s motivating them, and then you give them one small action to take. If they’ve recommitted to the business, and then the other thing we want to do is make sure that they’re showing up to the team meetings, so that is something that I’m will talk about on a future podcast on how to have a successful team meeting, but what I would like you to do is to make sure that you at least have one team meeting weekly, that you set the time and date of the week that you have it, and it’s consistent, and you show up, and you have those team meetings.

That really helps to get a cohesive team going. I hope that was a little bit of food for thought for you. If you’ve got somebody who’s not engaged, then the first things is try to get with them one on one, and find out what’s happening. Now, I know a lot of us are afraid to do that, because we’re afraid they’re might quit, or afraid they’re might leave, but the reality is if you’ve got someone on your team like that, the rest of the team is seeing it, and it is going to be bad, because the other people on the team will feel resentful. They’re going to feel like, “Well, she doesn’t have to show up to the team meetings. Why do I have to,” and it’s just a bad apple, and you don’t want it.

If they want to quit, if they’re not committed, if they’re not engaged, then maybe it would be the time to part on good terms, and like I mentioned to this gal today, if they’re not engaged, and they don’t want to sell, and they don’t need money, and they’re not motivated, and it’s just not a good time in their life, then instead, what you could offer is how about if you become a referral partner for now, and if you come across any business, I’ll take care of it for you, and you pay them a pretty hefty referral fee. 35%, and that way they don’t have to do any work, and except for to get you the leads, and then you can work the leads, or somebody else on your team can work the leads.

That would be my first advice to you today, and if you’re struggling with that, that would be my goal this week, is for you to nip that in the bud. Get it figured out. Get with that person, and find out where they’re at, and then do a little coaching with them. Try to get them reengaged. If they can’t be reengaged, offer them to be a referral partner until they’re ready to come back in the business. We all go through seasons, right? If sometimes you have little kids, it’s not the right timing, but two years from now, they’re in school, things might be a little bit different.

Alright, thanks for joining me today, and again, if you want the show notes go to thefocusradio.com/89 to get some of the links that I talked about here today. Have a wonderful day. We’ll see you next time.