WorkPuzzle

Post Interview Engagement-Part 2

In my previous blog, I discussed the importance of engagement with prospective new agent hires after the interview, essentially, treating a potential hire as if they are hired.  It’s not enough to simply interview someone and know you want to hire them.  I have spoken with many of my recruiters and a lot of the good prospects fall off the grid post interview.  

As I oversee our accounts, there are several metrics upon which I keep an eye.

1.  Interviews/ month

2.  Interviews converting to licensing school

3.  Licensing school candidates converting to hires

 I believe adopting this strategy will positively affect the interview/month conversion rate.  

I recently posted a discussion on our private social network on this topic and received a couple of prolific comments from two of my high performing accounts. Rod Eller, Senior Vice President of Sales with Prudential Carolinas commented:

 "I think it is critical to build the relationship of mentor and coach.  While they are working through the licensing process is a great way to start.  Be the tutor and resource for questions that they may have regarding material that they are learning in class.  The bond of sharing in the process of career change is such a foundational part of developing a trust that you care and are there to help them be  all that they can be.  As a parent you wouldn't dream of not being a part of the first day of school.  Maybe, the analogy is too dramatic.  I don't think so.   I can't tell you how many times a recruit has told me how they have always dreamed about selling real estate.  Be a part of that dream!  Lee, love your "human" game approach, I believe that you're on to something! "

 Kathie Hedrick, Director of Career Development with Prudential Manor Homes in NY responded similarly;  

“Lee, we do pretty much what you have recommended.  We described the process as a shadowing program for the new agent.  This program is in place while they are working to obtain their license.  So once a candidate has been chosen to join the firm, we get them involved at once so that they quickly feel that they are a part of the company.  By the time they are licensed, they have a sense of belonging and have some established relationships.  So, the shadowing program starts before being
licensed and the formal training program starts when they earn their state license. “

 What do you think?  Do you see the benefit to this active and engaging form of hiring? For those hiring managers who do use a similar strategy, how do you stay in front of your prospective hires?

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. .

Post-Interview Engagement

As most hiring managers in the real estate industry know, the hiringprocess is unique.  Other than an initial application and interview, the candidate is fundamentally independant in terms of entering the real estate field, and could be on their own for months, before joining a real estate company.

Many of the managers with whom I have consulted have heard me discuss the post interview follow-up that is so critical to their hiring process.

In a nutshell, treat a potential hire as if they are hired. 

I came across this short video in which Indigo Triplett, CEO of Careers in Transition, discusses a concept I have shared with many managers…in her case she refers to a “Work With program” that allows prospective hires to actually work as a hired employee for a short period of time--up to 40 hours. 

The concept allows for a hiring manager to move away from predicting a candidate’s success based on the interview and resume alone.  

Clearly there are some limitations in the real estate world prior to obtaining one’s license, but I submit there is plenty for a potential hire to do and see prior to activating their license.

The more you and the people in your office engage personally with a desired new agent, the more you will know who you are potentially hiring. You will get the benefit of getting other perspectives from those who worked with the prospective hire.

Some ways to engage candidates:

1.  Invite them to sales meetings.

2.  Invite them on office tours.

3.  Match them up with an experienced agent in the office and have them attend an open house.

4.  Invite them to training sessions….the sooner they are trained the sooner they will produce.

We all know how important relationships are in every facet of the real estate industry; hiring is no exception.  The more you engage a candidate in your office, the more they will feel an affinity not only with you, but also with the office culture.  

This is a huge competitive advantage. They will be more motivated to complete the licensing requirements, and less likely to consider your competition.   

Stay tuned for my next installment in which I will share with you what a couple of my high performing accounts are doing, relative to the strategies discussed today.

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. .

Coaching the Prima Donna Diva

Things occur to me at the oddest times and for the strangest reasons.  Last night, I was emptying the dishwasher and listening to music when an artist who has been scrutinized over the years by the media started playing. 

Through that scrutiny, the public gained much unnecessary knowledge of his many relationships. Could it be that he is just too much of a prima donna? This thought crossed my mind then, just as quickly, my mind flashed on a conversation I had with a manager years ago.

