Providing Best-in-Class to Your Agents

Agents today have more options than ever of which brokerage they can take "their talents" to. The ability to attract, recruit, and retain top talent is more crucial than ever if your brokerage is going to dominate the competition in your market. What measures are you taking to ensure your business is the "it" place to work?

If it's been a while since you reviewed your brokerage resources for agents, perhaps it's time to take an internal audit and reassess your value proposition. Questions to consider:

• Why would agents want to work here?
• What do I offer agents that the competition does not?
• How do I help agents be more productive and focused on selling?

If these answers are not immediately coming to you, chances are there is something dated with your brokerage process. To get back on track, think two words: open platform.

An open real estate platform gives you the power to customize your brokerage to fit your brand and business needs. An open platform works like this: pick and choose, or "plug and play" from a wide range of options to provide the types of solutions that best fit your needs. Just like a power strip, you can connect the things you want at your brokerage, and not the other stuff.

Competitive Advantage #1 of an Open Platform: Customization. Tools and services come and go all the time. With an open platform, choose the right combination of CRM, CMA, Lead Management, Print, Intranet, etc. that works best for you and your agents. In other words, keep the products that are used most plugged in and sunset or unplug those that have fallen out of favor. The ability to customize your platform as needed empowers you to continuously providing best-in-class to your agents.

Competitive Advantage #2 of an Open Platform: Continuity. The power of having all of your tools plugged in and able to talk to one another in real-time should not be underestimated. If your agents know that their listing information will be shared and viewable from their CMA to the CRM, and even to digital advertising solutions like Facebook, how much more productive does that make your agents' time?

Competitive Advantage #3 of an Open Platform: Your Data. Why is data important? Think of brokerage data like digital currency; the more you have, the richer the intelligence and value proposition of your brokerage. If you can articulate both historical and current information data across property, brokerage, agent and consumers across all levels of your brokerage, the ability to identify new areas of business opportunity can be yours for the taking. Seriously.

Need help in determining your current brokerage proposition to agents? The first place to start: figure out which type of brokerage platform you have.

Download this handy checklist to determine which type of platform you currently have.