Real estate organizations need to lead their people by the numbers. We are often disengaged when we are given a job without direction. The numbers you give your team members to reach offer them purpose and meaning.   Research from a popular 1981 article entitled, How to Retain Real Estate Sales People, expresses how real estate brokers and managers believed that money was the only important motivator for salespeople. This could not be further from the truth. The biggest mistake Realtors make, when attempting to engage and retain talent, is thinking retention is based on income or pay. Retention comes when a staff member is fully engaged.  Engagement happens when managers follow the Leadership Engagement Process and the second step is ensuring the entire staff knows their number. Each position within the organization should be measured with a number.   The biggest mistake successful Realtors make, once they figure out number measurement is thinking that every p

Jolene is a Mother, Structural Engineer, Network Marketer, and an Expert at Facebook Live. It was a Tuesday at noon. I was speaking to the St. Louis Small Business Owners Meetup Group. The topic was “Social Media Marketing is Dead, Social Team Engagement is in!” Jolene was there because the topic was fascinating; being that she helps market new and exciting businesses via Facebook Live. More on Facebook Live in a second… Jolene sat in the second row and participated. She shared her experience in leadership with the group. Genuine and authentic are buzzwords in social media marketing, but they truly describe her personality, and the group learned a lot about engagement from her. Businesses need to develop and engage everyone on their team and that includes customer advocates, employees, contractors, and other constituents. The big idea from my talk was, “The message to develop leaders doesn’t change, only the medium does!” The social team engagement event ended and I did no

Social Media Works Best to Engage Your Team! Gary Vanderchuck, Grant Cardone, John Lee Dumas, and even Yes Pat Flynn have you working hard for them, but not yourself. Social media has become virtual reality where people can escape from their real lives and hide from work. There is no substitute for actual hard work!  Two days ago I caught a team member browsing facbook and I just simply asked them what are they working on? Their response was slick, “Social Media Marketing.“ How much money are you really making with social media marketing? Really ask yourself. Social Media is dead! Completely dead! It is a waste of time, energy, effort, and resources? Do you really think you are winning customers looking at cat videos and/or marketing on facebook, twitter, linkedin, or any other social media platform? Do you think you are gaining customers playing Pokemon’ Go? Media is media and the big media giants still control the audience and the attention. Stop thinking that you a

At 7:00 am I posted a video for my sales team to watch. At 7:15 I asked the question, “What are your current goals for today? How many? By When?” This type of communication used to require me to drive to the office, hold a meeting, ask in person or wait for a response via email. At minimum It would require everyone to dial into a conference call. Because of the nature of email, I may or may not have received a response. Now with a quick “post” my sales team is motivated and committed to their goal for the day. These this type of cultural leadership changes have freed up the most valuable resource I have as a leader, time. In 2015 there was a white paper entitled Motivational Drives of Content Contribution to Company- Versus Consumer- Hosted Online Communities, and the authors wrote, “The results reveal that opinion leadership, self-presentation, and enjoyment positively affect content contribution; altruism negatively affects content contribution. In company-hosted online c

If companies can measure their customer engagement through social media, can they also measure employee engagement? “Social media channels enable brands and companies to engage with consumers on their own terms, when they want, at work and play, through their chosen channels” (Stone, & Woodcock, 2013). It was 3:00 pm and I get a call from another department manager. “Nathan, I can't get my staff to do their job,” he said in frustration! “How vague,” I said. It is probably because you are trying to control your staff vs. influence them. Next, I asked a question, “How involved are you, with your staff, on social media?” Social media is the new relationship building. While I definitely believe managers should keep their professional distance, it is important to engage your team in the social conversation. Of course you should check with HR and your direct supervisor before you proceed, however today's teams communicate via social apps like facebook, slack, twitter, and

It was 5:00 am, we had just started our walk. My friend, who is in an MBA program, leans over the side of the treadmill and asks this question, “What is the hardest thing leaders do?” I thought about it for one minuet and then I said, ‘” The hardest thing about being a strong leader is that I want my team to improve sometimes more than they want it themselves. It is difficult to help your staff find the drive to improve themselves, I wish I could get them to read, listen to podcasts, take courses or invest in their own development.” Being driven myself to succeed is the only thing I can attribute the moderate success I have had in my life.   “Human resource development (HRD) means competence building, commitment building, and culture building” (Kundu & Vora, 2004) . Underdeveloped staff cost organization millions of dollars. “In order to keep on delivering high-quality performance, it is of vital importance to invest in the employees by enabling and encouraging them to c

“I can’t get them to report their numbers,” he said with some frustration. It wasn’t just the reporting of the numbers that was an issue for this sales manager, it was the productivity of the entire team that was down, as well. This manager was more than frustrated, he was border line discouraged. I often heard, during our one-on-one coaching sessions, there was not enough time to ensure the numbers were reported. He would say, “The staff was already overloaded.” He would express to me that his organization was, “Short staffed and it wasn’t the staffs fault” Delegation of his tasks were not an option because the current assignments that he delegated were not being completed. I told him that if he was going to be a great leader, then he must embrace evolution management. Does the case above seem all too familiar? In the book, Servant-leadership Across Cultures: Harnessing the Strength of the World's Most Powerful Management Philosophy , the authors express the following abo

The concept of horizontal leadership was very obvious within a mentor of mine. He was the property manager of a 606 unit apartment community. He was responsible for leading 25 employees and over 900 tenants. Sean was a very effective leader. He had this ability to help people reach their full potential, and in turn the organization grew leaps and bounds. One day I ask Sean, “how are you such a great leader?” his answer was profound he said, “I ask others for advise.” What do most people think of when they hear the word “leader?” I have asked over 300 realtors, property managers, and investors this very question. Their answers include words like, “authority, strong, powerful, a person who has followers, the boss that makes decisions, servant, likable, and courageous.” People tend to associate a leader as a person who is “over” a group of people. Think organizational chart: Leader Follower Google’s dictionary defines leadership as one’s ability to influence peop

In 2005, 10 years ago, I was on the Executive Board of a Lindenwood Student Organization. We thought it was time to implement a rewards system that would further ingrain these six values in all the students that went through the program. We thought of these six awards: Highest Scholar Award (highest grade point average) – Education Heat Award (person who did the most volunteer hours) – Charity Campus Citizenship Award (Person that demonstrated the best integrity) – Respect Valued Leader Award (high leadership skills) – Leadership Prompt and Prepared Award (On time and prepared)- Time Committee Award (Best Committee) – Teamwork Having specific “VALUE-GOALS” to achieve each semester created a different culture in that organization. The new culture was focused on these 6 values. This rewards system was also a perfect demonstration of how to set VALUE-GOALS. If a student wanted to win an award they automatically knew the value that was attached to their goal. This value go

Last week a Realtor was down on her luck. In addition, this was affecting her performance. Every conversation was full of negative and depressing comments. All she seemed to find was negative in everything. She was looking and listening for reasons to be upset and she found them. The truth is that correcting a depressed person is like throwing feathers against the wind. All the feathers can do is blowback at you. Not much was changing, and I was beginning to wonder if I picked the right career. I could not get her out of her depression. Then I had a simple idea. Out of nowhere, this simple idea came to me. I said to her, “Why don’t you e-mail me one thing you accomplished today and every day for one week.” You would not believe the difference! Just seeing all the emails at the end of the week changed her entire perspective about life. The way to overcome a self-destructive attitude is to realize that YOU are a GREAT person. You are capable of accomplishment. You make a