In an environment where there are 10 associations and five MLSs, membership at the Grosse Pointe Board of REALTORS® has tripled in 10 years because of our focus on a great member experience (although membership growth was never the goal).
The key to any positive experience is trust:
- Consumers need to trust their agents.
- Agents need to trust their brokers.
- Brokers need to trust their associations.
- Associations need to trust their association executives.
Where trust does not exist:
- Consumers do not refer agents.
- Agents do not champion—or recruit for—their brokers.
- Brokers do not feel associations’ value.
- Association leaders micromanage their AEs.
Harvard Business Review authors Francis X. Frei and Anne Morriss say that for every individual or organization seeking to build trust, there are three components:
- Authenticity
- Logic
- Empathy
Let’s take a closer look at each.
Authenticity: Are You the Real You?
Consistency and congruency matter, and they are at the heart of authenticity. Here are some examples of what I mean by a “do as I say, but not as I do” attitude that makes a lack of authenticity obvious.
Back in the day when cold calling was not restricted by do-not-call lists, I used to train agents to make calls between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. as opposed to the prevailing “when both decision makers are home.” I figured if I didn’t like calls during dinner time, why would anyone else?
Trust is also a necessity when managing association priorities. One common observation among association leadership is a need for additional education within the membership. Yet when associations offer education at a cost well above break-even, that decreases affordability. If affordability is part of the current housing crisis, why isn’t the high cost of education a problem within member education programs?
For brokers, an example might be emphasizing production as an agent but allowing some—who haven’t sold anything in a year and are not part of a team—to remain licensed with the company.
While being inauthentic with consumers, agents, brokers and the association may resolve problems in the short-term, it caps trust and the ability to lead. The result:
- For agents, fewer clients are willing to trust them.
- For brokers, fewer agents are promoting the brokers or, worse yet, more agents are willing to move to greener pastures for pennies on the dollar.
- For associations, fewer brokerages are recommending the association and more are perceiving it as a “necessary evil” instead of an important business resource.
- For AEs, boards of directors are second-guessing suggestions and motives, resulting in indecision or wasted time in an era of rapid change.
Logic: Is It Really True?
Whether you are an agent, broker, association or AE, the facts behind your judgment will determine the value of your logic, so provide all facts instead of only those that support the result you seek.
If you don’t, consumers will choose to work with other agents, agents will move from brokerage to brokerage, brokers may move from association to association (if they can), and AE tenure will become a revolving door.
Where logic does exist, those who wisely know their limitations and seek support where they need it will build a team whose judgment is sound. This produces clients for life, agent and brokerage loyalty, and a board of directors that embraces its strategic role because it trusts the judgment of staff to execute.
Empathy: Is It All About You, or Is It All About Them?
For agents, the goal should be getting a buyer into a property or a seller onto the next phase of life, but without empathy, too often the agent’s motivation is perceived as a commission already spent. For brokers, a lack of empathy might show when it appears that finding your next recruit is more important than supporting the agents already with the company.
For associations, the size of the organization or bank account is often the measure of success, when in reality neither benefits the members’ ability to be productive, successful or profitable. For AEs, if it appears your ego is the priority and your compensation is such that the association cannot afford to add competent staff in sufficient numbers, empathy will likely not be your strong suit.
Trust: At the Center of All Experience
Where trust is not present, neither what you do nor how you do it will matter. Agents will not find buyers or sellers willing to work with them, or if they do, those clients will not send referrals, which are the lifeblood of long-term success.
Without trust, brokers will always be recruiting, never understanding why agents leave, or worse yet, always telling a story to a prospect that is different from the one the agents are telling.
Without trust, when associations find themselves in a competitive environment, they will always find themselves defending value. And when an AE is not trusted by the board, well, that is unpleasant for all, at best.
The good news, however, is that when authenticity, logic and empathy are present, so is trust. And that’s seen in:
- Agents who find business constantly showing up on their doorstep, with little need for the hardcore prospecting activities of FSBOs (for sale by owners), expireds, cold calling, door knocking and open houses.
- Brokers who find their agents speak positively about the company, which drives other agents to inquire if that is where they should be working.
- Associations with brokers who send agents to them, though there is always choice.
- Boards of directors who defer operations to the management team.
- A management team that only delivers best efforts.