I was training this manager on our coaching system. I wanted to review an assessment report (the Core Capacity Index (CCI)) and discuss how she can use this as a coaching tool.

She chose to look at one of her multi-million dollar producing agents, whom she referred to as a "diva" and at times very difficult to work with (this is not a judgment against all multi-million dollar agents, I am just speaking to this one manager’s  experience). This agent would not comply with certain protocols and methods that make the office run smoothly. Instead, she chose her own strategies for her own purposes. 

The first thing the manager told me was that the CCI report was spot on.  This manager was always fighting an uphill battle and was very frustrated. We discussed conversing with (not telling) this agent from her (the agent's) perspective. 

This is what I now refer to as the "understanding point." Speaking with this agent in such a way that she felt she was part of a solution vs. being told what to do, what not to do, and/or what she didn't do. 

Certainly, an assessment like the CCI helps shine light on the coaching relationship.  But the more important lesson is simple--step out of your skin, look at those whom you want to help succeed and work from their perspective.

This will not only help the agents you coach, but it will also make your job much easier because you will fight fewer uphill battles.

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. .

RecruitingSocial: 4 Reasons You Need a Virtual Office

Over the last month, we have built a very strong foundation to support the fact that social media is here to stay and have described how our clients can best utilize this trend to increase market share.  In the last two editions (1, 2), Ben announced our new solution, why we chose to invest in it, and how we believe it will help you recruit, manage, and lead the real estate industry in this new direction.    

There was a day when your brick and mortar office was your complete identity.  It was your castle...your fort.  It was the only place that your troops gathered for strategy and inspiration, as well as the place they assembled to perform the majority of their work.  This is slowly becoming less and less the case.  People, especially young professionals, are increasingly mobile and have more access to the things they need outside the office.  They are also quite tied to their social media platforms, in general.  The internet has changed the game, and within the most innovative companies, social media has changed marketing, communication, collaboration, and recruiting. 

While many smaller companies are trying to find a way to capture the benefits of this trend with Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, they continue to be frustrated with the results of these endeavors.  Why?  

Ben described it well in his last article... You as a manager, won't benefit from the above platforms unless you have a way for everything to point back to not only you personally, and not only your company, but to your individual office and the people within it.  

First, imagine that you have your own online office where much of the collaboration, inspiration, problem solving, daily tips, and success stories could be communicated.  Now, imagine that outside agents, vendors, customers, and clients were able not only to see inside some of the collaboration of your office, but they could join in on some of it as well.  THIS is what the bigger companies are doing, and we're betting this is how the younger generation will strive to go about their work.  

Don't get me wrong, brick and mortar offices will always be necessary for a variety of reasons...but your online representation of your office and all of its communication and collaboration will be a key ingredient to attracting, retaining, and collaborating with the best and the brightest.  

So, here are four reasons why you need to seriously consider an online social media office:  

1. You need your own online TURF.  As Ben mentioned in the last edition -- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social networking sites should be used solely as your outposts and embassies, all pointing back to your turf...your office. 

2. To build new channels for collaboration.  Imagine your agents pitching in (in real time) to help someone with an urgent question or problem. 

3. To create value.  Imagine developing a network of customers, vendors, and perhaps outside agents that you've been trying to recruit, and leveraging their collective brainpower to explore and develop new ideas.   

4. To Recruit.  Agents want to get a glimpse of your culture.  They want to have conversations with agents, look around, and perhaps even develop some ongoing dialogue in order to see the dynamics of your office and how you and your agents think before signing on.  This is one powerful way of accomplishing that.  

Karl Moore, of Forbes summarizes this trend well: 

"The benefits of collaboration networks are limitless.  These networks breed co-creation, shared value, and cultures of collaboration that can be leveraged beyond the network.  The new generation of Millennials and Generation C (connected, computerized, and community-oriented) have fully adopted the collaborative mindset as their own.  They are educated, interactive, and collaborative, and have grown up using social networks as a tool for brainstorming and problem solving.  This reflects a broad shift in generational thinking that is taking place.  The broadcast generation from the industrial age is being met by a collaborative generation from the new knowledge age.  The old ways of staying within the four walls to solve problems, guarding company information, and developing products, services, and solutions in isolation are gone.

