Why you need a real estate broker management solution

‍

Do you feel like you haven’t quite hit your business targets over the past year? It’s common for brokers to feel like they haven’t been doing well enough - like they haven’t achieved their targets. But often that’s just a feeling.

The real questions are:

1. Has my business grown enough over the past year?
2. What can I do over the next year to ensure continued or increased growth?

To answer those questions, you’ll need a lot of information.

Of course you’ll need to know how much you’ve been producing. But you’ll also need to know how that production came about: which agents that produced most? Which teams were the most successful? What are the most profitable lead sources?

The only way to answer these questions is to incorporate a robust broker management solution into your business.

This will help you grow every year. Most solutions are scalable, so as you expand, they’ll growth with your business needs.

Can’t I just use spreadsheets?

A lot of brokerages use spreadsheets and other generic tools to run their business. This is probably fine to get started -- at least it’s much better than running your business off an old fashioned paper notebook.

Still, you’ll run into the limitations of spreadsheets very soon -- talk to any broker who uses them and you’ll hear countless stories of corrupted files or spreadsheets running wild because one row was added in the wrong place. Most brokers share spreadsheets with their agents. It just takes one person to make a mistake and the whole thing blows up in your face.

Broker management tools generally are much more solid and secure. Information is stored and backed-up in the cloud, inputting information is easy and agents can only edit the data they need to edit.

Do I need automation in my brokerage?

As a real estate broker, your business success depends on increasingly volatile real estate markets that can change almost overnight.

So there’s a lot of insecurity. Still, one thing you can be sure of is that real estate will become an increasingly automated industry. Pretty much everything outside the face-to-face sales process will be automated to save time and money! And if you don’t do it, you can bet your competitors will.

Get some help managing agents

Managing real estate agent is no easy feat! Real estate agents are known for their fiercely independent outlook on work and life -- these qualities help them be great agents, but equally make it difficult for anyone managing them to keep oversight.

Most agents don’t want to be bogged down at the office in countless meetings, and they certainly don’t want to spend time combing through spreadsheets. To maximize the time they spend with clients, it’s important to make their life as easy as possible.

With a robust broker management solution, you’ll be able to track agent’s work, set goals and targets and review their performance. Ideally, your management tool should be integrated with other tools, so that inputting information won’t cost agents any more time than necessary. Once you’ve got this set up, you’ll know what your agents are up to at all times -- you’ll see who’s performing well and who might need more support.

See what’s coming using pipeline forecasting

Knowledge is power -- it’s the old saying that’s still as true now as it was 2000 years ago. And especially powerful knowledge is knowledge about the future.

If you keep track of what’s coming your way, you’ll always be able to adjust your strategy early on. Based on the knowledge you have about your agents’ upcoming deals, you can predict your own office’s production and profits. And -- almost more importantly -- you’ll get an even better feel for the local market.

Conclusion

Real estate has become a cutting edge industry that keeps changing and developing. Although the basics stay the same, it’s crucial for any brokerage to keep up with the latest technology. If you make the switch sooner, you’re more likely to stay ahead of your competition, attract the best agents and continue to grow your business.

‍