Recruit - Retain - Grow your Real Estate Brokerage

Recruit - Retain - Grow your Brokerage Transcript

Dan Stewart (00:00): Thank you for being here, everyone. It is now 2:02. From where I sit, that means it's been long enough before we actually start the session.
Dan Stewart (00:20): Thank you for being here. I do appreciate you. I want you to know that throughout the session, my eyes are going to be peeled on the chat. If you have questions, if you have comments, I want to see them. I definitely do. There will be various points during this session where I asked for your feedback and I'll expect you to put it here in the chat. That said, it is time to get started. I'm going to share my screen here with you and we are going to dig right in. You should see that pop up. I do have the chat box up in front of me so I will keep that peeled.
Dan Stewart (00:59): Let's talk about what we're going to talk about. Today is all about recruitment, retention and growth. Those are the three topics we're going to dig in and we're going to go deep with these. Now, first off, I think we need to cover what we're going to cover and that would be helping you understand what recruitment really is. Sadly, so many people when they set out to recruit, they misunderstand the perspective they need to take for their messages to really work. We're going to clear that up.
Dan Stewart (01:28): We're also going to talk about the types of recruiters there are. I mean, imagine that, there's actually different types and it makes a big difference for you to see where you fit because what works for one type of recruiter will not work for the other. Today, you'll learn the difference. You will learn strategies you can deploy as soon as today. There are things I will share with you that will work just as soon as you apply them. We're also going to point out some of these pitfalls that you've got to avoid really. Just don't do some of these things that don't work.
Dan Stewart (02:03): Now, if we're just getting to know each other, let me introduce myself. My name is Dan. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I have built and sold, I've built and failed and have built and held. Of the three, I certainly prefer the path I'm on, build and succeed.
Dan Stewart (02:21): Happy Grasshopper is my company and we are celebrating right now because yesterday was our 10th anniversary. Yay! We're 10 years old. It's like, oh my God, I can't even believe 10 years have gone by. I feel really, really privileged to be a servant of the real estate community. I want to thank each of you. I mean, there's so many names here that I know and so many people that I owe thanks to because without your support, we just wouldn't be here after all these years. Let's go ahead and dig in with your stuff because that's what we're here to really work on.
Dan Stewart (03:02): In the chat, right now, I would like you to go ahead and enter your recruitment goals. How many people by what time? Ideally, how many you've got? How many you want? When you want them by? That would be great. I'll look for your answers. Come in here in the chat.
Dan Stewart (03:24): All right, first person up is Nathan, "10 more agents by end of 21, totaling 21 agents," very realistic goal. Shelby, "Three new people within six months," very realistic goal. Ken, "Add four agents by the end of the year," piece of cake, man. We can absolutely do that. No worries. Let's see. Mary, "If by end of 2021 has 33 currently," awesome Mary. Renee is here. Hi, Renee, "10 agents by the end of the year," love that, very cool. Okay, now they're starting to go by too fast for me to keep up. I love that. "Four more agents by the end of the year, 10 agents by the end of the year, at 100 agents to our 24 offices in the Chicago area." That's fantastic, Nathan. Love those big goals.
Dan Stewart (04:17): Ricky Tucker he says he's got 24 personal sponsors and 320 in his organization. He wants to add 10 more and get to 500. Like there is so, so much that's here, so much that's here guys and the reason we're spending this time to go over goals is because unless we have a clear objective that we're working toward, it's almost impossible to get there. It would be like getting in an airplane saying, "I want to have an island vacation," and just hoping that you happen to land somewhere near an island. We must, must, must have a clear objective if we have any hope of achieving it knowing that objective is very, very important.
Dan Stewart (05:00): I'm glad that you're writing this in the notes here or in the chat section. Hopefully you also have something to take notes with. I use my reMarkable. Write this down. Write what your goal is, put a date on it, and we're going to lay out a path to get you there.
Dan Stewart (05:16): Now, I know that many of you, in fact, I'm getting a comment here right now, the comment says, "I've tried and failed numerous times to recruit agents and they were disasters, apart from one agent who approached me and stayed for several years." This is a pretty good segue to the next slide here. I want you to tell me your struggles. What have you tried with recruitment that did not work? What are you doing now that just isn't producing the results that you're hoping for?
Dan Stewart (05:51): Let's go ahead and get those comments in the chat. What are you struggling with? Do you have somebody sitting on the other side of the world, making cold calls to agents in your market hoping that's what's bringing them in? Are you building a staff of internal recruiters? You've got an action plan for them and you're just not seeing it really come through and produce the results you want? Here, we've got some of these answers coming in.
