Every single agent recruitment blog post out there will have a laundry list of things you can try, but odds are, the best agent recruitment strategy is something you’re already familiar with, and it's hiding within your marketing strategy: personalization.
You already segment your marketing messages, and you may even segment how you service your existing agents, so why not apply the same philosophy to your recruitment efforts? A segmented, personalized recruitment strategy will make your prospective agents feel like you value them and what they can bring to the table, and it’ll make them feel like you understand their motivation, therefore giving them even more motivation to join the team.
What do you have to offer?
Your brokerage probably has a lot to offer - so let’s hear it! If you start by writing down a list of your top 5-7 assets or offerings, you’ll have a great starting point as far as nailing down which agent’s ears’ perk up when they hear about specific features. You can even start by asking your current agents what the #1 thing was that encouraged them to pull the trigger with your brokerage to gain real-life insights about your own brokerage. These features are then also your segments! This may look like a segment for Commission-Motivated Prospects, Training-Motivated Prospects, Tech-Stack-Motivated Prospects, and so on.
Why personalization?
Take it from Dale Carnegie when he says, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” People love to feel special and wanted, and you’re in a unique position to give that to them. And to be frank, people expect it. We’re in an age where Target knows you’re pregnant before your parents do. It’s not crazy for agents to expect recruiters to cater to their specific needs.
Additionally, you know this approach works with your home buyers and sellers, so why not give the same courtesy of a personalized recruitment journey to your prospects? They’ll be the ones bringing in the bacon, so give them a little bacon of their own. This could be as small as a hand selected thank-you-for-interviewing gift that you know they’ll enjoy based on a comment they’ve previously made or simply something you noticed (ex: I have an aloe plant tattoo on my wrist, so if someone gave me an aloe plant, it’d be a super safe bet that I’d love it, plus appreciate that the interviewer was paying attention to details).
How do you market it?
An agent who is motivated by a higher commission is going to respond to different messaging and recruitment tactics than an agent who is motivated by a robust training program. Good marketing isn’t about the idea or product that it’s trying to sell - it’s about the person who’s buying it. Meaning, your agent recruitment messaging shouldn’t be about why your brokerage is the best; it should be about how your brokerage is going to get John Agent that extra commission, or how it’s going to help Jane Agent excel in their career through extensive training. Simply put, if you don’t know what your prospective agents want, you can’t give it to them. We highly recommend using empathy maps to help visualize exactly what your audience needs/wants/fears/etc. Once you nail down those things, the messaging practically writes itself.
Segmenting your agent recruitment messaging may sound like a lot of work, but the reality is that it usually only requires some tweaking of the original message to speak specifically to one of your audiences. Pick one thing that your brokerage has to offer, and see if you can twist the messaging to appeal to multiple audiences. A fun and easy exercise you can use to strengthen that PR muscle is to pick two ads in the magazine closest to you and create an ad message for the opposite brand’s audience. For example, if you see an ad for a KitchenAid mixer, and an ad for a Spotify Premium Subscription, figure out how you’d revamp the KitchenAid ad to appeal to Spotify’s audience and vice versa. Once you sharpen this skill, you’ll be churning out marketing messages like nobody’s business.
The moral of the story
In summary, any way you can make a prospective agent feel like you want them and them specifically is a win. Take a few pages from your own marketing strategy book and segment those audiences and you’ll be bringing in agent and after agent in no time.
