Flight Risks and Brown-Grassers

by | Oct 21, 2021

If retention worries keep you up at night, you may want to implement one of John Sullivan’s retention techniques.

It’s a little more complex than some of the other ideas I’ve shared in previous Insights, but worth the effort.

Identify the flight risks.

Develop a process for estimating who among your most valuable agents are most likely to leave.

Someone within your team always knows who’s frustrated.

Ask your “superknowers” (internal gossip trackers) to provide you with guidance.

Connect them with your brown-grassers.

Many agents leave because they mistakenly think that the grass will be greener at other organizations.

Those who rejoin the company after such an experience are known as brown-grassers.

To execute this technique, you’ll need to maintain a close relationship and open dialog with many of the agents in your office.

Hopefully, you’re doing this already as this is the foundational component of all other retention techniques.

As an added bonus, you may want to record a quick video interview with a couple of your brown-grassers.

Here is an example of company who published a Grass Isn’t Greener Interview.

Could you make a video like this for your office?

 

The Simple Psychology of Real Estate Recruiting [2nd Edition]

Unlock the secrets of effective real estate recruiting. Revised to include actionable frameworks for sharper execution and to help you turn psychological theory into a repeatable recruiting system.

The Attrition Variables

The Attrition Variables

While these attrition constants still have the greatest influence, there are some emerging attrition variables worth noting. People also tend to leave companies when: They feel like they’re not doing as well as others in their peer group outside the company. They feel like they’re not as far along as they should be at a certain point in life.

The Attrition Constants

The Attrition Constants

If you’re not focusing most of your retention effort on these issues, you’ll miss the mark. If you’re not focusing most of your recruiting effort on exploiting these weaknesses among your competitors, you’re missing the best opportunities.

The Persistence Mindset

The Persistence Mindset

A leader equipped with this mindset can have a profound effect on the life and career of each individual they engage. It works because an agent is getting a real-time glimpse of what it would be like to work on your team. But it only becomes believable when it is persistently applied over time.