Dan Stewart (06:22): Ken says, "Too many eggs in one basket." Yeah, that's a struggle. I mean, for those of you who are in production, managing your own real estate career and then recruiting on the outside of it, that can be a real challenge. Bob, I think this is a really great thing. I'm going to highlight this. He says, "Wondering where to begin?" Well, I'll tell you where you begin, right? Step one is to have a goal. We'll take the other steps here in a moment. Lynn mentions cold calling. That is a struggle, right? It's really not a ton of fun to call a bunch of people to hope that they'll be interested in changing their life and following you. That's a big ask on a cold call. It's a big, big ask.
Dan Stewart (07:09): Mary, she says she has the big dogs always doing heavy recruiting. Now, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by that, but I'm going to project her a little bit. Many of you in your market, there's a population of agents to recruit from. There's a finite cap. There are only so many agents available in the marketplace. There are some organizations that are hitting the recruiting drum so hard, that it's drowning everything else in the marketplace. That can be a challenge. Renee, "Too much competition from online broker portals." Yeah, I mean, it's really an interesting thing to know what these struggles are. I really appreciate your transparency and your honesty and your willingness to share these things.
Dan Stewart (08:04): My goal today is to deliver for you the education you need in order to be able to get you past all of these questions and pain points that you have. If that is cool with you, if you're ready to do that, go ahead and give me a yes in the chat. I want to see that yes. I want to take one more sip and then we're going to dig right in. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I love seeing all these yeses show up here. Thank you for entering these yeses, because we're going to get it done.
Dan Stewart (08:35): Now, we've got to start by defining recruitment. I think many of you kind of don't even understand what recruitment actually is. It is a very deliberate thing. It is the very thing that is missing for many of you right now that's causing a struggle. It's this misunderstanding of what it actually is. Okay.
Dan Stewart (09:00): Recruitment is the process of exit and arrival. Think about that. Right now, in your marketplace, there are plenty of agents who could be with you and yet they're choosing to be somewhere else, right? Well, the reason, the reason they're somewhere else right now is because they haven't received a signal that it's time to make a change, right.
Dan Stewart (09:29): There's a couple examples here I'd like to use. One is just my personal life. I drive a 2015 Subaru, true story. I love my car. I could drive a fancier car if I chose to, but I just don't really see the need, okay? Now, imagine I get a call from my buddy Jolenta, whom I haven't seen in years, and she's coming to Tampa and asked if I can pick her up at the airport. That's me, receiving a signal from the universe that it's time to go car shopping, right?
Dan Stewart (10:01): This morning, I wake up. I'm not even thinking about replacing my car. I'm not susceptible to any advertising for cars. I have zero interest in that, until I receive that signal that tells me, "It's time for change," right? Think about that from the agent's perspective. Maybe they're a great agent and they're super embedded where they are and things have been good for a long time. They are not susceptible no matter how great your recruitment message is, they're not going to hear it. They haven't received the signal yet that it's time for change.
Dan Stewart (10:38): The most effective recruitment campaigns do two things: They deliver that signal. They let that reader, that recipient of your messaging receive the message that it's time to consider change. Then, the second thing they do is they gather together these people who've already received the signal.
Dan Stewart (11:00): Now, this is like the fork in the woods moment, right? There's a choice that everybody who pursues recruiting has to make at some point and that choice is will I settle for the agent I can recruit or will I stay disciplined and only add the agents I should recruit? If you're just looking for red meat to feed in the machine to churn them out, you're going to continually experience pain in your career and the growth of your organization.
Dan Stewart (11:35): Take it from me, serial entrepreneur, I've hired hundreds and hundreds of people in my career. It's time for you to plant your flag and to say, "This is my flag. This is what I'm about. I'm willing to defend that." Own that discipline. Make sure that you do not add people to your organization... I love it. Ken, this is a great comment, "If it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no." I love that attitude. You just said it much more eloquently than I can. That's fantastic.
Dan Stewart (12:08): Now, the question is, well, how do we do this? What are the messages that work? How do we figure out what we should say? How do we figure out where we plant our flag? It's super helpful that in the world of storytelling, there's a template for this that we've been exposed to throughout our lives. It's called the hero's journey, right? Let's talk about the hero's journey. My slide jumped there.
Dan Stewart (12:34): You guys recognize the font. You saw our buddy, Luke Skywalker here on the next slide. I'd like you to consider that in every piece of fiction you've ever consumed, like literally every single piece of fiction you've consumed, there's a hero who wants some new wonderful life or experience and they can't get it until they have a meeting with the mentor, right? They need to meet with their mentor before they get access to this new wonderful life.
Dan Stewart (13:07): In Star Wars, we have Luke. He's on Tatooine. He's farming moisture. He's miserable. He does not want that life that he has. He imagines himself traveling among the stars, a pilot, a life of adventure. Until he meets Obi-Wan, he doesn't have access to that, right?
