Team planning for Battle
We can now publish a page to help principals better understand how it will be possible to increase sales, using a team format.
We will explain it by talking about the War Room where the war is planned, plus the different teams on the battlefield.
It will also become clear why we recommend that a principal focus on certain tasks and not being a fulltime agent him/herself.
A principal who can lead the team has other tasks that also require time. To lead, the principal requires information. You can only plan your WAR if you have information that you can use to make decisions on.
It is furthermore important to show the team that you provide guidance. You hand out tasks, and then you monitor that these tasks are completed within a short period.
Principal
Stock
Controller
It is SIMPLE to win the WAR. You only need many mandates, preferably within the shortest time, so that the agents can present all the available options to people who want to buy.
It is impossible to force a client into a contract… You therefore need to work with people who require your service. People who value your support.
There is one enemy that can ruin the agency. That is TIME. The company can close doors if agents are slow to support people who asked for their support.
Each person in the team should know that the principal monitor time delays.
Our focus is to help principals reduce the average time delay per suburb, where our partners are contacted after opposition for marketing support.
We also need to help the team so that they will not be concerned about finances. They must TRUST the principal and his/her battle strategy.
The following pictures will explain our support plan:
In War Room
Conveyance Administrator
Principal
Stock-Controller
Suzaan Le Roux
Bernard Grobler
Matilda Meintjies
Infintry
On the Battlefield
Snipers
Brenda Els
Eugene Maqwelana
Dawie Smith
Linda Gouws
Bernard Grobler
Xolela Phike
Infantry
You cannot setup an army without these important soldiers. There will be no “War Room” without the infantry…
The objective is to use the rookies as infantry. The agents should understand that in the Battle Strategy, each soldier plays an important role. The Snipers relies on them, the command officers rely om them, and the fellow infantry soldiers relies on the individual.
The rookies should understand that it takes time to be selected as part of the sniping team. This platform is where they are trained and protected until they have the skill set to join the sniping team.
We suggested to the principals that they should consider changing their commission structures is such a way to financially reward people for listings better. (30% of agent’s split for listing and 10% of agent’s split for notifying Stock Controller about the listing)
The easiest task of being an agent is to do the property listing. Training to complete this task successfully can be completed within a week after the agent joined the team.
It is easier for the rookies to feel save in their career when they know that the snipers can sell their listings and that a large portion of the commission will be paid to them for completing the listing process.
We suggest that principals explain to the new employees that the process will start to be in the infantry team for at least a year, before they can receive additional training to join the sniping team.
Being in the infantry, most of your energy will go into listings, you will get trained to negotiate sole mandates, and you will work with buyers. It is just that a larger portion of your time will be allocated to listings.
Snipers
The sniping team will be the most experienced agents. We explain to them that they will often be called upon to help with listings, if the Stock Controller have to many listings that must be completed within a short time span.
They will find it easier to sell, if they are backed with a high stock level structure.
These agents will be called upon to negotiate sole mandates, and to work with buyers. (Only a portion of the buyers, as Infantry also need access to buyers.)
The principal might also assist these agents with sole mandate negotiations and to work with buyers. This is if there is available time to assist.
Ratio between Snipers and Infantry
The best strategy would be to work on a ratio 2 infantry soldiers to support 1 sniper. When the agency employs 15 agents, the sniping team could consist of 5 agents.
Team size
We use an example on the website where XYZ properties only employ 5 agents. Most of the agencies operating in Category A towns in our structure will employ more than 10 agents. The ideal is to employ 15 agents in larger cities. (All depends on the number of registrations the marketing area provide)
In our example, we allocated Focus/Farming areas to the two snipers (Linda Gouws and Xolela Phike) In the ideal world, the farming areas will only be allocated to the Infantry, and the Snipers will take up areas for short periods while the principal interview new recruits to replace infantry that were asked to resign if they could not succeed.
Income for Snipers
The Snipers will on average earn 60% of the agent’s split. They will earn sole mandate commission and sales commission. (Remember that they will also occasionally earn Listing commission on properties they were required to list)
When the agents function as a TEAM, stock levels will be higher, and the success of the Snipers will be better. The snipers will earn more salary when they are backed by a well-trained Infantry team.
The snipers should sell approximately 3 properties per month. (The infantry should sell approximately 2 properties in a 3-month cycle after we completed our support structure.)
Advantage of adjusting listing commission
Most important aspect of our suggestion to increase income for listings is that the principal will not be viewed as an Opposition by its own agents when the team understand that the principal will in most cases not be called upon to “List” properties. The principal sell properties to help the Infantry remains in tack. The principal will receive between 40% and 60% of the commission, depending on if it was a Sole Mandate or not.
We do not recommend that principals sell personally, but this financial structure will not harm the relationship between principal and agents if the fee structure is adjusted.
Principal and team in WAR Room
The battle strategy is managed by the War Room team. The Homecare team will assist principals with numerous reports to ensure that the battle is won.
We just want to point out some important reports for principals to read.
Stock-Controller
This person might be the busiest person in the company. He/she cannot leave the team unattended.
The stock controller must provide the principal daily two important reports.
-
Outstanding Listing Report
We already published an example of such report. The principal need to monitor this report daily.
-
Buyer Exposed Report
We have not published an example of this report on the website. We explain in short that the Stock Controller must daily use the Property Introduction Documents per client and fill in a report of how many properties were shown the client. The Stock Controller must compare how many properties could have been showed to the client. The report will then show a percentage of exposure the agent managed.
This will force the agent (specially Infantry) to show clients all the available options. It is often this mistake where agents think that they know what the client want that they loose deals.
It often happens that clients will buy a property that is in the books by another agent where your agent has not exposed that property.
There will be other weekly reports that we will also discuss with partners
Conveyance Administrator
The principal should on a weekly basis receive an Agent&Finance Report. This report will be about the predicted cashflow position of the agents individually and the team in total.
This report will also warn the principal of possible risks specifically where an individual might become negative about being in the team.
It is better to be pro-active and to use the Stock-Controller to allocate work towards that specific person so that the emotional state of the agent can be protected.
We will help principals individually after they joined our team.