Greenspan: The broker who never saw it coming

I’ve been speaking with a lot of broker-owners, and I’m finding some real commonalities, concerns and patterns happening right now as a result of this current market, and our overall economy.

It’s not that they’re doing a bad job. Actually, it’s quite the opposite — I think most are working incredibly hard right now.

That said, many are under a kind of pressure they’ve never experienced before… or for some, it’s been 20 years since things have been this way.

Market volume is down in the country’s largest markets. Expenses continue to climb. Recruiting isn’t as easy as it once was. Agent production is inconsistent. Margins are tighter.

It’s a heavy hat to wear right now. Thing is, that’s reality for most business owners. This is not solely isolated to our industry here in real estate.

But sometimes, when you’re carrying that much weight, you stop looking ahead. You become consumed with today. You spend your time solving the next problem instead of building the next opportunity.

Yes, it’s normal as a business owner, but that’s where I think many brokerages are getting themselves into trouble — they’re reacting emotionally, rather than leading strategically.

The leadership mirror

Every broker I know and speak with wants the same things for their agents — be more disciplined, prospect consistently, use your CRM, do your follow-up, invest in your business… stop waiting for the phone to ring, treat this like a real business!

And yes, they’re all good messages, but here’s the question I keep coming back to — are broker-owners living by the same standards you’re asking of your agents?

If you’re encouraging agents to invest in coaching, when was the last time you invested in your own development?

If you’re asking agents to embrace change, what meaningful changes have you made to your brokerage over the past year?

If you’re asking agents to market themselves consistently, what are you doing to market your brokerage beyond recruiting ads?

Leadership has always been about… “leading by example.”

That hasn’t changed and it never will.

Waiting is not a strategy

One conversation that keeps happening is people keep saying — “we’re going to hold off for now”… “we’ll revisit it in the fall”… “let’s see what the market does”…

Look — I understand the thinking, especially at a time like right now when this market hasn’t been as hot as anyone would like it to be.

It’s just math — when revenue is slower, not spending more money seems like the logical approach.

But leadership has always required making decisions before certainty exists. Agents don’t build pipeline after they need business. They build it before. And the same principle applies to brokerages, it is no different. In fact, it applies to any business or business owner.

Think about it — the businesses… the offices… that will be strongest two years from now won’t be the ones that waited for confidence to return. Instead, they’ll be the ones that continued strategizing, investing and building while everyone else sat around just “waiting” for things to change.

This is very similar to the mindset people had during the pandemic… when everyone was on lockdown just waiting for the green light that it was safe to go back to normal day-to-day life.

A lot of people… in fact “most people” did exactly that — they just waited around. While a small group of others took advantage of the time, the change of pace, and used it as an opportunity to find their next opportunity for growth.

In this case right now — training, systems, leadership, culture, technology, outside expertise — these are the parts of your business where you have time to grow right now.

We both know it, when things are busy, there isn’t as much time to think and implement.

When things are slower, although money may not be flowing as freely, it’s strategic survival to make investments now that will create future revenue for tomorrow.

This right now is your moment.

Your greatest asset is already inside the building

One trend has puzzled me for years: many brokerages spend a ton of energy trying to recruit new agents while spending surprisingly little time helping the agents they already have become dramatically better.

Recruiting matters. Growth matters.

But imagine if the same energy spent chasing the next recruit was redirected toward improving the productivity of the existing office…

What happens if your average agent closes two more transactions this year? Or what about three or even five more?

What happens to retention for you? What happens to your internal office culture? What about your profitability? And what about your own confidence?

At some point, developing your existing people becomes the best recruiting strategy you have.

Successful agents attract successful agents. Not billboards. Not dance parties. Not pizza lunches. Not just another recruiting event.

It comes down to relationships, to support and to whether or not the person leading the agents (you) is going to deliver the value they need to help them succeed.

There are a lot of other owners out there always coming for your people — so what are you doing to ensure you make that next to impossible?

Those agents are your greatest asset.

Stop trying to be everything

This is another area where I think brokerages are struggling —

Some believe every solution has to come from inside the office… but that too was a “pandemic mindset.”

Everything being done internally… training, coaching, accountability, marketing… everything!

But why? Professional sports organizations hire specialists. Large corporations hire consultants. CEOs hire executive coaches. The best leaders in the world actively look for outside perspectives because they understand blind spots exist.

Brokerages should be no different.

Sometimes your agents need to hear a different voice, and sometimes you need one too.

That’s not weakness, and that’s not just another expense… it’s leadership!

Technology won’t save weak leadership

AI has become the conversation everyone wants to have.

And to some degree, yes, it should be, because it’s changing our industry quickly… but I worry we’re having the wrong conversation about it all.

We’re teaching agents how to use AI. And most agents I challenge with how they are using it all seem to be exploring solutions for how they can leverage AI to help them with efficiencies, and this usually means using the AI in a way that puts the technology wedge in between them and their client, which inevitably creates an environment for the client where the overall service experience is soft, and in many cases with larger organizations actually frustrates people and causes a negative experience that people will talk about.

So the question is, as we talk more and more about AI — are we actually teaching agents how to become more valuable because of it?

There’s a big difference in those two approaches. Technology should create more time for conversations, not replace conversations. It should improve client experiences, not automate relationships. It should strengthen professionalism, not become a shortcut around it.

The brokerages that thrive over the next decade will be the ones that build the best people. It’s not as simple as just being the ones with the best technology.

Technology can amplify leadership, but it cannot and should not replace it… at least not in a “people business.”

The broker who never saw it coming

The broker who struggles five years from now probably won’t blame themselves. Instead, they’ll blame the market, the AI, the interest rates, the lack of quality recruiting, the agent demands, the commission pressure, the overall economy, and even the consumers, as I said back in my June column.

But I don’t think any of those will be the real story.

The real story will instead be that somewhere along the way they stopped asking the most important question a leader can ask: “How do I help my people become better?”

Because that’s the business. Always has been. This isn’t simply about recruiting, retention, technology or awards.

This is about helping people become better.

If brokerages make that their obsession again, everything else has a much better chance of taking care of itself.

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