Dan Stewart (13:29): In the process of recruitment, we need to understand that you are the guide. You are the guide on this journey that your potential recruit is trying to make. You're not the hero of the story. You are the mentor of the story. Now, it's not just Star Wars.
Dan Stewart (13:48): In Harry Potter, his life is miserable, right? Harry's living under the stairs of the Dursley's. Hagrid shows up and tells him he's a wizard. He becomes his mentor. He's the gate to this new world, right? Again, doesn't matter the piece of fiction, that template is in there and there's a lot that we can leverage because it's so widely used.
Dan Stewart (14:15): I'm going to ask you to think about the type of recruiter that you actually are. Really, there's two categories here. We have, wow, these slides are just going nuts. I do not understand why. Two types of recruiter, we have Obi-Wan, who recruits and departs, right? If you're a corporate recruiter at a national brand, you're an Obi-Wan style recruiter. If you're recruiting to a downline, you may be an Obi-Wan style recruiter. If you're a team leader or if you're the managing broker at an independent brokerage, you're most certainly a Luke.
Dan Stewart (14:58): There's not a right or wrong here. There's just a recognition of the type of recruiter that you happen to be. I'd like you to go ahead and enter in the chat for me which type of recruiter you see yourself. Are you an Obi-Wan or a Luke? Go ahead and tell me in the chat. Jolenta's a Luke. I knew you would be, knew you would be. Bob's a Luke. Sam's a Luke. Yeah. All right. I need you guys to tell me because it's going to make a difference in the strategies that I show you here in a bit.
Dan Stewart (15:30): So far, we're all Luke's. This is awesome. Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke, this is great. James and Linda and Amy and Lynn, and Dismus. Hi, Dismus. Glad to see you here. Donald's Luke. I don't see anyone who's saying they're an Obi-Wan. Yeah. Oh, here we go, Ricky says he's a little of both. Yup, that's okay. That's all right. Mostly Luke's. We'll go ahead and assume that we're a Luke.
Dan Stewart (15:58): If we're going to be a Luke recruiter, we need to really understand the importance of building a relationship with people and only letting the right people join your organization. If you're an Obi-Wan, you're not likely to continue that day-to-day connection that you would if you were Luke style recruiter, so there can be some more flexibility there.
Dan Stewart (16:23): For Luke style recruiters, you definitely want to be very, very clear about those cultural touchstones that are important for you, the things you will defend, the binary choice. You get to join, because we share these things. You do not get to join because we don't. Those are important. Garrett, Renee, I see your answers here. That's totally fine. They're both saying they think they're Obi's and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with being an Obi. It's just important to understand the difference because the types of content you need is really different. Let's take a peek here about the process of really adding these [inaudible 00:17:05]. I have no clue what's going on with the deck. I click next and it just clicks through several slides on me, bizarre.
Dan Stewart (17:14): The first thing we've got to figure out is where you have to be in order to meet these people. That's called terrain, right? If we think of the terrain of recruitment, it's geographical. It's also psychological. There's two terrains that we need to consider.
Dan Stewart (17:30): Now, the psychological terrain is really about what they're suffering from. What is it that's causing... This is absolutely hilarious, what is going on in the minds of these potential recruits? What are they suffering from?
Dan Stewart (17:49): Think of it this way, if I'm your target agent in your market, if I'm that person you would love to have joined your organization, what are the things that are keeping me up at night? What am I worried about? Is it this estimate becoming this appraisal? Is it that I'm a buyer's agent and inventory is so thin? I keep showing houses but I can't get anything under contract. My offers keep not getting accepted. Is it that I'm a listing agent and I can't find anybody who wants to list their home? Whatever that thing is that's keeping them up, it's something that's likely to change over time. Having a great recruitment strategy isn't something you work on once. It's a process you continue with over time. You want to have the right approach there for that.
Dan Stewart (18:46): Next, we'll talk about where we're taking these people. Here's the mistake. Here's a pitfall for you to avoid. Let's identify this really clearly. Glenn Sanford is a friend of mine. Way back in 2011, 2012, we were on the road together. We were sharing rental cars, right? EXP was this great idea that hadn't really caught fire yet. I remember having chats with him about his model. I'll tell you how stupid I am, he invited me to join the board back in 2012 and I said no, right? I said no because I didn't want to marry my brand to just one real estate brokerage.
Dan Stewart (19:30): Well, the reason I bring this up, the reason that I explained this concept of relationships here and terrain and story about where we're taking people is because the different types of recruiting style we have. EXP today has more than 40,000 agents. Most of those agents have some plan to build an organization with any eXP. Nearly everyone that you're recruiting today has heard the eXp story, right? If my conversation is, "Hi, we don't know each other yet. Have you heard about eXp?" That's not going to be a highly successful recruitment conversation, right? We've got to build some rapport before we can be trusted enough to really describe where we're taking someone.
