The Real Estate Firm that survives, is the one who treats the Firm as a business and not as a friendship. The recession is here and you have to decide how to cut corners. It is a "dog eat" world and only the fittest survives. It is time to make some real decisions and those decisions always must be personnel. You have to look at who is producing and who is not.
The one person that is the backbone of the office is the secretary. The secretary must stay no matter what. What can be done is that the secretary can be replaced for a person who will accept a cheaper salary. If the present secretary will not accept less hours or a reduction in pay, fire her. Tell her you are sorry, but the money is just not as much as before.
The second person to go will be the non producing agents. Agents cost money every single day. They cost when they order signs on listings, that plain just never sell. If you figure the cost on signs placed on properties that never sale, it would pay for the secretary. An agent sits and occupies a desk and then never makes any sales, needs to be given their license back. Plain and simple. This is a business and money talks. The alternative to firing such an agent, is to give them the choice to pay for the desk. Such as $300 per month or more. Many non producing agents will choose to leave the firm.
Now we have reduced the salary of the secretary, fired non producing agents, what is our next step. One of the single most costly things in an office is telephone service. Each agent should be given a cost, for phone service at their desk. They have to pay to make copies and a copier can be rented, with a secret code to count the amount of copying each agent is doing. All large companies have this installed already.
So now we have reduced your phone bills by making each agent be responsible for their own phones and paying to make copies.
Any agent not producing will leave voluntarily. Required desk duty is a must for any office. So there will be times when a secretary is not needed. So all agents sitting on the front desk, should be making cold calls to prospective clients and answering incoming calls in hopes of getting new clients. All of this reducing the time the secretary is needed. When the secretary is present, she must answer the phone and do cold calling also.
The secretary with some training can also hold open houses, which would give the broker more time to work with listing property. Any brokerage who makes these simple but difficult changes can and will save money. The thing is to increase revenue in a time of many foreclosures. This must be accomplished by one posting a list of all foreclosures at the front entrance to the brokerage or even on the front window. Agents need to specialize in foreclosures and HUD and VA properties. Homes that are selling with little or no down and special financing.
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You can renegotiate your lease in times of recession as many companies are folding. Normally any lease can be renegotiated for a short period of time. With all the changes you are making, make sure that the looks of the building and the nature of your business never change. You are a professional business and that same look needs to stay. Any client who sees you "loosing your shirt" will walk.
Real Estate 101, the client matters the most so start doing things to please your clients more and ask for referrals. Send out post cards asking for referrals and contact your past clients and ask to help them with their taxes, their children's college or whatever they need. Educate your firm on commercial leases and investment properties. Have a specific department for such business. These are highly lucrative. Have certain agents specializing in short sales and those agents should be working directly with title companies to have a list of all foreclosures or impending foreclosures. The agents working the short sales should be sending out daily letters to people in trouble stating:
Dear Ms. Jones:
I have someone interested in purchasing your home.
Sincerely,
Barbi Trejo
Ms. Jones will contact you immediately and ask you who is interested and you explain that you have many buyers looking for a new home and could you come and see her home. Many short sales are listed just that way. Opportunities are everywhere. Whether in a recession or not, there is always real estate transactions. No one will ever be slow as a Brokerage makes its own business and then attracts its own clients.
Cut backs yes, but never cut back on service, integrity or reliability.
