A short YouTube conversation (Real Estate Team OS, May 19, 2025) about hiring strategy for real-estate teams. The speaker emphasizes hiring based on timing/capacity (hire before staff reach 100–120% overloaded) and outlines a typical hire sequence: admin support → buyer's agents → listing agent → transaction/listing/marketing coordination. Also discusses cross-training and scaling ratios (multiple agents per staffer once systems exist).
Chapters
But mistakes that I've made in growth from a staff standpoint, higher when they're at 80%, not when they're at 120%. Because training takes forever and it is such an integral part and process of growing and scaling. You have to have people that are cross trained, cross cohesion, and you want to make sure they're trained properly. And so when a transaction coordinator, as an example, is at 80% capacity, it's time to hire your next one and then shadow and train so that when they're at 100% capacity, they can just pass the torch. And it's not waiting till they're at 120% capacity. They're already overloaded, they're overworked, they're stressed. And now you're going to throw in someone else to train. That's where things go haywire. And I've done that over and over and over again, and it's taken me a long time to learn that lesson.
So that's a really smart go at when. Now, here's Matt's recommendation on who. Who is the right first hire?
The normal trajectory that I have seen is you hire admin support, then you hire buyer's agents, and you become the listing agent. And then until you replace yourself and you continue to grow that way, and then you have transaction coordination, listing coordination, maybe some marketing support. But then the compound effect comes into play. And as you grow, maybe you can have three or four to one, meaning three or four agents to one staff. Because once you have your processes and systems in place for transaction coordination, as an example, that transaction coordinator can work with more agents because of the complexities of scale.
So the right first hire is an admin. But what exactly that role entails depends on you. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your preferences, your daily tasks.