Dan Stewart (20:28): Let's consider these three areas in a bit more detail. With terrain, we can pull people from all sorts of different areas. Many of you can source lists right after your MLS. Many of you advertise. There's ways to obtain a list of people you think would be great recruits, right? That's the geographical component of what we're talking about. The psychological component of where we're taking them, that starts to get answered when we deliver our first messages. We've got a list of people we want to send content to. Well, we have to consider what our first contact is going to be.
Dan Stewart (21:12): This is how bad a geek I am. I switch straight from Star Wars to Star Trek and if you noticed, you're my people, right? First contact is really, really important. It's the difference between walking into a bar with a wedding ring, ready to marry whomever you can and really building a relationship with someone first where you both can proceed with confidence that it's the right decision for both of you, right? Let's break down terrain a little bit further. We're going to start with advertising.
Dan Stewart (21:46): I have some real estate clients who advertise their opportunity, whether it's social media or Indeed or whatnot. Most of my real estate clients are just leveraging lists. Whether it's your local MLS, whether it's a third party service, like BrokerMetrics or the ShowingTime broker tools, it's possible to have a list of agents that fit your ideal recruitment criteria.
Dan Stewart (22:19): Let's talk about that for a moment. I want each of you to imagine the perfect agent to join your organization. How would you describe them? I have a lot of clients who say, "Help me find agents who are doing three to five million in production, just on leads and training and systems will get them to seven to 10 almost instantly. That's great. That's one variable to consider but looking inside your organization, what's the cohort of agents? Who are these people that are really thriving over time? Who do you enjoy working with? Who do you want to be elbow to elbow with going into battle with?
Dan Stewart (23:05): If you're a Luke style recruiter, it's very, very important that you match on these cultural objectives. I love it. There's some comments coming in. We've got hungry, accountable, growth-oriented people. You really need to understand those touchstones that you can all align yourselves around.
Dan Stewart (23:24): Now, it may be less important that they have a strong track record of production, than that they have a strong track record of being a team player, a strong track record of being positive in the face of adversity. There are all sorts of things and I cannot stress this enough guys. These are your things. They're not my things. We can disagree about what those touchstones are and yet, we have to attract people who agree with those if we really want to create the synergy and allow ourselves to unlock the growth potential that comes from that synergy.
Dan Stewart (24:08): I'd love to hear your thoughts. Go ahead and enter them in the chat for me about the qualities that people have that you'd like to recruit your organization. Ken has said, "Hungry, accountable, growth-oriented," those are great strategies, great qualities. Nathan says, "Professional, ethical and energetic." Yeah, I mean, in all three, right? What fun is it to have someone who's professional and ethical and yet they've got no sense of energy to get anything done. It takes all three, right? Lynn says, "Cultural awareness is important." Yeah, it definitely is. Sam, "Great attitude." Jolenta, "Ex government and ex-military tends to produce people who are hardworking, motivated and self-starters." Jim, "Customer service mindset."
Dan Stewart (25:02): Yeah, I mean, there's no one right way to be successful in real estate or in life. Yet, there is one right way for you to do it. There's one way for you to do it that's going to feel most comfortable to you. My advice is someone who's built and succeeded and built and had a dumpster fire. The success comes when you're building in alignment with your core beliefs and values.
Dan Stewart (25:32): For example, if I were working with an agent and this agent has call reluctance and we build a plan for this agent that's got them on the phone cold calling for two or three hours a day, that agent is not going to succeed. We need to have a plan to help that person based on their strengths. That's really what we want to focus on.
Dan Stewart (25:56): Renee says, "Connected, hungry, honest." That's interesting. I wonder by connected, do you mean having an existed network or do you mean, like connected? That's not a mafia reference, is it Renee? I wouldn't think so. Lynn says, "On the DISC profile looking for these Ds." Yup, the high D individuals, people are going to go and get some things done, right?
Dan Stewart (26:23): Now, we're going to start to put some things together. We've talked about how important it is to plan our flags and defend it, right? You do that work. You understand exactly what characteristics you're looking for in a person. Well, then you need to have content strategy that helps identify those characteristics. You can assemble lists of people to send messaging to and it's time to send that first touch message out to these people.
Dan Stewart (26:55): Now, think of a first touch as a cold outreach. The recipient does not know who you are, right? They may have never met you before. What can you possibly say to them that would cause a recruitment action to take place? Hmm. Well, I'll tell you, the things that you should send, fall into one of these three categories: Industry change, personal performance, and congratulations to the people who are already with you. These are all three great first touch strategies. I'll review how this fits together.