Companies that can create or participate in a collaborative network and organize themselves to best leverage the benefits will enjoy a competitive advantage.  Companies of all sizes can start by setting up a network of internal experts, suppliers, partners and customers." 

And now you can too. If you haven't done so already, scroll back to the last two editions (1, 2) and learn about the conception of what we now call "RecruitingSocial."

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Is Your Social Media Content Up to Snuff?

I am writing this blog on the heels of Ben’s series (1, 2, 3) regarding Fear in Social Media.  Assuming you are open-minded to the concepts Ben discussed, and are possibly teetering on jumping into the wonderful world of the social web…let’s discuss content.

In my previous blog, I discussed the importance of engagement in social media strategies.  It is important to know your audience and engage them where they are, without imposing your brand, but rather share intriguing content that is meaningful to them.

Part of the engagement process is to ensure that what you are communicating has value to those with whom you are sharing.  Pay attention to your target audience, “listen” to their conversations, and then participate.  If something you share is interesting to one person, it will likely be interesting to others.  The goal is to get people interested in YOU by demonstrating the value that you bring to them.  The nature of social media allows for your message to be broadcast to a large spectrum, so let’s make sure what you choose to share has the effect you desire. 

So, how do you know if what you are saying is good?  By making sure it isn’t bad.  In a recent Inc. magazine article, Minda Zetlin, a business technology writer, speaker and author; suggests that you ask yourself these three questions…and be honest with your answers!

“1. Would I spend time on a Sunday afternoon reading or viewing this (blog post/Facebook update/tweet/video, etc.) if I didn't know the creator?  If the answer is no, your content probably sucks.

2. Will people reading or viewing this information learn something that will either help them solve a problem or engage their emotions?  And that useful information had better not be about your new product or feature, at least not most of the time.  If all your content is a product or feature announcement, it officially sucks.

3. Is the content intended to benefit the reader/viewer or someone else?  Thank yous, acknowledgements, featuring someone in your blog because you owe them a favor, asking people to vote for your pet project... all these things qualify as sucky content.  They have relationship-building value too, so I'm not saying you should never do any of these things.  But be very selective when you do.  And make sure you're also providing a lot of quality content that will reward your reader/viewers for their attention.

What can you do if you want to improve the quality of your content?  One simple way is to start paying attention to other people's content.  Retweeting a great tweet takes about a second, or maybe 30 seconds if you want to add a comment of your own.  Posting a link to a fascinating article or photo or video that someone else uploaded doesn't take much longer.  Actually creating quality content from scratch is certainly more of an investment, but if you do it in the spirit of generosity to your audience, that audience will reward your effort and your business will benefit.  Try it.  You'll see.”

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Figuring Out Social Media

To use social media or not to use social media…this seems to be an ever present question among business professionals.  Rarely can I research business-related topics and not come across some article touting the importance of social networking and/or the misuse of it. 

Most business executives understand that there is an untapped benefit to using social media to promote their business, but they do not know how to effectively harness it.  So, what does effective social networking look like?  In one word, “engagement.” 

Engagement isn’t about “likes” or how many “followers” you have.  That is fleeting at best, a one-time click.  Effective engagement comes from you (the seller/recruiter) connecting with your target audience on their playing field.  Trying to get people to listen to you or look at your pages is futile if you do not first reach out and engage them where they are. 

Author and consultant, Tom Searcy, concisely discusses four strategic principles in using social media in the sales process.  Once again, I can easily draw parallels to the recruiting arena.

“1. Getting more 'followers' is not a goal.

There is an implied causal link between 'followers' or 'likes' and real sales activity.  However, that link has low correlational accuracy.  Most people are talking about themselves and hoping you're listening.  Coupons, special offers, and event postings may get some strong responses from people who are already transactional customers.  But if the goal is to get qualified prospects, then you need different metrics for judging the success of your social selling.

2. Connection is not engagement.

Social selling is about engagement, and that comes from effective interaction.  Posting material in any form and simply waiting for your connections to respond is not engagement.  What are they posting that you are responding to?  Learn from those interactions.  You can't sell if you're just pushing messages and your expertise.

