Retention Expert Offers 13 Ways to Keep Top Agents

Retention expert Eric Pearson has 13 ways to make sure good agents stay with his brokerage. He has a plan for agents in all stages of professional experience from trainee to team leader. Eric has decided to provide every possible tool and service they need to enjoy unfettered growth within Pearson Smith Realty – using leads from realtor.com.

How can you offer a program for new agents that won't be outgrown once they achieve success?

We have 13 different compensation models, so it's very customizable to the real estate agent in terms of what their needs are and where they are in their career.

The goal of our lead program is to generate revenue, but it also builds agents and helps them get to the next level. They don't always have the financial resources it takes to get out there and do online lead generation given today's cost. This is our way to help them grow and ultimately lead to a brokerage built off agent productivity.

What is your "starter package"?

We start newly licensed agents with a program on our All-Inclusive Lead Package. Basically, this provides agents with leads to get started -- and realtor.com is definitely one of our biggest sources. In addition to other syndicated sites, we also use pay-per-click and Facebook.

We teach and we train those agents how to convert. We currently provide leads to 125 of our agents on this package. They will probably make up around $750 million of our volume this year – and likely half a billion dollars in sales is from the brokerage supplied leads.

How much of your company business comes from leads?

From round numbers in terms of what we track, I'd say we're getting about a third of our business from online leads. Some of the other 750 agents associated with Pearson Smith Realty are doing online leads as well; they just do it at their own capacity and spend.

The rest is about 50 percent from our database / sphere of influence with a smaller percentage coming from other pillars that agents choose to attack—whether that's general networking, expired, withdrawn, FSBO, circle prospecting, door knocking and open houses.

Why so much emphasis on company paid leads for new agents?

It's a structured way to help an agent ramp up quickly. Everybody knows the main con in this business is that ramp up period. It takes an agent a year or so to get going and that could mess with mindset and frustration comes into play.

It's our way to say, "When you join our brokerage, you're going to be rocking and rolling in four months if you follow the business plan we lay out."

How do you help your agents convert?

The initial package is run very similar to a team. It doesn't have the constraints of a team, such as having to brand themselves to a team or having to have transactions and listings credited under the team leader's MLS. They're individual agents. They are just held to high accountability and performance metrics.

To back this up, we have coaches and mentors and people really putting in a lot of effort. This drives a lot of our revenue and what the main goal is honestly when an agent goes on that package at the end of year one they come in and say, "Hey, I closed 18 deals, Eric!"

I then ask, "How many were leads versus how many were personally generated business?" At the end of year one, it's typically, "Well 15 were leads and three were my own."

So they stay on the lead program—it only makes sense. It's going to help them continue to grow. It's also going to build their future and their database and SOI (sphere of influence).

How do you retain agents who have outgrown the starter program?

At the end of year two, I usually see it shift and be a little bit different of a story. "Hey Eric, I closed 30 deals. Fifteen were leads, 15 were my own."

I'm usually telling them at that time, "We have several other packages in our brokerage that may be a better fit for you now because your business is rocking and rolling."

At that point, they usually make that transition. At the same time, we fill an agent into a new lead spot and repeat the process.

How did you decide on 13 packages?

Currently, it's 13. We probably will narrow it down some. It's not like you go from needing leads to all of a sudden, "I just want to be a complete individual agent."

The progression is typically "I need leads," and in that package, we're also paying for everything for them -- we paid for all the listing expenses, transaction coordinators, etc. This allows them to focus on servicing clients and growing their business.

The next progression for a lot of people is "My business is built up. I don't need the leads anymore, but I want to increase my compensation."

They may still not quite be ready to lose that coverage of the other items when they get a listing. They still want the brokerage to cover the expenses involved in that transaction. This allows them to invest in their own lead generation without having to worry about some of the additional expenses, and in additional help with bandwidth.

And the top people who may not need as much help?

Eventually, they want to be an individual agent. It gets a little bit more about compensation and you see someone say, "I no longer need leads, I no longer need the services. Now I just want to go out there build my own procedures and processes and go prosper." So they typically jump to that package then.