Dan Stewart (27:34): Is there a change happening in your industry all the time? There's always something. The content that goes out related to this should be present day. It should be about a concerned people in your market are experiencing right now. If you reach out to them with a message that says, "Hey, here's all this change. Join my organization. I'll protect you from it." That's a bad move. You want to reach out to them and say something like, I'll just write one here for you off the top of my head, right? If I send a message that says, "Hey, Jolenta, I'm really curious about what it means for our market to have X and Y and Z take place. Have you thought about this? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter." How the message goes.
Dan Stewart (28:26): Now, if I'm a relatively new agent, right, or I'm an experienced agent that's been a top producer forever, either way uncomplimented by that approach because I immediately become someone who is worthy of being asked their opinion, right?
Dan Stewart (28:47): Now, you have to think about this always inside your organization. You have to remember that everyone needs to breathe, right? What do they need to breathe? They need to breathe AIR, A-I-R, Awards, Incentives and Recognition.
Dan Stewart (29:06): Awards, like every real estate company on the planet that I'm aware of has some sort of process for recognizing people for their performance, right? That's why this is the second thing on the list. Personal performance is great. If you're using BrokerMetrics, for example, that gives you the ability to say things like, "Hey, Dan, looks like you had a fantastic February. Congratulations. I pay attention to the stats and you're really onto something special. Keep it up. All my best," like whomever, right? I feel complimented, "Oh my gosh. This is wonderful. Someone I don't know noticed me. They complimented me and they didn't ask for anything in return." Keep in mind, this is the first touch. When we're first meeting someone we don't immediately switch to selling them. No, of course not. We got to build that relationship first.
Dan Stewart (30:03): I talked about AIR, A-I-R, Awards, Incentives, Recognition. Number three here, congrats to your own organization. That's a recognition lever. Each of you has the power to deploy this strategy today. Just steal this. Rip it off and I promise you, you'll have good results. Pick someone in your organization that did something noteworthy, right? I don't know what it is. For the sake of demonstration, let's say that they just joined you three months ago as a new agent, and they've just pended their fourth transaction. I'm making this up, but whatever it is, it's something special.
Dan Stewart (30:46): You create an email. You send the message out to all the agents in your marketplace that you think fit your performance criteria, right? The message is pretty simple. It says something like, "Hey, Fred, please join me in giving a digital High Five to Amy. She's a new agent. Only been in our industry for four months and she just pended her fourth transaction. We're all super proud of her. Here's the link to her social media. Thanks in advance." Dan.
Dan Stewart (31:22): If I received that, I go, "Oh, wow. Who is this person? What are they up to?" I clicked the social media link, I see the post that you've got where you're congratulating them, this person is getting lots of high fives, they feel lifted, right? They're now recognized, like they're doing something special. That is so, so important for retention is to recognize people who are succeeding and at the same time, all the way back to the beginning here, we're delivering a signal from the universe that causes the reader to go, "I penned four transactions my first four months. What are they doing over there? I'm starting to receive a signal it might be time for change."
Dan Stewart (32:09): In the interest of time, let's just encapsulate what we've covered so far. We have to really, truly understand the process of exit and arrival. We want to leverage a framework for storytelling called the Hero's Journey that has been ingrained in all of us with every piece of fiction we've consumed. We need to understand the terrain of recruitment, the geographical areas, the psychological components, we have to know for sure what it is about the qualities of the human beings we like to recruit and then we have to have a strategy for sending out those first messages to start the conversation and to set expectations that they'll be ongoing messaging, right?
Dan Stewart (32:55): All of this gets built into something we call a recruitment blueprint. Here, for example, we've got a whole year of content planned out to keep people coming back via conversation to eventually talk about joining this organization. I'm going to give you a few examples now where we've deployed this type of approach. I'm going to start with an Obi-Wan.
Dan Stewart (33:22): This is Alison Gaddy. She was early at eXp. I think she's agent number 600 and something. In her first 18 months with us, we helped her grow extremely successfully. She is doing so well. She spends six months in a day of her year in Puerto Rico for tax purposes, right? Pure Obi-Wan. That's the strategy here. Attract them to the organization and then continue on. That's how it worked for her. She since adopted very Luke-style behaviors. In her organization, there's now plenty of content being produced for agents who've already joined so that we can manage the other half of recruitment, which is retention. Very cool.
Dan Stewart (34:11): Now, the next one, I'm going to highlight here, I have to say I absolutely love these people. I know Jolenta knows Sarah and Sheldon. These are two of the coolest human beings on the planet. I promise you even though they're in Edmonton, Canada, if you knew them, you'd be like, "Yeah, I might move to Canada. I might join these guys." Their whole entire recruitment mission was centered around their strengths and the culture that they have within their organization. If you visited their offices, you would see a work hard, play hard culture. They are the kind of place where you want to come and really accomplish stuff. It's not the kind of place where you just go to hang your license, right?
