Retention: How to Keep Your Agents Happy

By Maddie Jostol, Marketing Manager

The industry is buzzing about recruiting strategies due to the competitive market. Equally important, however, is a brokerages’ retention strategy. You not only need to win agents over, but you have to keep them happy as well. According to NAR, a real estate agent’s median tenure at their current firm is only four years. That gives you a fairly tight window to make them want to stay for the long-run.

With competitors entering the market with loads of cash and aggressive recruiting tactics, it’s imperative that brokerages focus on how they’re going to retain their existing agents. This is particularly important for new agents as their first year in the business can be discouraging, causing a large portion of new agents to leave the industry. Focus on your people and your people will remain loyal to you.

Here are four tips for continuing to win over and retain those superstar agents:

Celebrate the wins

Don’t forget to celebrate the wins. Find a way to celebrate an agent’s success every time they close a sale. This could be done with office-wide recognition, an office celebration of some sort, or a gift (flowers or lunch are always appreciated). It’s important for agents to know that you’re invested in their success and that you appreciate all of the hard work that goes into each sale.

Provide ongoing training and support

We understand this is likely already a focus, but do your agents really know what’s available to them? Make sure they’re continually reminded of the outstanding training and support your brokerages is offering. Weekly sales meetings are the perfect platform for this. They’re already in the routine of looking forward to and attending these meetings. It’s where they go for insights and resources to help them run their real estate business. Work with your Office Managers to ensure this time is used to offer agents the tools and support that will make them want to stay.

Work-aversaries

Celebrate their success at your brokerage with a work-aversary gift on the anniversary of them joining your team. It will remind them of why they joined the team, how appreciated they are in your community, and what they’ve achieved since they started with your brokerage. Don’t just do this on year one, though, do this every year to create a culture of long-term recognition and encourage retention in the long run.

Our recommendation? Let them choose with a Loop & Tie gift or curate a personal gift from Knack.

Pair them up

Set them up for success by putting them in contact with agents like them. What’s that mean? Leverage data to identify which agents have similar selling history and patterns and pair them up. This will create an encouraging community, where agents working at similar speeds can support each other’s success. If another brokerage comes along, having a close network of colleagues will make it that much more difficult for them to leave their current gig.

Thinking about taking your recruiting and retention strategy to the next level? Be sure to check out Moxi Talent.