How to Craft a Powerful Story to Attract Top Agents to Your Brokerage

Many have tried to open a real estate brokerage and failed. They fail because they simply don’t have a clear and powerful story. When they meet with a prospective associate to join their firm, their message falls flat, leaving the recruit to wonder why they wasted their time.How do I know this to be true? Well, because over the past 10 years, I have recruited over 400 agents to my brokerages and I have coached many others to successfully recruit to theirs. So I can say without a doubt, that if you own a real estate brokerage or team or are thinking about starting a real estate brokerage, then you must have an impactful message.In this article, I’ll show you exactly how to craft a powerful message that will attract producing agents to your brokerage.Get Clear on What’s Important to YouThe first step to crafting your story is to figure out what’s truly important to you. Producing agents have their pick of brokerages to join, which means their choice can often be an emotional one. What is it about your brokerage that will attract them? To get clear, start with these questions: Why does your brokerage exist and how is it different from the other brokerages? The answers to these two questions should be easy if you created your brokerage but may be more challenging if you work for an existing brokerage.Maybe your brokerage was created because the industry was getting away from high-level service to the agents or the customers and you saw an opportunity to provide better service. Or was it that you wanted to specialize in a specific neighborhood that is up and coming or underserved? Whatever the reason, you must be super-clear on what it is and why it is important to you.If you didn’t build your brokerage, then do this exercise by reviewing your company’s mission, vision, and values and ask yourself what about this excites you and why are these things important to you.Examples: Reasons Your Brokerage ExistsTo achieve #1 in market share in Des Moines, IowaTo provide a luxury experienceTo create WOW in our clients’ worldsTo save our clients moneyTo promote and preserve the Mission Beach lifestyleWhen you get clear on why your brokerage exists and more importantly, why this is important to you, your passion will show through when you talk about your brokerage. You won’t need to “sell” your brokerage because your passion and excitement will do the selling for you in the recruiting appointment.Bonus Tip: Attract Top Agents With High-End Custom Marketing Templates & Design ToolsLet’s face it, not every brokerage can afford to hire a talented marketing manager to help agents look great online and in print. Great marketers and graphic designers are expensive for a reason: it’s hard work. That’s where Maxa Designs comes in. Their award-winning designers will create custom marketing materials for your brokerage and give your agents an easy-to-use app to edit them quickly, even on mobile.Visit MAXA DesignsCraft a Story That ExcitesWe are all on this planet for a limited period of time and nobody wants to waste it in a meaningless way. When we reflect back on our lives, we want to say that we accomplished something and that we made an impact in some way. This is your life story. Don’t you want it to be a compelling story?Your brokerage also needs a story—one that inspires and excites the kind of people you want to work with. This is your life story. Don’t you want it to be a compelling story? You don’t need or want every real estate agent to join your brokerage. In fact, you only want the agents who share the common interest, value, or view that your brokerage exists to promote.To successfully attract producing agents, you need to craft a story that excites them to want to come along on your journey. There are five parts to crafting a powerful story. Your brokerage’s story begins with where you are going.Part 1: Where You’re GoingTo attract top-producing agents to your brokerage, your brokerage’s story must begin with the destination you are going to. Most people want opportunities to grow in their careers, so you need to be able to articulate exactly where your brokerage is going in order to excite them.The secret to being an effective recruiter is to think of your role like being that of a train conductor and your brokerage is the train. You are pulling into the station to pick up passengers. The people standing on the platform have just one question: Where is this train going?The conductor only wants to pick up the passengers who have the desire to go to the specific destination that the train is going. If the conductor picks up the wrong passengers, chaos and disruption will ensue. The same is true with your brokerage. You only want to bring on the agents who share the common objective that you and your brokerage stand to achieve.Your objective as the recruiter for your brokerage is to spark enough curiosity with prospective agents that they wonder, or better yet, ask you: “Where is your brokerage going in five years?” and invite only the agents who are interested in going to that destination to learn more about the journey.Examples: National Brokerage DestinationsKeller Williams Realty: To be the real estate company of choice for agents and their customersRE/MAX International: To be