Why Brokers should make Company Generated Business a Priority
Why do some broker owners not treat the opportunity to service the relocation and mobility industry business as a priority? It’s probably because they don’t understand it or they think it is too much of an investment. It is a relationship business just like real estate, but at an amped up level so you need the right people running it. For those brokers that have a Relocation Department, their department should have evolved over the years to be much more than just an entity receiving referrals. But that doesn’t mean just because they have it, that the broker really understands the complex nature of this business line.
Why not do relocation?
For those brokers that haven’t committed to servicing relocation, they just don’t understand it, so they don’t know what they are missing. Relocation can be polarizing because the agents that don’t receive the business often feel left out, so some brokers would just rather avoid it. It is just foreign enough to be scary. We have our own language, our own association, and lots of acronyms. There are complex legal and tax related guidelines that govern the overall activity and requirements. There are metrics to be met and trainings to be done. The actual real estate transaction is only one component of the process. Scared yet? Every company I have ever known that services relocation is a better company because they handle it. It creates a better trained and loyal agent team, it puts a focus on customer service and measures performance and conversion levels. You can’t manage and improve what you don’t measure.
What it is today
The term ‘Relocation’ was the all-encompassing description of the departments that originally only handled corporate relocation clients on behalf of relocation management companies or corporations and maybe facilitated broker to broker referrals on behalf of their brokerage.
I have never liked the moniker, ‘Relocation Department’. I like Corporate Services or Client Development Group or Business Development Group or Company Generated Business. No matter what you call it, it is critical to give the director of that business line the freedom, the budget and the support to creatively look at various opportunities to bring business into the firm. If you can afford the luxury of a full time business development professional as well, then that’s even better, leaving the director to run the day to day operations.
Most departments have evolved over the years to include a myriad of company generated opportunities and programs and services that can be highly profitable and rewarding for brokerages. As Relocation Departments have evolved over time, they may be facilitating internet leads, providing rental assistance, offering local and national senior, affinity or military cash back programs. They facilitate agent generated referrals. They may manage a concierge program, moving services and the license holding referral company. They may have direct corporate relocation accounts of their own. If they aren’t doing these things, they should be. The opportunities are endless. These lines of business have proven to be resilient to market downturns and recessions and lend themselves to manage REO’s if we ever find ourselves in that type of market again.
Mastering the process
The beauty of these departments is that they are run and manned by highly skilled people at customer service and process management. If you can be successful at corporate relocation, you can do just about anything. Corporations and Relocation Management Companies have incredibly high expectations around the performance of their supplier brokers. If their transferees aren’t happy, no one is happy. There is reporting and training and memberships and metrics and conferences. It is not for the faint of heart. But once we have mastered it, the department is in a position to handle just about any type of ‘account’ volume business. We keenly understand that if one referral goes sideways, hundreds may be lost from that source. It’s all about being able to see the big picture and expertly managing a high volume of opportunities.
Be all in
A high percentage of real estate agents enjoy participating in company generated referrals, and it can be a very important business line for a company because it reverses the premise that agents should bring in all of the business. Now the broker is the one delivering business to their agents. It is a wonderful recruiting and retention tool. But sometimes brokers don’t understand the commitment and the necessity of giving the person running it the freedom and the budget they need. Brokers may feel that because their agents want ‘relocation’, they should have it. But the true opportunity lies in the recruiting and retention of agents, the increased revenue and new clients. But don’t do it if you and your leadership isn’t ‘all in’. You must be prepared to trust that the experienced professional running it knows the path to success and is willing and able to go after it.
My advice to brokers who are thinking about creating a company generated business entity is to:
Make it a priority, now. Waiting just prolongs the benefits you will reap from this business.
Hire an experienced professional to set it up. This is no time to wing it. Just because someone has sold real estate or worked for a relocation company, it doesn’t mean they understand the complex nature of this type of business and how it should be run in a brokerage.
Set aside an appropriate budget to fund the first year while the back room is being developed (to include establishing processes and procedures, hiring and training staff and agents, developing marketing materials, acquiring accreditations and memberships, setting up agreements, etc.)
Consider the director as a part of senior leadership. If they do their job well, they will be bringing in as much revenue (or more) as your best branch office.
Hire an operation’s relocation director and a business development professional, if you can afford it, so that one area doesn’t suffer due to lack of attention.
Send the message from the top that this is an important business line and everyone in the company will be expected to support it.
Trust the process. It may take a while, but the payoff of having new and varied sources of business will be worth it.
“If it’s a priority, you’ll find a way. If it isn’t, you’ll find an excuse.”~ Jim Rohn, Author and Motivational Speaker