Dan Stewart (35:03): In their campaigns, we leverage one of their strengths, which is their SEO. If you were to search for real estate in their area, they're going to come up on the first page every single time. They're really effective in showing up that way. I'll show you the results here. They met their annual goal in the first two months with us. Now, their annual goal was not hundreds or thousands of agents, they simply wanted to add about 20, 25 people who really fit their culture. When I asked you at the beginning, what can you do or what are your goals, where do you want to get to, here's a perfect example, 20 to 25 agents in two months that are a cultural fit for their organization. That's a huge, huge win.
Dan Stewart (35:53): I'll give you another example. These are folks who have both recruitment styles. Pearson Smith, Eric Pearson was a client of mine as a solo agent when he was at Keller Williams. When he started his brokerage, Pearson Smith, he told me about this hybrid model where new agents who needed lots of training and leads and support would be on one split. Others would be on a hybrid plan and then some would be at 100% commission. It's really variable there.
Dan Stewart (36:26): In some instances, they're tucking agents under their wing. They're going into battle together. In others, they're like, "Hey, welcome to the organization. Go get them." That's super experienced agent who doesn't really need all the guidance that a new agent would need, can join them and pay considerably less their commission and brokerage fees. I'm super, super proud of the growth we've help them achieve that Pearson Smith. I'm also really proud of the fact that Eric provides Happy Grasshopper for every agent who joins their organization. They are a prototypical client of a massive part of our future right now and I'm really excited about that.
Dan Stewart (37:15): There's so many of these stories, guys. I really don't want to just suck up too much your time with this. The point is adapt these strategies. These strategies work, right? I'm looking for questions here. I see a couple have come in. Gillette is asking, "What if you don't have a single agent?" Well, I mean, there's really no better place to start and be really clear about what matters to you. You're the only person in the organization now who gets to establish the culture and say what you stand for and what you don't. It actually puts you in a really powerful spot. I would suggest you start by thinking, whom have you engaged with in your community on transactions that you'd like to work with?
Dan Stewart (38:00): When you're face to face and you're meeting with people, which agents make you feel positive? They give your energy a lift versus which ones pull you down. Bring that kind of person in. Let's see here. Jim is asking, he says, "Great strategy for recruiting current agents. What suggestions do you have for brand new agents?" I love that, Jim. That's where advertising can make a difference, right? People are going to Craigslist and Indeed, and whatever and they're looking for jobs. You can advertise things like a career night, you can hold a career Zoom, you can have those conversations, you can book them.
Dan Stewart (38:40): I actually have a client in the life insurance industry we do this for. We drive their ad traffic to a landing page. They take the DISC assessment on the landing page. We ask them to record a video of themselves and then once they've done all that, they get the right to talk to a recruiter. That's one of the many ways that you can do it.
Dan Stewart (39:02): Now, before I go on here, I want to share with you something pretty darn cool. My company's 10 years old, that's amazing to me. We've learned a lot on the journey. You are the first audience to hear about our version of peanut butter and chocolate, right? You remember the old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial? That's what we're talking about here.
Dan Stewart (39:30): We recognized that agents churn from brokerages because they're not getting what they need. It's one thing to bring people in, it's another thing to keep them there. When we look at the typical pain points brokers experience, it's, they recruit agents who don't produce. They provide technology to agents that agents won't use. They're paying for stuff that agents won't use. User adoption is really frustrating.
Dan Stewart (39:59): I thought, "Well what if I can take everything I know about recruitment, combine it with everything I know about helping agents source transactions and marry it together in a brand new service, that could be pretty cool. That service is called Chirp. What chirp is, is it's a branded application. We take our branding off. We put your branding on. Agents have something that feels like you. That's important. Then, from within the application, we deliver email, text messages, and ringless voicemail drops.
Dan Stewart (40:40): I'll give you an idea here. Here at the top, we've got AGENT Inc. They're in Southern California. They have hundreds of agents and they're growing. It's very cool that they're running our stuff [inaudible 00:40:52]. CB&A is in Houston, Texas. This is Chance Brown's brokerage. He is a super solid individual. It's such a privilege to support these guys.
Dan Stewart (41:04): Next year, we've got Fathom Realty. Fathom is now traded on the NASDAQ. That's really cool. I love that we're able to support them like this. Then, here we have a brand new, you've almost certainly heard of RE/MAX. We've recently participated in an RFP with them. If you're on this call and you're RE/MAX, I don't have anything to report here for you at this point in time. Let's take a look here at the app.
Dan Stewart (41:32): Now, I mentioned that it sends email, ringless voicemail drops and text messages. The cycle for this, there are 41 touches per year and they go out like this. The emails are once every three weeks and they're very non-salesy, the texts and the voicemail drops work in conjunction with one another. Think of it like a one-two combination punch. Jolenta, if it's your birthday one week from today, I want you to get a text from me today, this is, "Hey, Jolenta. It's Dan. Am I the first person to wish you a happy birthday?" You received that message as my past client, remember my sphere of influence, you're almost certainly going to respond to it.
