1. Buyer’s agent
This is the most common first sales engagement made by a lead agent. By taking this role, we are trying to get rid of the most time-consuming prospect – the buyer. Ongoing vendor maintenance is considerably less and can be performed in a normal 9 o’clock to 5 o’clock business day format. When comparing the average amount of time spent with a potential buyer to hire versus a potential seller to hire, the amount of time is at least three times as long, on average, for the buyer as it is for the seller. This is really the typical first hire for over 95% of agents looking to build a team.
2. Show agent
This person is used to just taking on the slow part of showing the property to buyers. Your duties could be expanded to include drafting the contract, depending on your level of competence. An exhibition agent could eventually expand into the role of buyer’s agent. However, you are limiting this Agent’s participation to the most time consuming activities of showing houses.
Many agents who are expanding their sales teams hire buyer agents to whom they deliver the leads and handle the advertising calls and who sign the calls. My advice to my clients is to start new hires with the Agent status showing and then raise them based on performance.
With a showroom agent, you are not handing over the lead early in the relationship, hoping that they will be skilled enough to force the lead into your office for the buyer presentation. They don’t handle advertising calls or sign calls like you would a buyer’s agent. With an exhibition agent, you still control the buyer’s consultation interview and the writing and negotiation of the contract. This allows you to achieve better conversion of ad calls, signal calls, and conversion rates in the buyer interview with the lead.
3. Listing agent
After many years of experience training Agents to build teams, I have found this to be one of the most difficult positions to fill with a talented person. He is a rare individual who has the discipline and sales skills necessary to be a Champion Listing Agent, while still wanting to work in a team environment when he is not his own personal team. You can find “want to be” and “never be” Champion Listing Agents to place in this position, but the net result will be much lower than desired.
Most of the main agents do not possess the discipline necessary to achieve the status of agent of the list of champions. They won’t prospect consistently enough. They don’t practice their presentation scripts and dialogue until they are perfect. They don’t spend the time to be an amazing and up-close objection handler. They fail to adhere to the discipline to create powerful profits, competitive points of difference, value advice, and price advice segments of your presentation. Champion agents do this to eliminate competition, reduce filing time, and ensure they secure listings on the correct terms and conditions at all times.
A true Champion Listing Agent will be willing to do whatever it takes in training, practice, and correction to be a sales master in your mindset, preparation, and delivery of your presentation. They would have the focus and the mental strength to apply the Four Rules of Real Estate effectively to all prospects.
My advice is to evolve until you have a listing agent. The time you will spend maintaining that area is minimal compared to the time you would save by eliminating buyers from your car for good. After my second full year in business, I never had a buyer on my car again. I never managed to find the right person to fill the position of Listing Agent on a permanent basis. When it was not available, another person on the team completed the task of listing the clients’ houses. I would not have wanted to depend on someone else full time.
4. Telemarketer or prospecting agent
The focus of this sales team member is lead generation, prospecting, lead follow-up, and appointment setting. They are on the team to increase the number of appointments you attend. As a general rule, your prospecting and lead generation consists of calling listings or sales using a newly listed or sold script to secure appointments for you to do listing submissions. They can also help top agents expand their business into higher-impact sales areas such as FSBOs and maturities. A prospecting agent could also use a strategy called “I have a buyer” to secure listings and sales.
An effective prospecting agent or telemarketer will increase the listing inventory of the lead agent. They will also effectively support buyer agents by increasing listing inventory, which will also increase advertising calls, signaling calls, open house appointments, and interactive voice response calls.