3 Reasons You Will FAIL As A Real Estate Team Leader - AND What YOU Can Do About It!

Hey, Business Freedom podcast listeners. Today's episode is all about the three reasons why you will fail as a team leader. I know that sounds a little morbid and what you can do about it. So I have been at this game, I guess, as a team leader, you know, I guess that starts when you bring one other person into your world. So I got into real estate in 2007 and February 2008. So less than a year into the business, I sought executive assistance and I hired a licensed administrator. And then I guess it was a year and a half after that. I brought on my first buyer's agent, and then the team sort of grew from there. 58 sides, 118 sides, 178, 248, 310, 400 plus or so. And I was getting out of production, building systems, all of that. I have failed every way you possibly could fail as a team leader. So I don't come to this podcast episode in any kind of preaching, I'm better than you, holier than thou kind of way. It is from a heart of wanting to serve you, so you don't need to make the same mistakes that I have made. So, three reasons you will fail and what to do about it. Number one is lack of consistency. So the real estate business is actually quite simple. You know, I have a graphic that I go through in our membership with our members about the business we're playing. And really it's. We're generating leads, we're, you know, having conversations. We are, you know, so generating leads, setting appointments, meeting those appointments, signing those. Those appointments, those consultations to clients, and then we're, you know, getting them closed. And then there are clients for a client for life. So it's like a pipeline that we're managing all the time. And there's a cadence around all of that, you know, that you need to. You need to sort of honor the consistency that you bring to the business in that cadence. And the things that you track in the business and the way you dumb the business down just as a business, and also for the people that are in your business, knowing that. That there's only seven things really we need to track, like how many leads are we generating, how many appointments are we setting, how many are we meeting, how many are signing, how many are, you know, going from client status to pending to close, to giving us referrals or even referrals during the process there. And so it's this constant thinking that there's something different or better usually on the front end of that pipeline that I just laid out like this is magic lead source or if I just pay this company a referral fee, it'll be great. Like I'll pay 35% and then the model won't work. If you pay 35% for marketing, which is what you're doing when you're paying any referral fees to anybody, it's just a really challenging model. So this lack of consistency of the business and then you in the business. And I see a lot of team leaders bring like a. A grand sort of gesture to the business, like we're going to do this challenge or I'm going to double down this quarter and I'm going to do this thing or you know, versus just like the monotony of coming in every day and just getting everyone to stand shoulder to shoulder and commit to new business development, you know. And we do three hours a day, 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off. And that's our cadence every day, Monday through Friday. So it's that lack of consistency doing the activities that you know you need to do to be successful, successful, that's number one. And then the second one is lack of accountability. And so it's this queasiness that we get. I say we because I've been there. This queasiness that we get. Like holding people accountable. We think that accountability is something you do to someone versus really accountability, when you boil it down, the person needs to be accepting of the accountability. So there's some expectation setting that I think we need to do a better job of as team leaders. And people need accountability. So accountability is something, it's a value proposition for being on your team. It's like, hey, if you have a pattern of success and you're willing to trust me as the team leader to train you up properly, give you the proper cadence and culture and structure and teach you right and support you and hold you accountable, you will achieve what you're looking to achieve. I provide the system to help you achieve your goals. And there must be accountability along that. The reason why most agents, a traditional real estate agent sells six to eight homes is that there's. There's not a cadence or culture. There's no tools and resources and there's no accountability. And so we have to stop viewing accountability as something, an icky thing that we do to somebody and start viewing it as this amazing gift we're providing for someone. It is a benefit of someone joining your team and you also. The other side of that is that you also need to be held accountable. A lot of times team leaders, they dismiss themselves from accountability. I'm the boss. You're going to do the thing. And I don't need to be accountable to anyone. And you know, you still may be in a season in your business, even if you have others around you, you still may be in a season where you need to be in there. I said lack of consistency. But you still need to be in there as a producer and as someone who's in there every morning. You know, lead generating, you can't come in late if you, if you're telling your agents to come in early, you can't take appointments in the morning. If you're telling your agents to honor their morning time, block their morning protected time of new business development. You have to be willing to hold yourself accountable. And when you bring people into your life, you, you have to feel that pressure, that weight of taking on their life and their spouse and their children. And when you really start to view it that way, like, hey, I'm going to hold you accountable because your spouse is depending on me doing this. Your kids are depending on me holding you accountable to be successful, to do the thing that we agreed to do together. So that's number two, lack of accountability. Number three is lack of authenticity. And I've done this, I've been there, where you feel like you need to have it all together. As a team leader, you feel like you need to have all the answers to everything. As a team leader, you