Do you have a place for starting a team?

Yes we have team packages. Our ultimate goal is never have a ceiling for an agent. We have 13 total packages, but with each one usually compensation rises, and they lose some of the services from the brokerage because they don't feel they needed them anymore and they would rather run it their own way.

Can an agent change their mind?

It's very customizable. We allow the agents to choose every quarter. You hear it every day from everybody else that "This is an agent centric environment."

We truly believe our job is to serve our real estate agents, and if we do that the right way, those agents are going to take such great care of their clients. It's going to be a win-win all the way around.

We put a lot of pride into that—so it's not just in terms of our packages. We have the best brokerage recruiting incentives. You hear a lot about the profit share models and all those different things. Ours is a revenue share based model and more lucrative then any other brokerage out there.

Is this helping you compete in your market?

From a tech perspective, they get everything. This is every agent in the brokerage—from the CRM, to leads, and a number of top level tech tools that are coming at no cost to those agents.

We're transitioning into another level in 2019 where we will make it even more customizable for agents. I'm super excited about that because it's going to allow agents almost on a transaction to transaction basis to determine what they feel they need during that time.

When I look at real estate brokerage in general, it's basically going the way of discount, the way of tech companies that may offer discounts with the goal of one day replacing the agent.

My goal is to give the agent everything possible from compensation, training, best in class technology, leads, ability to scale, etc. End of the day, if we service our agents correctly, my belief is having highly skilled agents that offer amazing customer service will win against the disruptors all day long.

Are the realtor.com customers receptive to your agents and converting?

I'm extremely happy with realtor.com. We run our numbers every day and it offers an incredible ROI. Agents need to give it time. When we put someone on to our lead packages for four months, we don't expect anything to happen right away. Most agents get a realtor.com lead and expect to convert the first one or two. But in reality, we're bringing an incredible amount of those to conversation and getting the highest conversion to closing in terms of any other source that we have.

I cannot speak any more highly of what realtor.com is doing. There's a huge difference between a voluntary inquiry on a specific property. When I get that realtor.com lead, that person could be hot that day because they've been on realtor.com for one month already searching and they voluntarily push that button to make that inquiry -- so it's far and away the best online lead you can get out there, in my opinion.

As long as somebody is able to give it the time needed and the investment needed to get the number of leads to actually get to a conversion-to-close ratio, there's not a better purchase in the industry, in my opinion.

How do you get agents engaged with the leads?

If you're on leads with us, you'll have a day that is your day to receive leads. It's nothing but constant training, coaching, kickoff off meetings, scripting—whatever is needed so that the agent is constantly learning and understanding how to get the best conversion possible.

We give them a lot of time to get going. We put them in a process where they're getting the coaching/mentorship everything that they need from one another to make sure they're in a position while they'll be able to have speed to lead and then set them up with a CRM that's going to let them see a high level of success.

What differentiates the Pearson Smith company?

Culture, in my opinion, is our biggest value proposition in terms of things that we do and what comes from the management down. It's open door policy. We're here every single day. We're the first one in and the last one out. I'm kind of the real estate side of things, which is the Pearson; the Smith is my uncle Chuck, who comes from the corporate world and runs an incredibly efficient back-end operation.

How do you encourage innovation and idea sharing?

I literally read everything that comes through here. If an agent has an idea or suggestion that we feel we can implement and at a high level, and it makes sense, we're definitely going to make sure we do that.

We have cultural things that we do, whether it's a Saint Patrick's Day party or the annual crab fest. We bring in bands and make sure we're inviting families and things like to meet not only the agent, but the people that are important to them to be successful in the business. We all know it takes a lot of sacrifice to be a significant other of a real estate agent because they're often on-call 24/7, so we want to appreciate them as well.

So back to where we started: what is your goal in making your company a place that an agent would never want to leave?

I want them to grow and achieve their goals with no limits. If a person is a good fit from a character level, believes our core values and overall vision, there is not a brokerage in the industry that offers or cares for their agents more than us.