Lifting the Performance of a Commercial Real Estate Team

In a commercial real estate team, you cannot have negativity in any way or form.  Individual agents performing poorly can easily influence the activities of others simply through sharing their negativity in the office and during sales meetings.

If this is a problem for you, the particular team member will need to be personally managed and redirected to solve their listings slump or commission problem.  If the problem cannot be solved quickly, the person should be removed from the team.

It is a fact that most under-performing agents in any property market will have created the problem for themselves through lack of planning, a lack of action and poor focus.  Training and skill development can help redirect those agents back to the important tasks and industry standards to build the business.  That being said, any agent or broker with a negative attitude needs to be willing to learn and improve under the pressures of poor performance.  That is where the leadership skills of the sales manager or team leader become very relevant.

Here are some good ways to control and remove negativity within the real estate agency team:

1. Whilst the property market will have variations of enquiry and seasonal change, there will be listings to attract, properties to market, and deals to negotiate.  The attitude of the team and the actions of individual people within the team should be encouraged and promoted to a high level.  You can do that through regular role playing, team meetings, and industry updates.  Every sales meeting should be a positive event encouraging feedback from every team members and discussing market opportunity; high performing team members can be encouraged to share their experiences with others.  The story of success goes a long way towards building ideas and momentum across the team.
2. Agents and brokers that are struggling with any part of their business may need to work with high performing agents for a period of time to experience and see the successful ways of working in the industry.  Whilst every top agent or broker will do things differently, it is the advantage of a personal system that takes them forward; their system takes them into the opportunities of the property market in sales, leasing, and property management.
3. Every broker or agent should have a specific business plan relating to personal performance, territory management, prospecting, and new business focus.  The plan should set the momentum for the financial year and be tracked on a monthly basis.  It is unfortunately common to see agents create their plan for the year and then forget about the document and its application from that point onwards.  Top performing agents structure a plan based on their skills, the property market, the location, and the identified opportunities of the property segment.  In the case of top agents, that plan will be formulated prior to the beginning of the financial year and will be pursued vigorously each week and each month through the year.  Adjustments will be made by the agent when necessary to ensure that growth of listings and commissions occur efficiently and directly in any property market.
4. On a weekly basis, every agent and broker should be tracking their results when it comes to essential activities such as cold call prospecting, meetings, listings, negotiations, and commissions.  The best way for them to track the results will be through a chart or graphing process.  That information can then be shared with the team leader, and on that basis by compared across the team.  The team leader can then see areas of poor performance in agents that are struggling with certain segments of property activity.  In identifying problems early, it is easy for the team leader to provide the necessary guidance and professional training.  For

So the message here is that any negativity can be removed from a commercial real estate brokerage team through direct action and close monitoring.  The skills of the team leader will have a lot to do with the results achieved.