Regardless of the market, real estate is one of the most demanding and competitive industries in the world. Management at top agencies know that finding the right real estate motivation tactics for their agents is key to retaining their sales force and keeping it firing on all cylinders.
While a career in real estate is extremely flexible, it’s also super demanding. That’s why taking steps to proactively manage real estate agent motivation is so critical to every agency’s ongoing success. Agents who feel motivated and passionate about their jobs deliver better results. Fortunately, people who choose a career in real estate tend to be highly motivated and competitive self-starters, so often all that’s needed is a little nudge to keep them at peak performance.
5 Real Estate Agent Motivation Tactics
In the current climate of high-interest rates, economic uncertainty, and a slow market, even top-performing agents are finding it difficult to stay motivated. Here are five real estate agent motivation tactics that are proven to encourage agents and keep them engaged.
1. Invest in onboarding
In a self-motivated, commission-based business like real estate, it’s easy to leave new agents mostly to their own devices. That’s a mistake. Onboarding is a one-time opportunity to instill the important high-performance habits that will help new agents hit the ground running so they can experience a quick win and stay motivated to deliver results quarter after quarter. It’s also a chance to see what makes them tick, which can be useful down the road.
2. Set clear goals, and encourage feelings of belonging
Real estate agents are generally a competitive and goal-oriented bunch, so hitting their targets is a powerful source of real estate agent motivation. Tap into this by setting clear targets around important KPIs like sales volume, lead generation, and new listings. To promote a sense of belonging, create shared goals as well as individual goals, which is proven to make people feel more invested in the outcome. Setting team KPIs improves team motivation by encouraging everyone to work together toward common goals. Consider visualizing the team KPIs on dashboards so everyone can see how the team is tracking against its targets. For inspiration, check out these 10 real estate KPIs to track in 2023.
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3. Cultivate a growth mindset
It’s easy for agents to stay motivated with the momentum of a strong market propelling them forward. Unfortunately, a market downturn filled with uncertainty, challenges, and setbacks is almost certain to take its toll. Cultivating a growth mindset is one of the best real estate motivation tactics that agencies can use when the going gets tough.
While business might not be as brisk as everyone would like, downturns are an excellent time to seek out opportunities to learn and grow, setting the stage for even more success when things turn around. Now is an opportune time for agents to sharpen their marketing, networking, and lead-generation skills. Their short-term success depends on it, and it’s a smart investment in their future. Now would be a perfect time for agents to try out these 15 proven real estate lead generation tactics – or brush up on these five benefits of data analytics in real estate.
4. Offer support
While selling real estate is a demanding and competitive job in good economic times, economic downturns bring different kinds of stress. Whether it’s the stress of too much to do in too little time or the stress of a slow market resulting in unstable income, all agents could use some support during periods of amplified stress. Strong leadership can address these challenges by encouraging agents to join professional organizations where they can connect with others in similar situations, providing forums where agents can share their experiences and tips, or offering coaching and feedback sessions. Meaningful and specific feedback can motivate agents to keep doing what they’re doing well and brush up on the things that are hindering their success.
5. Offer professional development opportunities
Technology is evolving quickly, and so is marketing – why not help your team fine-tune their skills in these areas? Offering professional development opportunities can build your agents’ abilities for the future while providing the dose of real estate motivation they need now. Combined with coaching sessions and mentoring, this is a prime chance to invest in your agency’s future.
4 Fun Contest Ideas to Help with Real Estate Agent Motivation
Competitive people like real estate agents love recognition! Friendly competition is a very effective real estate motivation tactic for agents – and sales contests are the perfect tool!
Here are four fun, highly engaging, and easy-to-run sales contests that are proven to deliver outstanding ROI, develop skills, and boost team-wide real estate motivation – not just reward the usual top performers.
1. The “Biggest Loser Wins”
With high interest rates and general market malaise, your agents are likely to be selling less than they’d like to. While they’re waiting for the market to rebound, you can have a little fun and boost team spirit with this quirky tongue-in-cheek contest/ The “biggest loser wins” contest awards a prize to the agent who performs the worst in a given period. This isn’t an opportunity to slack. Keep it performance-based, for example, by awarding the agent who has the most showings but the lowest sales figure. This is the sales contest version of the proverbial “’A’ for effort.”
2. Raffle Tickets
This is a fun ongoing sales contest that can be run monthly or even quarterly. It awards a raffle ticket for each desired activity the agent completes (e.g., showings, open houses, new listings). You can also choose to award multiple tickets for high-value activities, such as a completed sale. At the end of the contest period, draw a winner for one big prize or multiple winners for smaller prizes.
3. Rookies & Veterans
This updated version of the original team vs. team sales contest pairs an experienced agent with someone less experienced, and these teams of two compete against one another. This is a great add-on to the onboarding process because new agents get to work closely with an agency veteran, forming a close relationship while learning the ins and outs of the agency – and hopefully, some new tips and tricks. These contests don’t necessarily have to be tied to fiscal goals, they can also be tied to sales activities (e.g., number of open houses, showings)
4. Sales Bingo
To run this ongoing sales contest, distribute bingo cards pre-printed with sales goals, specific types of sales (e.g., specific values, property types), high-yield sales activities – or a combination of all three! Offer one big prize or multiple prizes for the first agent(s) to fill their card.
Try Gamification as a Real Estate Agent Motivation Tactic
Sales contests and incentive programs have been a mainstay of sales departments for decades because they work. In addition to sales contests, many top agencies are using gamification features to incentivize their agents. Salesgamification is a fantastic way to add excitement to the workday and keep real estate motivation high among agents while driving performance.
Gamification is the next evolution of incentive programs. Research shows that gamification improves job satisfaction and employee performance. 89% of employees say that gamified tasks make them feel competitive and eager to complete those tasks – and the same percentage claim that they’d be more productive if their job had more gamified elements. That’s because gamification provides positive reinforcement that continually recognizes and rewards success using tools like leaderboards, points, badges, instant notifications, and competitions.
Plecto offers a range of gamification elements and other features designed to help real estate companies accelerate their performance – and keep their agents motivated!
