3 Breakthroughs Learned From Three 7-Figure Agents

If you asked three 7-figure agents a single burning question and they all answered it the exact same way, would you apply their insight?

 

Well, that’s exactly what happened to me recently.

 

I was able to interview a line-up of rock star agents. Including three 7-figure heavy hitters - Amanda Howard, Kris Weaver, and Jeff Cohn.

 

And while I asked them a lot of questions, I also asked each of them the same question:

 

“Looking back to the beginning of your career, what were the major things you learned or mastered such that once you did your business grew dramatically?”

 

...and all three answered it the exact same way, without having heard the other’s answers.

 

Interested in know their answer to such a challenging question?

 

Each of their answers had the same three breakthroughs...

 

Breakthrough #1: Mastering High ROI Productivity

 

The first thing each of them shared as their first breakthrough was learning how to master productivity.

 

Specifically, time management.

 

Now, here I am, talking to agents who did 600-710 deals last year (2016) and the first thing they open with is “time management”.

 

It felt a bit underwhelming, ya know?

 

But that’s exactly what they said.

 

Each of their first big breakthroughs came when they learned how to manage their time to prioritize for revenue producing activity. And just as importantly, stuck to their planned schedule no matter what.

 

One of their pro tips for accomplishing this was “making the first things first”.

 

Meaning, whatever your most productive ROI activity goals or tasks are for the day, do them earlier in the day. Because as the day goes on, you’ll get pulled in all sorts of directions, and you will be less likely to accomplish your revenue critical priorities.

 

Breakthrough #2: Building a Team

 

The next thing they each shared as their biggest breakthrough was building a team.

 

Specifically, hiring for two types of roles quickly:

 

•     Non-revenue producing, repetitive tasks
•     Revenue critical management positions

 

The first was just about freeing up their time as much as possible to focus on getting revenue producing time into the day.

 

But that has it’s limits.

 

Even after hiring assistants, they could only squeeze out a few more revenue productive hours per day at maximum.

 

The key growth came from the second types of hires, the revenue critical management positions.

 

The three specific positions were:

 

• “Client to Closing” admin roles - which were transaction coordinator managers, listing managers, and operations managers.
• Inbound “Client Producing” marketing and sales roles - which were marketing managers focused on activities like social media marketing, and ISA’s focused on answering inbound calls.
• Outbound “Client Producing” marketing and sales roles - which were marketing managers focused on things like launching and managing direct mail campaigns and database marketing, and ISA’s doing Circle, Expireds, and FSBO prospecting.

 

Their pro tip for hiring for revenue critical roles is to make a list of two things:

 

•     List out where you’re feeling the most personal pain in your business
•     List out where you are having your biggest bottlenecks in your business

 

Anything that pops up on both lists needs to be hired for and solved for by the related role.

 

To help figure out what you should be getting from any specific hire, you can download our free team member cheat sheets that will show you exactly what you should be getting out of your hires.

 

Breakthrough #3: Harnessing Leadership

 

The final point of massive growth for each of these heavy hitters came through learning and applying leadership.

 

Shifting their role from a lot of client interaction to team building and development.

 

Specifically focusing on making sure they had all the right people in the right seats. And that each of those team members was equipped with whatever tools, training, and resources they needed to be effective.

 

Their pro tip leadership is to understand that your team members aren’t going to ever get excited about growing your personal bank account.

 

The key is to create a vision, mission, and culture with:

 

•     A sense of purpose and contribution.
•     A path for personal growth, development, and fulfillment for each team member.

 

Amanda Howard, as one culture shift tweak, focuses on “how many families they serve every year” instead of how many transactions they will do.

 

And they served 710 families in 2016.

 

You also want to keep team members engaged by always making opportunities available for them to grow into.

 

Great teams are constantly promoting internally those who want to grow, and hiring externally to replace them. Since your existing team already knows your process, systems, culture, vision, and mission best.

 

If you want to see how your current teams org chart compares to how our 7-figure clients like Ben Kinney, Lisa Archer, and Tristan Ahumada are building their businesses, so you can model what they’re doing, you can attend one of our free weekly webinars on building high performance teams.