Building a Bench

Nate Joens: [00:00:02] Welcome everybody on this fine and freezing Tuesday morning out of Fargo and great state of Iowa. I am Nate the CEO Structurely these fine gentlemen or with Hatch coaching we're about to start our what is this our fourth webinar. Fourth or fifth team 18 20 18 eighteen hundred webinar which is how to build a bench. Erik in Robby are gonna be leading this one giving us some insights into really frankly they lost two thirds of their sales team at Hatch Realty. Guys give us some background. Let's get this thing started.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:58] So people used to ask me how much do you bench. My answer would be most of the game. And so it's fun to talk about benching once again. And so here we find ourselves dive in and I'll give you a brief synopsis in twenty seventeen. At that point that was our highest year of production for our team. We we had thirty eight or thirty nine people we sold six hundred and fifty two homes in Fargo North Dakota which is a city of one hundred and twenty thousand. The counties we serve in total are about two hundred and fifty thousand but are our main metros one hundred and twenty thousand. And we did. So we had grown exponentially and our team members never left. The people that we started with five years ago and four years ago were basically still with us and our agents were like the top of the top producers are our average listing agent sells anywhere from what is it Robby 90 or 100 homes for a listing agent and a floor is about 75 80 ish up to 1 10.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:01] So yeah average in 90 95.

Erik Hatch: [00:02:03] Yep. And then our buyer agents were averaging you know the floor was probably thirty five for our bottom producers and ninety five for our top producers we were averaging about 60 transactions on the buy side. Now right away if you're B.S. meter is like mind you say how in the world can each agent produce so high and it's it's the leverage that we give them we have we have shown partners we have ISAs we have great admin and so the agents and their actual tasks that what they have to do on a regular basis is maybe different than most people's. And we had a group of people that had never left our turnover that happen annually was only coming from us removing people from the business. Occasionally somebody would move to a different part of the country or what it would be or we would help them find their way out the door if they weren't the right fit. And so we had 90 percent plus retention year over year. Robby what am I missing here and kind of our background.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:03] Yeah I think just to emphasize the point of a lot of people think 90 60 homes per person that seems like the essence of valid thought I want to re-emphasize the amount of leverage and specialization that we have built in.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:18] When you say our team was thirty nine people at peak that includes you know we have three full time ISAs as well. So there's a lot of leverage to bring temps. There's a ton of love to bring to the table as a value proposition to our team frankly and to our clients right.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:39] And so obviously the topic of this of this webinar and for us to dive in is to really understand how did we lose everyone and how do we continue to sell more houses because I told you in 2017 we sold six hundred and fifty two homes in twenty eighteen we did six sixty four we sold twelve more houses while losing five of our eight buyer agents by losing two of our five ISAs by losing a couple of admin. And here's what happened. Let's rewind the clock and I'm gonna have maybe flashbacks here. So if I start twitching you know why in February we had just an issue with the team member that didn't go so well and we had to remove him from our business when that happened. This was a friend of mine a good in fact a great producer a hard worker charismatic as the day is long and the guy who was like one of the founders of the company he was ingrained in the fiber of our business and we oftentimes allowed the little things to be ignored. And if ever we're a trigger for anybody listening right now I think that if you ever have a statement that says oh well that's just Robby that's just the way Robby is that that's just Robby if that's something that happens in your organization.

Erik Hatch: [00:05:03] I'm guilty of it. Across the board where we've just said well that's just that person and we haven't allowed them to necessarily be coached exceedingly well or maybe they're just stubborn and they don't want to be coached and we just ran into some problems where we had to agree to go our separate ways with this person because we had said that's just Robby for far too long. And we needed to look out for the betterment of our company and our agents. We knew that he was tied directly to another agent and so we expected that person to go and sure enough they did. Those issues happen and the mistake that we made is that it was never a big thing. It was just a whole lot of little things. And it started to impact our our culture and our energy and we didn't realize we didn't realize that this person will be better off without us we'll be better off without them. But I'm so thankful for the time that person put into our organization because it has been a huge gift. So we had to let somebody go because of culture and they just didn't necessarily fit anymore.

Erik Hatch: [00:06:09] They had another agents attached to them so there we lost two of our eight buyer agents. So now we're down to six. We had a gal blind side us. She again was part of the original group. We never thought she would leave. I thought that she was a lifer and I thought that she she was gonna be with us until the end of days and she came to me blindsided me a few weeks after we had left that previous person go. And what happened is she said I want I want to work less and I want to make more and I can't do that here. And so I'm going to go out on my own. And I just I was flabbergasted she didn't talk to me about a compromise or a way to build it a way to grow and just totally walloped me. She then was connected to another agents on our team really well we knew we would lose that person and we sure did. Robby you. You posed some really great questions as we watched this gal leave. What some of that insight that I think some of the people listening and tuning in right now can maybe absorb so they can avoid some of these pitfalls.

Robby Trefethren: [00:07:21] So I'll simply say this that when it came to losing that person what really hurt about it was we were traditionally a place that prides ourself on connecting with the people in our world and helping build a runway for them. And what really stung was we didn't hear if you wanted a different one way until she walked into your office right there and literally said this isn't right for me and it and that wasn't on her. It was on us because what we realized was the person that she was expected to be connecting with. That was the leader in the organization was the person that we had to let go and that person wasn't necessarily the best fit to dig in to the people that they were leading and try to find out what their needs wants and desires. And what really happened in all of this. And I think upon reflection is she slipped thro...