| 
As the thermometer drops, the daylight wanes and the snow starts to fly in New England, real estate activity slows to a crawl. This year has been especially hectic and the temptation to hibernate is strong, but smart real estate agents use the down time to reinvest in themselves reinvest in themselves, their teams and their brokerages. For many, that may mean hiring a professional coach.
Real estate coaches are quick to point out that they aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. They say the key to a successful coaching experience is finding the right coach who will give you what you’re looking for. They also warn agents not to expect to be coddled. A good coach will get you out of your comfort zone – and help you make more money.
Before they created what has become one of the largest nationwide real estate coaching firms in the country, Tim and Julie Harris were top-selling agents in Columbus, Ohio two decades ago. They’ve written several books, host a podcast and coach agents on how to grow their businesses, but one thing Tim makes clear: He’s not here to make you feel warm and fuzzy.
“My job is not to be your friend,” Harris said. “A good coaching call should leave you feeling about 50 percent uncomfortable.”
Harris and his wife maxed out their credit cards early in their career, driving around the country and paying top agents to let the two shadow them for a few days to see what they could learn. Later, they created a website designed to help agents select the right coach for them.
“If I were looking for any kind of coach,” Harris said, “I’d ask them if they’d ever sold real estate before and if they did it at a high level. Even at that, the skills required for coaching are very different than the skills required to sell, so I’d ask them how their clients’ business improved after the coaching.”
Coaches like Harris don’t give their clients daily affirmations; they expect them to show up motivated and ready to do some hard work. Boston-area coach Rosemary Kelleher prefers to spend her time helping her clients build something lasting, she said.
“This is business,” Kelleher said. “Working on creating business structures isn’t all that fun. It’s a lot of hard work. A coach can’t be all of those things to everybody.”
Keeping Agents Accountable
One of the biggest coaching functions is keeping agents accountable for pursuing their goals, but good coaches help agents create and follow a specific game plan to reach those goals, Harris said.
“Agents claim they need leads, but what they need is basic sales skills, which is nothing more than communication,” he said. “Leads are people. Zillow only exists because agents buy buyer leads. That’s where we start.”
The coaches interviewed for this article said that good, professional real estate coaching costs around $1,000 to $2,000 per month. However, all said that depending on what an agent is looking for, it could cost a little less, or a whole lot more – each agent comes with their own unique needs and goals.
They also all pointed out that professional athletes at the tops of their games all have multiple coaches helping them with offense, defense, conditioning and the many individual aspects of their games. It follows that real estate agents can benefit from different coaching styles as well.
“That’s why professional football teams have a coach,” said Liz Bentley of New York-based Liz Bentley Assoc. “You really need someone to look at the films and help you figure out what you need help with.”
Coaching isn’t just for beginner or intermediate-level agents: Bentley said she coaches many kinds of professionals, but her typical real estate agent clients have $100 million or so in sales and want to bring their games up to the next level.
“We came more from the business/strategy side,” she said. “We teach agents to handle their business like a CEO instead of like a real estate agent.”
Broker/owners can also benefit from coaching, said Stacey Alcorn, owner of LAER Realty and P3 Coaching. She coaches broker/owners on how to recruit and retain agents in an industry that is well-known for its high churn rate.
“Coaches hold you accountable for recruiting, creating better systems to retain the agents you have and make more money,” she said. “You can’t forget the agents you have, especially in real estate. It’s so competitive. In order to grow you have to go after new agents.”
Agents who are already very busy often decide to assemble a team of people to handle the excess business, but Kelleher said that’s the wrong reason to build a team.
“The team approach requires more than just bodies,” she said. “It requires a true leader who can lead other people to be successful in their positions. Bodies plus transactions does not equal a successful team. If you don’t have the skillset to manage and lead a team, it can be a colossal mess.”
