Recruiting from within is 2 fold, first you must establish how to recruit from within yourself and then put your efforts into recruiting within your own office.  We start with re-recruiting  yourself and the agents you now have under your leadership. Re-recruiting yourself to the industry, your brokerage and your goals is vitally important right now.  Remember how excited you were and how much great energy you presented to people when you first got started and when times where much easier? What has happened to you over the past 12-18 months?  Where are you mentally regarding the changes that continue to occur in our industry?

A few of you may be happier than you have been in years but I have an idea that many of you are teetering on packing up and signing into the local mental rehab.  As leaders, your emotional response affects the entire company.  How are you handling your feelings, fear and anxiety? I have witnessed 2 very distinct ways of responding.   ·         

• Broker A is in the office 24/7 holding on and believing that if he leaves something bad will happen.  He hovers over staff and paces from his desk to his door to see who is in the office.  I call him the Loiterer. His presence is not one of support and vision, it exudes stress, vulnerability and pressure on the agents and staff who are not stressing as much as him or whom he feels are ungrateful or unwilling to work as hard as him to save the ship.  Which, by the way will change when he changes.  Once the agents and staff see him being his “old self,” they will pitch in and be more supportive because he will relieve their stress and anxiety freeing them to be “themselves.” ·   

• Broker B is not showing up at the office at all. Broker B is an Avoider.  She feels like what she doesn’t see can’t be happening.  This disconnect creates just as much stress on the brokerage as Broker A’s hounding presence. The fact that she is not present leaves a very huge gap in the seams of retention. 

How do you re-recruit yourself to your own brokerage? Start by letting go of your emotional response and evaluating how you can get yourself excited about the opportunities that are present every day…there is nothing you can do about the market except get in there and capture as high a percentage of the business out there. Whether you are the avoider or the loiterer, it all starts with your attitude. There is nothing better to cure a sick attitude than to re-connect with good people and good feelings. 

Start by setting one-on-one appointments with your agents and staff whom you have had a great rapport with. Don’t bring any work related agenda into this meeting.  This is a time to reconnect personally with them. Set the expectations up front.  Let them know you want to reconnect and bring the “family” feeling back to the brokerage. These meetings are about the people, not the market, bills, production or anything else to do with work. Bring up old fun memories and ask lots of questions about their families and friends.  You may even have some pictures of past fun events you can share. Ask them what they feel would be fun, inexpensive events you can host for the agents to get back together. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what my mother always tells me “This Too Shall Pass.”  You want to come out of it with your personal connections intact.  Once you have done this with the people you are closest to, tackle the rest of the company. 

If you are an avoider, set your one-on-one appointments at the office in a space that is comfortable without desks, phones or computers if possible.  If you don’t already have one, you may even consider creating a lounging space that has no work-related distractions and where the door can be closed with a privacy sign on the outside that says…”Fun in Progress.”  By creating a fun space that you can retreat to within the office, you give yourself and others a place to go where they know they are safe and supported.  

If you are a Loiterer, first evaluate if you are really in a mind-set to do this effectively or do you need some time away from the office to let go a bit.  Perhaps taking a few days away, reflecting on you and visualizing yourself letting go will help.  When you feel you are ready, set your appointments at a location away from the office. Perhaps a restaurant you used to like to go to together or that you know they would enjoy.  Maybe even a park or museum if the person you are meeting loves the outdoors or art. Bring bag lunches and just sit and chat.  

Isn’t recruiting all about connecting and being of service to your agents? Now that you have re-recruited yourself it’s time to re-recruit your agents.  You have a goldmine in your office that just needs some focused attention to bring them to a level of productivity they, themselves may not have thought possible. If you don’t have office meetings, it might be time to establish a weekly get-together.  If you do, then make them as powerful as possible. Just one hour of powerful information and inspiration per week can keep you buzzing.  Bring real value to the meetings by researching marketing strategies that work and helping your agents implement them. Always take attendance and always follow-up with an email to the entire company thanking those individuals for showing up.  NEVER share all the information from your sales meetings in a minute’s format.  Just highlight some important information and leave all the details out.  Why would they need to be there if they know they will get it in their inbox the next day?  

Now that you have the emotional flow, re-recruit yourself to your office space. How do you feel about your personal office space?  How do you feel about the office as a whole? If you love it…take pictures and put them in your purse or wallet and look at them often.  If you are not so happy about it…do something. Walk around the office and take note of things that need repair and cleaning up. Ask your agents and staff to make suggestions on a few minor, inexpensive changes that can spruce the office up.  Have you ever had that wonderful feeling when you have painted a room or reorganized cabinets and you keep going into the room and just sitting there looking around or you open the cabinets to see your work or artful organization?  I do it all the time.  I love to cook in my kitchen when it is freshly cleaned; I avoid it and stress about it when it is not. Get it cleaned up and get cookin’!