the worldwide real estate leaderColdwell Banker Real Estate: To provide our clients the very best customer service in all aspects of residential real estatePart 2: Identify the VillainThere are no good stories without a hero, and there are no heroes without villains. To create a powerful story for your brokerage that will attract producing agents, you need a villain.The truth is we are all more likely to avoid pain than we are to move toward pleasure. This is also true when recruiting. Agents are more likely to change brokerages to avoid experiencing loss, pain, disappointment, and embarrassment than they are to save money, gain awards, or even to sell more houses.This is a controversial topic because we are taught not to disparage others, but the villain doesn’t need to be a direct competitor. It can be a change in the industry, like technology, market conditions, or consumer preferences. Or it can be something that is directly affecting your neighborhood, like gentrification or lack of affordable housing.Identify a villain for your story, something that your brokerage is fighting against. You will find that when you mobilize around a cause, you will attract passionate agents who also care about your cause.Examples: The Villain With BrokeragesBaird and Warner’s Villain: Homelessness“[Baird and Warner’s] Good Will Network, is powered by automatic contributions that add $10 to the fund for each real estate transaction…”Redfin’s Villain: Salespeople“…designed from the ground up, using technology and totally different values, to put customers first. So we joined forces with agents who wanted to be customer advocates, not salesmen.”RE/MAX’s Villain: Working Alone“At RE/MAX, you’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself.”Part 3: Why They Should Follow YouMake no mistake: Productive agents can pretty much choose any brokerage they want. So why should they invest the time and energy to move their business to you and your office? Why are you the right choice to get them to the destination that they so deeply desire and how can you help them overcome the villain?The answer is quite simple—because your brokerage was created specifically to achieve this specific objective. Like the train and tracks built to take the passengers swiftly from one destination to the next, your brokerage was painstakingly engineered to achieve this specific mission.Like Martin Luther King Jr., you too have a dream that one day your brokerage will overcome the tyranny and oppression of the villain that is preventing the happiness and greater good that you wish to see in the world.I’m sure it sounds a little “over the top” to you, but if you don’t have this much conviction and passion for what you are doing, you won’t achieve the success you desire. Your passion for the outcome is exactly what will attract the right agents to help you fulfill your objective.Part 4: What They Will GainAgents who are considering your real estate brokerage must have a clear vision as to what they will gain when they join your brokerage. This is greater than just features and benefits like a better website or nicer marketing. It is the result they want to see for themselves, the brokerage they affiliate with, or their community.If the agents are in alignment with your brokerage, what they will gain will be the same or similar to what your brokerage will gain when it achieves its objective. This could be achieving the mission, overcoming the villain, or both.If your brokerage exists to achieve #1 in market share in your community and your villain is lack of affordable housing, then your agents will gain the satisfaction of being part of a mission greater than themselves and the acknowledgement of being someone who is making a difference in their community by supporting efforts to provide more housing options.Part 5: Why They Need to Get Started NowTo attract producing agents to your brokerage, you must have excitement, passion, and urgency. Urgency creates momentum and momentum, in turn, attracts more productive agents. This is the fuel that grows every successful company.Just understand that there is a difference between pressure and urgency. Pressure is an external force to do something. Urgency is something that requires immediate attention or action from an internal motivation.The urgency is that of the impact that your brokerage will make on your clients, community, or industry. The agents you are recruiting will feel that they have the opportunity to begin making an immediate impact by making a brokerage change today—that the sooner they make the change, the sooner they will see the change that they want to see in their world.Bottom LineWhen you are clear about why your brokerage exists and how it can serve a greater good, you will be able to craft a powerful story that attracts producing agents.The tell-tale sign of an outstanding story is few objections from agents who align with your vision. They will be inspired, excited, and passionate about being part of something greater and if they are not a fit, they will leave with a clear picture of what your brokerage is about. They may even refer agents to you who desire what you offer.Over to YouDo you think powerful stories are essential to attracting producing agents and growing your brokerage? Let us know in the comments.