Head Upstream to Avoid Conflict Downstream
We spend a lot of time dealing with the same types of problems over and over. I dealt with the same issues constantly when I was a Director. We get stuck in a cycle of response. We become reactive which takes away our time and energy to focus on proactive behaviors. Problems that come up are all pretty much like snowflakes. They are different in some way, but they often have an underlying thread of similarity. If we can anticipate the outcome, we can use multiple strategies to avoid or mitigate the issue. Once I started proactively focusing on changing the behavior that was creating many of the challenges, I started to see them diminish over time.
What if we went upstream and tried to address the issue before it ever happens? If we see a similar pattern running through the issues that are draining our energy and time, then it is worth trying to address the root cause. While the root cause isn’t always in our power, how we prepare for it is. I reached out to some industry professionals to validate my suspicions about the most challenging issues faced today.
Top ten challenges:
1. Requested/preferred agent situations.
2. Managing obligations to sources of business including required training, certifications, problem resolution, managing metrics, and conference attendance.
3. Lack of support from leadership or branch managers when a problem arises.
4. Agents sending referrals outside of your broker network.
5. Loss of good team agents from burnout due to market conditions, lack of inventory, quality of leads, and high referral fees.
6. People (clients, customers, staff, agents) not doing what they say they are going to do.
7. Poor or inconsistent communication from staff and agents.
8. Agents not responding to requests for updates or information.
9. Agents not following the specific guidelines regarding corporate listings.
10. Agents who do not understand how the referral fee/commission situation works in relocation and referrals.
Budget constraints, lack of staff, and rising external referral fees are plaguing Directors right now. Those three challenges require a different type of upstream and downstream management, so I won’t get into those here.
We must go upstream and prepare for the worst scenario before it actually happens. We systematically want to reduce the harm caused by those problems if we can’t eliminate them. It comes down to two things. Education and Communication. These two things won’t solve all problems, but they will make a huge dent in them. The key is to be aware of them so we can strategize how to head them off. We have to determine who owns the problem. You see a lot of the word ‘agent’ in the above bullets. You may think, why should I own the problem when the agent should know what to do? We have to own it because we are the ones who will pay most dearly if an account is lost or a relationship is damaged.
We lose business for two reasons. Someone has taken it away from us or we have screwed up and lost it. I’m not talking about business being down, I am talking about losing what we already have. Business relationships can be fragile. We might think that we have a rock-solid relationship with a relocation management company. But if there is a staff change and someone new comes in with preexisting contacts or a new view of what the supplier chain looks like, our relationship can be in jeopardy. Or one of our agents does something dumb before we can stop it. Even if what they did isn’t bad, but is perceived as such or the transferee is difficult and tries to blame the agent for something, we have to do damage control which puts us in defense mode.
The challenge of time and resources may on occasion force us to ‘hope for the best’ regarding some of these situations. But if we really look at the damage that is done and the time spent trying to repair it, repetitive and methodical preventative actions would have been a much better path.
Let’s break them down:
1. Requested/preferred agent situations. This is one of our most challenging issues as it is beyond our control. The key here is to educate ALL agents in the company and branch managers to prepare them for the scenario. Short reference documents and videos can be very helpful. Address it with empathy, but don’t blame the RMC, corporation, or transferee. And don’t give the agent hope. The referral fee will have to be paid so you may as well set the expectation. Give them the backstory and the why behind it. If we are constantly dealing with this issue and it blows up every time, we need to spend a significant amount of time educating the entire population in our company.
2. Managing obligations to sources of business including required training, certifications, problem resolution, managing metrics, and conference attendance. This is an excellent problem to have. While it can be costly, repetitive, and redundant, it is necessary to support our sources of business. It is understandable why each source wants to have their own training, so they can tout it to their customer base. Create a spreadsheet of each required training, due dates, and agents certified. Think about giving various staff members (if you have staff) the responsibility of managing multiple partnerships and having them be the ambassador for that group. If you don’t have staff, you might engage a trusted agent for some support. Let a designated staff person manage the metrics and obligations. Keep the teams small and varied to minimize the expense to the agents so they will reap the higher reward of more referrals. I don’t recommend paying for your agent’s certifications, they need some skin in the game. Regarding attending the annual conferences, look at who is giving us the most business and whether our competitors are attending. Sometimes we are obvious by our absence. Get the expense in your budget and get it approved a year before it happens. It is easy for our leadership to say no if we don’t present the value and potential loss of business if we are not present. And be honest with our partners and let them know budgets are tight at this time if we can’t get it approved.
