During a recent interview with Brad Inman, mega-team leader and tech entrepreneur Ben Kinney shared how he’s preparing for the choppy economic waters that may lie ahead.
He used the analogy of a bear being on a hill outside of your camp to describe the challenges facing the real estate market.
No one can tell if the bear will come into the camp and cause problems or keep walking along the hill. But you must prepare for the possibility the bear will come your way.
To prepare for potential difficulties, he suggests that brokerages and teams focus on the three most important jobs of running a real estate brokerage or team:
1.  Attract talent in sales and operational roles.   You need to get focused and spend the majority of your time doing this.  Dedicate resources and time to this task.
2.  Once you attract the talent, get them into production.   It doesn’t matter if you have hundreds of thousands of real estate agents if they’re not productive.  You need to hire the right people and get them into production as quickly as possible.
3.  Plug the hole in your bucket.   Do everything you can to keep the mid-range agents (18 – 36 transactions /year) from leaving your company.  Let the bottom tier leave, and the top agents are your second priority.  The middle group are the most vulnerable and will hurt your business the most if they leave.
Recruiting and retention are the top priorities of high performing real estate organizations in all market conditions, but especially during times of uncertainty.
If the bear walks into your camp, what will he find you doing?