3. Buyers signal by declaring problems.

Listen for the buying signals from the social Web.  If you use a third-party tool, such as HootSuite, to compose your messages and read what your followers are writing, make full use of its search capabilities.  Look for certain key words as a way to listen for people who have a problem you can solve.  If you sell routers or servers, you can flag the word router or server failure, giving you a way to watch across all open platforms for anyone who uses the word.  You can even segment the search to a number of miles from your office location.

4. You are not in control.

Many sales folks believe this is the way the process works:  Get followers, and then provoke them to want what you sell through your posts.  The truth is, it rarely happens that way.  The reason is simple:  If you tweet, blog, or post about a solution, idea, or product that a person does not have, they won't necessarily connect with you.  If you are listening to the social Web and hear someone declare a problem that you can solve or a question that you can answer, giving you an opportunity to send a relevant response, then you are truly engaging.”

Value added content is still important and should be included in your Social Web strategy.  But, focusing on content alone, without the meaningful intention of engagement, will stifle your social media progress.  This is a broad topic and one we will continue to discuss in the coming weeks...

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The Secret Ingredient of Every Healthy Manager-Agent Relationship

It is pretty ironic that I find myself involved in the real estate industry.  My mother was, at any given point in my life, a bank manager, credit union mortgage officer, or the marketing director for several title companies.  Many of her very close friends are real estate agents.  

During a recent visit to see my mom, I spent a few minutes with one such woman, who started telling me how her manager could ask/tell her to do this, that or the other thing, but she didn't really have to act upon the request.  

“I’m an independent contractor, I don’t have to do any of that!” 

To some degree, the smugness of this comment surprised me since I've never really taken that stance when it comes to my own performance.  In fact, I found myself identifying with many of the real estate managers who have to work with the difficult agents who possess such a perspective.  

But thinking more about the exchange in the weeks following the visit, I started to have more sympathy for the frustration this agent was feeling.  Why did the agent feel so uninspired by her manager? Certainly, there had to be some fault on both sides of the relationship  that created strain and hindered it from blossoming into something more productive. 

As the conflict of the competing perspectives remained unresolved in recesses of my subconscious, the memory of the event was triggered when I came across an article written by business author, Jeff Haden.  Here is part of the article I found:

“Great leaders don't need to struggle to motivate, inspire, and lead their employees. Here's why.

I was struggling to engage the audience. Okay, be honest, I tried not to let it show but I was dying onstage.

So I took a different approach. "In one sentence, what is the key to leading people?" I asked.

So I asked the question and then paused to read the room. Some people looked down. Some looked away. As I expected, no one was going to answer. Cool.

I was about to speak when a voice broke the silence.

'I think I know,' a man sitting in the back corner said, somewhat hesitantly.

A few heads turned in his direction.

'No one cares how much you know until they first know how much you care about them.'

Wait--what?

'Can you repeat that?' I said.

'We think we have all the answers, and maybe we do, but that doesn't matter. No one cares how much you know until they first know how much you care about them,' he repeated.

He took the silence in the auditorium as disagreement.

'No, really,' he said, starting to sound more confident. 'Yeah we're in charge and yeah we talk about targets and goals and visions, but our [agents] don't care about any of that stuff for very long. We can communicate and engage and connect all we want, but no one really listens to us. They just smile and nod and go back to doing their jobs the way they always do.'

'Our employees don't really care about what we want them to do until they know how much we care about them. When an employee knows--truly knows--that you care about them, then they care about you. And when they know you care, they will listen to you... and they will do anything for you.'

Best answer ever.”  

Somehow, I don't think my mom's friend was convinced that her manager truly cared about her and had her best interests at heart.  Harsh comments, such as the one she delivered to a near stranger, suggest that she did not feel valued by her manager.  

Is the manager to blame?  Maybe, or maybe not. I didn't have any information about the manager (there may have been an unknown reason to devalue this agent). I do know that if you want any relationship to prosper, building upon the foundation of genuine care and concern is critical.

If you're feeling strain in the relationships with some of your agents, consider asking questions related to this topic.  At a minimum, you'll rekindle the fire of care and concern that needs to burn at the center of every healthy relationship.

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.