3. Lack of support from leadership or branch managers when a problem arises. This issue rears its head for various reasons, but problem #1 is the most typical scenario that gets everyone hysterical. It is often because the agent gets to leadership before we do. Pre-education is the key, talk to them regularly about potential issues and give them real-life examples of problems and how they were resolved before they happen. The key is to train leaders when they hear of a problem, to immediately call us to help with resolution. We have to unite the right people. Once we can identify, express, manage, and then respond to the emotions generated in a balanced way, we can rationally address the challenge. Trying to solve the issue and educate them during the heat of the problem is very difficult. By being fair and transparent, the managers will know we are doing our best to come to the most palatable resolution while preserving all relationships involved. And that may mean our department loses money on a deal every now and then.
4. Agents sending referrals outside of our broker network/brand. This is a problem every broker struggles with. Some brokers rule with a heavy hand on this with financial punishments and penalties if agents don’t comply. It’s so much easier to get them to comply with a carrot instead of a stick. As we know, sometimes agents will do the opposite of what we want them to do just because they can. They don’t like being told what to do. Appeal to what matters to the agent: service, money, guarantees, happy clients, hope for return referrals, and most of all control. We used to sell the value of sending referrals through relocation by focusing on the ease of it. Now agents can do a quick search, zero in on a productive agent, and send the referral quickly. So while it is still easier to let someone else do it, sometimes the control issue outweighs that. Educate them on the value of keeping it in the family and why the network has high conversion rates. Make sure you are compensating them fairly so the money isn’t part of the argument. Let them choose their broker/agent if that means them going through you. Encourage them to build a relationship with the recipient agent. It comes down to trust and partnership instead of threats and penalties.
5. Loss of good team agents from burnout due to market conditions, lack of inventory, quality of leads, and high referral fees. Agents are fried right now. The last couple of years have been a financial and emotional roller coaster. Constantly evaluate your team. Giving an agent a break is ok every now and then and revisit them again in six months. It’s also ok to source other companies to recruit new relocation agents. Determine which firms in your market do very little relocation, and help target some solid middle producers that may make a jump if they are given an opportunity for leads. Start them out with internet, rental, and mortgage leads and work them into relocation. Newer agents are much more appreciative of company-generated opportunities. We may find a diamond in the rough who is hungry for opportunities.
6. People (clients, customers, staff, agents) not doing what they say they are going to do.
7. Poor or inconsistent communication from staff and agents.
8. Agents not responding to requests for updates or information.
9. Agents not following the specific guidelines regarding corporate listings.
10. Agents who do not understand how the referral fee/commission situation works in relocation.
Numbers 6 through 10 all come down to education and communication. Setting very clear expectations is critical. And I don’t mean telling them once at your annual training. Or giving them a three-page list of directions…they don’t read it. A personal call to remind them of the obvious is never a bad call. We are held responsible for our staff and our own agents so we had better make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure expected performance. If an agent isn’t performing, remove them. You aren’t running a fraternity, it’s just business. Maybe it means a weekly tip to remind them of various requirements they will be expected to follow when their time does come for a referral. Short videos that are required viewing when they accept a referral can be good reminders. We can’t assume anything no matter how long an agent or staff person has been handling the business. And ensure they have the tools to educate the transferee and the other agent in the deal as needed.
So while it sounds counterintuitive to create more work for yourself by proactively focusing on the above, the reward is freeing us up from constant unexpected problem-resolution issues that interrupt our day. All of these efforts may be a ‘ghost victory’. We may not even know we are succeeding except that one day we will realize we are dealing with far fewer issues because we are heading them off before they actually happen. Be impatient for action, but patient for outcomes. It will take a while for results to reveal themselves.
Figure out a way to delegate, delete and defer to give yourself time to focus. It is not likely that you can add more staff right now, but using your time and that of your staff more effectively gives you the opportunity to carve out the time needed for ongoing business development. Look at your daily activities and what might be removed to give you a proactive pause. It takes conviction to sustain your upstream efforts to achieve downstream rewards.
“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity.” ~Warren G. Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author.
