Issue 70 - February 2011 - Exploding some myths about our recruitment…

As a company, we are very focussed on obtaining the very best salespeople we can. This is why we offer a guaranteed income of $55,000 plus quarterly production bonuses, rather than the usual ‘commission only’ payments. 

We consider that this offers advantages to both the salespeople and the public, in that, with a guaranteed amount, the likelihood of salespeople acting unethically will be reduced considerably as the guaranteed amount is designed to cover a salesperson’s essential expenditure.

To obtain a salesperson’s position with us, however, applicants must fulfil certain criteria, some of which are quite different from that of other firms.

One of the most widely misunderstood, is our requirement that our salespeople own their own homes. While we may sometimes make an exception to this, generally we have found that those who do own their own homes tend to take more seriously, their role of salespeople/helpers.

Their knowledge of the sale/purchase process is better (from personal experience) and we consider that they will be less likely to push a buyer to borrow more than is prudent as those who own their own home will likely have or have had a home loan and therefore a far clearer understanding of the dire effects that over-borrowing can bring.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that with recent changes to the training requirements for new salespeople and the more difficult selling environment, hundreds of real estate salespeople have left the industry. Consequently, many real estate offices are seeking replacement salespeople.

Apparently, some of our local competitors are even suggesting to applicants that the reason we require salespeople to own their own homes, is to enable us to take a charge over their property in the event that the salespeople fail to make sufficient sales to cover their guaranteed income! Needless to say, we have never done this and have no intention of ever doing so. It does, however, show the depths to which some of our competitors will go to try to undermine our activities.

Another of our requirements is that salespeople live within 30 minutes of one of our offices. This is designed to ensure that salespeople do not waste a lot of time travelling to and from home and consequently will tend to encourage them to continue working with us and thereby build continuity within our chosen neighbourhoods.

The other of our requirements that is quite often completely misunderstood, is that of preferring those who have not already had real estate experience. We frequently receive applications from people who are already working with another real estate office and hear horrendous stories of events that we would not permit to happen, being accepted as normal behaviour. So-called ‘sleeved’ listings (where the listing isn’t made available to everyone to sell) – with or without the approval of the agency manager, seems to be fairly common.

 It is simply a matter of culture

We strongly believe that the culture that is built up in a commission-only environment is completely different from that found in real estate offices that use the system we use. We try hard to foster a culture where people help each other, where buyers and sellers do not ‘belong’ to any one salesperson, but where contact details are available to all of our salespeople.

As an aside, I have to mention that I was talking with one real estate person about this co-operation, and he told me bluntly that, in his experience, it wouldn’t – in fact couldn’t – happen. How then, would he explain why our salespeople accept unreservedly, the need to obtain the best price for our sellers and as an essential ingredient of that, co-operate fully with our requirement for them to advise all salespeople and managers of the property address and time of presentation, of offers about to be made, with a minimum period of notice of 2 hours, thus encouraging further offers?

Finally, a request. If you know someone who is looking for a well-paid sales career in an ethical company, suggest they give us a call. We’ll be happy to talk to them.