Dan Stewart (42:19): Now, on your birthday, I want you to get a voicemail from me. I want you to actually hear my voice wishing you happy birthday. I would record a voicemail that says something like, "Hey, it's me, Dan. Just want to reach out and say happy birthday. Hope you're awesome. Hope you're having a great day. You're probably just covered up with awesome right now. Don't feel like you've got to call me back today but I'd love to touch base. Give me a call. Boom, boom, boom, there's your number." You record that message once and then our system sends it out to your contacts on their birthday, right? Makes it easy to do that.
Dan Stewart (42:56): Now, your agents, this is super cool, your agents get notifications when it's time to send these messages and these messages actually come from you. We do all the work of sending them but they come in your branding from you. Those of you with organizations, if you choose to roll this out, I need to let you know what to expect. You have to expect that replies come almost instantly.
Dan Stewart (43:26): I'll give you an example. This is Cassidy's comment. She's an agent at CB&A in Houston and you don't like a lot of agents, right? It's new. I don't know. Can I trust this? She just loaded three contacts to test it, she got her first reply in just a few minutes. I mean, that is crazy to me how much agents do that they hope will work six months from now, when we can actually do things that work literally in just a few minutes. The way this operates, they get the notification from you, they come inside their Chirp account that's got your branding, they choose one of the fresh new messages that are written every two weeks, and then they approve it for delivery to their past clients and sphere.
Dan Stewart (44:14): This kind of content, we refresh this once every two weeks. Every one of our members rates it. You may read some content, not love it, that's okay. There'll be content here that you love. The only messages that will ever appear here are messages that work right. We have evidence they work or we wouldn't include them in the system.
Dan Stewart (44:37): Now, there's a message here that it says, "Blockbuster finally pivots," and I'll show you that message. First thing to notice is it looks just like Randall wrote it himself because if it looks like marketing, it's safe to ignore. We really do want it to appear like he wrote it himself. Message is really simple and straightforward, tells the story of something interesting that's happening now and it closes with a call to conversation, "Speaking of real estate changes, do you know anyone is thinking of moving?" That's what we call a call to conversation. I cannot emphasize enough that we don't want to drive a click or a download, we want people talking to each other. Conversation leads to contracts, period.
Dan Stewart (45:25): Here's what Randall put in his company Facebook group after we deliver that message, "Within just 90 minutes, I received this email back from a closed client. Here's the email back." There's a lot in here. The key part is, "Are you able to give me an idea what we could list for?" That's the reply everyone's hoping to get. I will also point out this comment, "Your last sentence got me." That's why those calls to conversation are so important. If that's not good enough, a come list me reply, he got another one later that same day.
Dan Stewart (46:07): "Not kidding, just got a second email from a client that closed in 2017." Here, he's saying, "If both of these pan out, that's between one and a half and $2 million in turnarounds. Literally, just from one message." Agents who send these, they'll see that they get a very high open rate. We're not sending to thousands of people here. This is not for everyone in your database. It's only for the past clients in the sphere of influence, right? That's really what we want to focus on.
Dan Stewart (46:40): Now, the other side of reporting, I'll just anchor this for you, the system you send from makes a big difference. If you've experimented with different technology, you'll know that not every message gets delivered and that your open rates will vary widely based on the quality of the company that's delivering the messaging. We post ours on the website. We're really proud of what those are.
Dan Stewart (47:09): Guys, I'm going to go ahead and stop this screen share here for a moment. I want to thank you. I really want to thank you for allowing me to share with you this brand new innovation. You are literally the first audience to see Chirp for recruitment purposes. We've rolled it out for agents and they're loving it. It's producing great results for them. Now, what we're showing you is this white label version where we can really help your organization.
Dan Stewart (47:39): I want to walk you through the economic side of this. Let's pay attention to that for a moment. If we were to have an individual agent come to our website and subscribe for Chirp, this is what their investment would be. It's not a lot. It's only $470 for the year and $47 to start.
Dan Stewart (48:09): Now, Randall sent one message and he got one and a half to two million deals, but let's say an agent only gets one transaction over the course of a whole year, their ROI is still outstanding. Let me buy the stock that has that kind of ROI. I'm all in on it. Well, from a recruitment perspective, we want to do something a little different.
Dan Stewart (48:35): Historically, we have charged our members thousands of dollars to create custom content and then there's an ongoing monthly maintenance. What we're doing with Chirp for brokers for recruitment, is this, we're having a one fee per month does not matter how many contacts or agents you have, your costs are capped at a maximum of $500 per month. Within that, we're providing all the white labeling, like we handle all that. We do a product launch training session just for you guys. We have ongoing training and support that's rarely scheduled for your organization and, and we do all the custom content writing that in the past, we've charged thousands of dollars just to create that content alone.
