What do investors need to know when starting a real estate team?
An area that remains an afterthought for many beginner investors is hiring a business team. Although it’s only natural to try and do everything yourself, starting a real estate team can add an assortment of powerful elements to your business, including complementary skill sets, knowledge and resources. The team concept aims to not only enhance the overall landscape of a business, but keep it running smoothly and effectively as possible. Done right, starting a real estate team can streamline operations to obtain much bigger things than you could have ever achieved alone.
One of the more important things to remember when starting a real estate team is that success starts from the top down. Developing a winning team demands a multitude of ingredients, but more importantly, it takes leadership. You need to have both the vision and determination to achieve your goals, but also the insight to call on additional pieces when needed. Leadership is about putting the missing pieces of your business puzzle together to unlock its success.
The following highlights five things to remember when starting a real estate team:
Starting A Real Estate Team: 5 Things To Remember
1. It’s All About The Self-Evaluation
The objective of starting a real estate team is to not only highlight your strengths, but also compliment your weaknesses. Finding those that thrive in what you lack will entail a unique approach, but it will almost always include self-evaluation. As the key to building a successful real estate team, this examination will reveal where you excel, highlight where you can improve, and ultimately provide a roadmap to where you should begin building your team.
Remember to conduct an honest evaluation, as it will encompass both your skills and your ambitions. The idea is to align yourself with the tasks you enjoy and excel in.
2. A Business Plan Is A Must-Have
A real estate business plan provides structure, vision and direction. When assembling your dream team, a business plan will play a pivotal role in positioning your incoming team with your objectives. Your real estate goals are fraught with challenges from day one, and devising a business plan will help to not only spotlight your destination, but give directions to reach it.
The general structure of a business plan is comprised of the following:
- Vision: What is your primary objective?
- Goals: What are your short-term targets and long-term objectives?
- SWOT Analysis: Identifies your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Marketing Plan: Similar to a business plan, this will outline how you intend to deploy your marketing efforts.
- Financing Plan: This segment explains your financials and how your intend to acquire investments.
- Teams & Small Business Systems: This section breaks down how your real estate team, including the processes in place, will achieve your vision.
- Exit Strategies & Backup Plans: As a business, it’s always important to have a clear understanding of how you intend to make money. In fact it should be crystal clear; this explains it, including backup options if needed.
The purpose of a business plan is to not only emphasize your goals and the steps to get it, but ensure everyone on the team (new and old) is on the same page. This document will be instrumental in aligning your team for success.
3. Shared Vision Is Crucial
A major element to building a business that will last for years is finding people that share your vision. When starting a real estate team, it’s important to not only retain qualified and experienced personnel, but also those that possess the same passion as you, as they will essentially serve to capture it. In sharing common goals and aspirations, your team will work together to form a better team, encouraging and supporting one another in a collaborative environment.
Finally, it’s not only important to hire those that share your vision, but those that would fight to see it come to fruition. Passion and attitude go a long way in the workforce, especially when goals and vision are shared. That said, investors should try asking for referrals from well-known resources and references. This will provide the best option out the gate.
4. Find Complementary Strengths
A business consists of a hierarchy of roles working together to achieve one common vision. Having a clear understanding of where you fall short will ultimately help in assembling your real estate team, as you’ll be able to match jobs to people’s strengths. It’s an arrangement that will depend heavily on your self evaluation. However, when teams have complementary talents, their ability to overcome adversity and challenges is heightened dramatically.
The first step is to establish your areas of strength and where you contribute; only then can you fill the gaps. Instead of hiring those with similar strengths or personality traits, it’s important to acquire a supporting cast that elevates your business to the next level. This will ensure the fundamentals of your business are not only sound, but optimized moving forward.
5. Track Results
One of the biggest mistakes investors making when running a business is not tracking and managing results. When starting a real estate team, it’s critical that you maintain how your employees perform, as this will assess what areas need improvement and how you can assist. As an investor, you want to integrate proven systems and processes into your business model, which will allow you to oversee the performance of your business, including the inner workings and position within the company.
Starting a real estate team offers immense upside as a beginner investor. Unfortunately, good employees don’t grow on trees, so it will require extensive diligence on the part of the investor to make sure they not only find quality employees — and position them for success — but lead them to victory. Like anything worth doing, it’s a process that takes time, dedication and resilience.
