How to Recognize and Solve “People Issues” on Your Team

Welcome back to another edition of the Business Freedom Podcast. This is Lars Hedinborg, founder of Real Estate B School and co founder of High Performance Real Estate Advisors, Charlotte, North Carolina. Today we're going to talk about how we all have issues. We all have issues. This is comforting. And I feel like I probably have been through the most issues with respect to people of any real estate team leader in all the land. I'm sure that's not true and, and it feels that way. Probably over a hundred, I'd say probably over 100 folks have come in and out of my world over the last 12 years in business. And that number doesn't make me proud. We've had very long term team members as well. And when I look back over the dozen or so years I've been in business for myself, I really, the area of people, and I really been chatting a lot about it on this podcast is the area of people that I think I have learned the most and that has humbled me the most. And it's really the coolest part of business is that like we are as team leaders, as team owners, as business builders, as entrepreneurs, we have this vision and we can't fulfill it ourselves. And so the only way to fulfill it is to build systems and have people run those systems. And people, it's like the slipperiest, like sucker that you'll ever have to deal with. And it's the beautiful thing is that it's the equalizer in business is that, you know, the way I'm choosing to build my real estate business is one that provides the best experience to buyers and sellers in the entire industry. Now that's an aspirational statement and we're committed to building this thing out in such a way where we are the best provider of residential real estate services in our market and in the whole country. And I mean that at a corporate level, like the corporation, the company has designed its experience to serve buyers and sellers in a way that nobody can match. And if you look at general brokerage, that's just not the case. Doesn't happen. It's not. You know, in our Keller Williams office, there's 600 agents doing business. 600 completely different ways. Some are qualified, some are not qualified, some, you know, I think it should be legal that they're working with buyers and sellers. They're just not qualified. And then you've got sort of traditional teams where it's really honestly just a loose collection of agents. There's probably the team leader buys leads and maybe they have a weekly team Meeting and what else? Maybe they'll meet with them once a, once a month to see how they're doing. And that's the extent of what they call a team. And the reason I pick on, pick on that is that I don't think it's sustainable. And I don't think either a brokerage or a traditional real estate team, they're not willing to deal with their people issues. And that's what I want to chat about today. There's four people issues and I'm not going to go into core values. But core values are everything in the business. And all I want to say about core values, it's. It's your stake in the ground, it's the line you draw on the sand that I'm only going to surround myself with people like this. So for real estate B school, I'm going to read you quickly our core values. Number one, we are humble servants. Number two, we are team players. Number three, we have a growth mindset. Number four, we are authentic and real. And number five, we are mission driven. So we really do believe that there's something bigger than us being in this industry and it's really having that faith to take a step out and do this work. We're willing to have the authentic, the tough conversations. Obviously we're growth oriented because we're business coaches, team players, we're a virtual team. So it's important that we have to pitch in and help out. And they were humble servants internally and also externally. So that's the first part. If we find somebody that matches these core core values, that means we have the right person. And then there's the seat we put them in and to measure if they're fit for the seat. It's something that we call get it, want it capacity. So gwc. And this is something I learned from Geno Wickman. I was in a coaching program with Geno Wickman. He's the author of the book called Traction and his company is EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System. Awesome book if you, if you get to read it. It's meant for bigger businesses. So 2 million plus in revenue. Still really good though. So are each of your people in the right seat? So do they get it? Meaning do all of their neurons connect in their brain to make them be perfectly suited for the job? Do they want it? Does he or she genuinely want to do the job? And then do they have the capacity, mental, physical, spiritual, time, knowledge and emotional capacity to do the job? So those all have to be yeses and they have to fit Your core values. That is a really tall order to find someone that fits all those core values that can do the job. They want to do it and they have the capacity to do it. So that is the standard by which we measure. If somebody is a fit in a general brokerage, you simply don't care if you have a real estate license, they're going to sign you up. In a traditional team, it's like one step up, but there you can have people that are really difficult to be around. You can have prima donnas, you can have, you know, ego maniacs on your team. And most traditional teams don't matter because they're not a real sort of high performance environment like a real, we talked about a high performance organization, HPL before where core values are the entire game and most traditional teams don't, don't operate that way. So right person, right seat. So let's say you have someone that fits the core values and you put them in the right seat. How could that possibly be a people issue? Because these people are your star players. And generally when you have people in your world that aren't a good fit like these people are, you tend to spend your time with people besides your star players. And so they can become an issue because you don't give them time and attention and the accountability that they need and desire. So right fit people need to be pushed. They thrive on that accountability. And so issue number two is the right person in the wrong seat. Let's say you find someone who's a core values fit but they're not producing in their role and you don't have a different role for them. This is just simply coaching them to realize that they're not a good fit for the position. Being really clear in expectations, having quarterly conversations and we follow a three strike rule and then they just simply sort of opt out of the organization. That's pretty simple. One wrong person, right seat. So this is someone, it's typically a me first versus a we first person, puts their interests ahead of the core values. And the issue with keeping someone on your team that is not a core values fit, but they can do the position is that they'll, they'll eventually hold you hostage. But they're productive jerks and they usually are arrogant, big egos and painful to be around. So you can't, even though the production may seem tempting to keep them on, you cannot keep them on. And issue number four is wrong person, wrong seat. Pretty obvious. You can usually discover these folks in the first part, 30, 60, 90 of their position and as long as you stay close enough to a person like this, you'll weed them out within a few weeks of them starting. And you definitely don't want to ignore this issue. Yeah, you're better off to not have a person in that seat than to have a wrong person that's filling a wrong seat. And here's the thing about these people issues and the difference between building a team that is going to have a shot at existing in our industry in the future. You have, you have to be able to deal with these issues. Set clear standards around core values and clear standards around fit for position and the expectations of different positions and keep your circles, you know, that's a term, you know, your communication circles tight enough with your people so that you know what's going on in the business and you can't abdicate this role as a boss. Bad things happen when you fail to address people issues personally and quickly. And the worst of which is you'll lose respect from your other team members by letting an obvious people issue linger and exist on your team. So don't do it. You know, this is the area that we all need to get better at. We all need to master, you know, the art. I guess you've really, I guess you can master an art, but we need to really focus on getting better at handling people issues in our business because we always will forever have them if we choose to be in business. And luckily for me, I love business. I love the messy parts. I love when we have great months. I love when we have crappy months. I like when we have no people issues. I like when we have people issues because I know we're doing the right thing when we come across somebody that is testing the standards that we've set for ourselves when it comes to the people on our team. So if you're at the point where you have started a small team and you don't know what the heck you're doing and you wish you would have had, you wish you could have sort of have had some help setting it up from the beginning, or maybe you had the wrong splits or you know it's not profitable, or you don't know how to exit production, or you can't exit production because you set it up the wrong way. Whatever the issue is, you know, we've coached, you know, anywhere from 300,000 GCI to a million GCI. That's sort of our graduate program. Then a million GCI to, you know, upwards of 6 million GCI is our boardroom level program. So either way if you need help, get on the phone with us. Go to realestatebschool.com the B is for business. We're business coaches. It's a niche in our industry that is sorely underserved. So go to realssatebschool.com There are no gimmicks. There is absolutely no hype. It's a conversation about your business to see if you're a fit for the services we provide. So go to realestatebschool. Com. I will see you there. And I always say, and I mean it, I have a lot of love and respect for you doing this work. I'll talk to you soon.