feel like if they only knew my inexperience leading a team meeting or managing someone or helping someone set goals, or if they only knew the fraud that is in front of them, they would obviously run from me. They wouldn't want to be in my world. And so the opposite of that is really leaning into the fact that for most of us, and this is for me, in both of my businesses, this is for me, I tell my team, like, when I mess up, I go to my team and say, hey, I dropped the ball on that. I saw it this way. This is why I made that decision. This is why I did the thing I did. And then I say, I'm always going to be looking to all of you for grace. I am going to consistently do my best. I'm going to consistently show up and add value in the ways that I think I'm most valuable to this business. And I'm going to consistently fail. I'm going to consistently mess up. I'm going to consistently do things that, that you sort of question or wonder what's the motive? And we're going to consistently have to have conversations about what those things are so that I can come to all of you and just be honest with you about, hey, I messed that thing up. And I'll say this, and I've said it before, like how many times do you think I have built a real estate coaching business coaching company? How many times do you think I've run a 2 1/2 million dollar real estate business coaching company? 0. 0. In 2013, I just decided that nobody was doing a certain segment. I'm like, hey, I'm going to do that. And then here we are six plus years later and it's the first time I've ever been at this point in this business and I'm learning to let go and I'm learning to truly delegate outcomes versus tasks and I'm learning how to be more loving of people and more accepting of things being done a different way. And I've messed up this week on all of those things I just mentioned. So it's this. Your team needs to see that authenticity and maybe it's better said lack of vulnerability, you know, maybe that. I'll rephrase it here. Lack of vulnerability with the authenticity. People see the vulnerability and I think people are attracted to it. So the more you can lead with your failures and just open, honest conversations with your team either in a group setting or in just one on one interactions and you know, you're doing the team leader thing so you can enrich other people's lives so you can impact more families as clients. But also you're bringing these people into your world so they can achieve at a higher level with you than without you. And you're going to draw in people that want to perform at a higher level versus just do like marginal work. You know, in my market there are lots of opportunities. We were just talking about this, so I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. There are lots of opportunities to make a healthy six figure income in a corporate setting where you're working 40 hour work weeks and there's nobody's going to be pushing you hard, you'll lose your mind being bored. There's just lots of opportunity where you could do that. There's no upward momentum in that. You know, you're probably not the one pushing through different levels in the corporate ladder. And you can still, you know, there's a guy in my men's group who I think he makes an amazing living. He's certain, he's like expert at a certain thing. I don't think he's putting in 50 hours a week and I Think he might be making a six figure income, you know, with not a lot of pressure from what he's doing. So it's just interesting to sort of see what the market you compete in relative to the talent you're trying to bring into your world. And so the point of me saying that is all of these three reasons that you will fail, lack of consistency, lack of accountability, and lack of vulnerability or authenticity. You're willing to fail in those and get better and sort of look at the progress there because you want to bring people into your world that you can really help develop into something more. And by doing that, you're just, you have the amazing opportunity to do something that others aren't doing. And you're building a business based on, yeah, you need systems and tools, but you also need to provide this leadership, this management accountability, and hopefully this served you. I don't care where you are in your journey, if you just hired your first assistant or you're bringing on your 20th agent, you know, being a real estate team leader and running a team the right way with high accountability, not only with your people, but also on your expenses, which includes tracking and, you know, how you onboard new agents and how you have that cadence and how you operate, all that. I think my next podcast, so make sure you tune in, is going to be four strategies to lead your team well during tough times. And that'll sort of be a follow on to this podcast. You know, if you're at the point in your business journey where you have challenges and you are inviting people into your world because your business has gotten out of control, that you don't have a clear plan, you know, picture for three years, you don't have a clear one year plan. You don't know what you're doing quarter to quarter. You certainly haven't landed into a weekly or daily cadence. You've got to take the next step with us. And that is a very simple step to have a conversation. It's as simple as that. It's called a business growth strategy session. Just go to realestatebschool.com and there's a bright orange banner across the top. You can't miss it. And that's your next step. While you're on the website, you can check out our case studies, you can listen to our podcast episodes. I think we're at 140 as of the recording that I'm doing right now. But take action. Schedule a business growth strategy session. There's a simple application that we asked you to put together. We cater to a real specific niche. It's someone that's already achieved traditional success in our industry. They've got some administrative support, probably a buyer agent or two. All the way up to we just onboarded a team that'll do four and a half million that needs systems work and they're not tracking well. And the team owner is heavy in production, so anywhere from 500,000 GCI to 5 million GCI. There's a spectrum of challenges that we help solve. So if that's you and you're struggling, just go to realestatebschool.com and book in for a strategy session. We'll see you there. Bye. Bye.