Dan Stewart (49:28): We're packaging all of that up together here for you as part of this new program. Then, we're providing a discount offer services. Your agents will get a 50% discount on Chirp and that will be presented to them as another benefit they get for being associated with you. I think this is super cool. I feel really excited that in just the past two weeks, I've had a handful of conversations with brands around the country.
Dan Stewart (49:59): I want to welcome Brandon Baca at Ten Oaks in Nashville. Love to have you on board. Want to welcome Sam Livingston, in Ohio. Fantastic dude. Super glad to have you on board. There are so many people. [Cura Ingram 00:50:12], got her message today. There's so many people. They're like, "Oh my God, this is what I want. I'm excited to move forward with this." If that's you, great.
Dan Stewart (50:22): However, there's no way you can buy this directly from us right now. I'm going to have a person on my staff reach out and call you. They're going to offer you an opportunity to talk with me or a member of my staff about getting this set up. If you want to be prioritized there, that's awesome. Just go ahead and enter in the chat for me now. Just write call me and I'll make sure that someone on my staff reaches out to you right away.
Dan Stewart (50:53): That said, I'm going to stop the screen share. You should just be seeing my face now. I'm more than happy to take some time and answer your questions. What are you curious about that I haven't covered? Going back through here scanning for questions I may have missed along the way. See what comes in here. Thank you for the comment here. I'm not sure I'm going to pronounce your name correctly. Is it [Malin Shay 00:51:30]? I really appreciate that. I would love to know. I would love to talk to you just to hear you pronounce your name. Super cool. All right.
Dan Stewart (51:46): I will tread water here for a few moments to hear questions. Thank you, everyone for attending today. Thank you for reaching out to me with your questions. Lorna, Ben, Marco, a member of my staff will just reach out. Thank you for your attendance today. Of course, if you have any questions, if you'd like our help with this, please definitely reach out to me directly. My email address is [email protected]. Malli, thank you. I appreciate that. Awesome. Bob, I can. I'll put that screen back up for you. He's asking me to put the screen up that comments about the 41 touches per year. Great seeing you too, Jolenta. We need to talk it's been way too long and way too crazy a year.
Dan Stewart (52:37): Let me jump back there for you, Bob. I'm just going to click, click, click, click. We'll come on back. All right. Here we go with these 41 touches per year. The 41 touches consist of 17 emails, that's once every three weeks throughout the year. There are 6 to 12 texts and voicemail drops. Those work together in conjunction, and the reason for the variance, I'll break this down.
Dan Stewart (53:07): There's a happy birthday text, a happy birthday voicemail drop. There's a transaction anniversary text, transaction anniversary voicemail drop. Then, there are four quarterly lead harvesting messages. Quarterly lead harvesting messages are really effective. I just got an email earlier today. Let me see if I can find that here. Is my screen still shared? Let's take a peek here. Just pulling up this email.
Dan Stewart (53:44): This is the, let me do the screenshot. I want you to be able to see this. Here's an example of how effective a quarterly lead harvesting message is. I received this email in my inbox just last night. It was there when I read it this morning. This couple, Ken and Velma sent there, "It's been a while." That's a quarterly lead harvesting text message. When they sent that message, of course, they got a response and the response was, "Come list me." It turned into half a million dollar listing for them.
Dan Stewart (54:23): From inside Chirp, we've got all these scripts laid out for you. Here, I'll come to text messaging. We'll look at the library. Here's the actual text that they sent. It was to offer help, "It's Dan. How are you? It's been a little while since we've touched base. Is there anything I can help you with?" That was the simplicity of the message that created a half a million dollars in transaction volume for them. Please, please, please, hear me when I say it's not always about the complexity of the message. It's about the consistency with which it's delivered, right? That quarterly lead harvesting rhythm is really important.
Dan Stewart (55:08): Breaking down those messages again, it's birthday, transaction anniversary, four quarterly lead harvesting messages that gets us to six. Then, the other six messages per year would be the holiday messages that our members choose when they're setting up their account. Here, for example, there's a script for a Thanksgiving message. To record these in our system, our members just click record voicemail, start talking. It's that easy. Not complicated to do at all.
Dan Stewart (55:42): Let's see, what other questions do we have coming in? Stop that screen share. Brian, you said noticed something. I'm not sure what that was but there must have been a question I missed. Guys, it is 3:00 p.m. We are at the one-hour mark. It's time for me to go ahead and wrap up the session. Thank you to each of you for attending. I really do appreciate it.
Dan Stewart (56:09): Again, don't be shy if I can help you, [email protected] is my email address. Jolenta, we got to talk. Let's do that. Bye everybody. Have a great afternoon.