How to build an effective sales team from scratch with regular results

RED x affiliate article by Eduard Sayfutdinov ‍

Edward — expert in building system sales and team management
‍
Ex CCO (Chief Commercial Officer) Realiste ai (2023-2024): A team of 20 people sold 800 units in 2 years on the UAE market.

More than 12 years of experience in entrepreneurship, 20+ well-established sales teams in various industries, including real estate, retail and education,
Edward has been advising on the process of building a sales department in our company, and today he will share his experience with you.

Principles of building sales departments in real estate

1. Regularity and discipline
2. Control
3. Case analysis
4. Workouts

Principle 1 — regularity and discipline

Only regular actions determine the result:

• if they are meetings, they should be regular, at the same time
• if this is a call analysis, they should be repeated several times a week and this should be done by the sales manager or the person who performs this function
• if there are training sessions (role plays), it is important to conduct them not just when the manager is in the mood, but for employees to know that these training sessions take place every day at the same time as the sales coach or manager.

Principle 2 — control (CRM, reports)‍

1. Enter the manager's daily report for the day, which includes:

• number of calls
• number of messages
• number of qualified customers
• number of clients, with whom an appointment was made, with whom it was held
• etc.

It is important that you always compare real estate agents by indicators.

For example, you have a manager who made 1,000 calls in a week and a manager who made 100 calls in a week. It is important that if we are talking about a stable system, and not about isolated cases, then managers who make more calls will close more often and more.

‍2. Make sure to help brokers monitor their missed trades (deals that hang without CRM tasks or deals with overdue tasks).

Edward recommends that the sales department build a system throughout the day that highlights brokers who have missed and unanswered calls every two hours in a general chat, or who have messages they received and did not answer. Yes, this system costs some money; there is a specially trained person who does this every two hours, but it helps brokers work better with clients and close them more often and more often.

Principle 3 — case analysis

Every successful deal should be discussed at general meetings. Figure it out and ask questions to the broker who closed this deal, who led this client: What objections did the client face? Did the broker respond to him quickly or did he forget his message? How did he drive it? Ask the broker what he thinks he did to close this deal.

Why is it important to do this at general meetings?

• For those brokers who close the deal, it will be such a cool reward for them, where they will be praised
• For brokers who have not yet closed their deals, this will be an additional motivation. That is, they will see that it is possible to close the deal and make money
• For brokers who are in the process of closing a deal, and for the whole team in general, this will be a great exchange of experience.

Principle 4 — training

Training or so-called “role-playing”. Recently we read statistics that in companies with regular “role plays”, even professional managers give average results 70% better than in companies where there are no “roles”.

It's like in sports: there are training sessions where we practice shots and techniques, and due to this, when we find ourselves, for example, in a fight or in the ring, we manage to win and use certain instruments.

It's the same in sales: a cool salesman is someone who is constantly training, training, training.

According to Eduard's experience, the best salespeople (who gave the biggest results) ever participated in “role-plays”, didn't miss them and understood their value. Therefore, we recommend introducing “role-playing” for the entire team at least three times a week.

How are “role-playing” done?

Usually one “role-playing” takes just two minutes.
That is, we give the broker, say, two minutes and set a task, for example, an objection and his task in these two minutes to work out this objection and close it for the next step.

After this game is over, within another one or two minutes, everyone gives feedback: what could be improved, what stuck, and in the end, the broker shares what he took for himself.

How to find strong brokers who will close large volumes of deals

There are 2 approaches:

• 1 approach — when we take students and employees who have closed 1-2 deals or have not yet closed and teach them
• The second approach is when we hire experienced brokers.

What is important to consider here?

It is always important to evaluate a person only based on their results. Edward doesn't recommend hiring good guys and girls, you should hire only professionals.

If you hire an experienced broker, then:

• look at how many deals he's already closed
• look at his performance at his previous job
• role-play with him, let him shut you down, try to work out some objection and evaluate him precisely by his professional qualities.

If you're taking a beginner (a person who just took the path of a real estate agent) in this case:

• ask him how many calls he made at his previous job
• see how he dealt with objections, how he involved the client

It doesn't matter what he sold at his previous place of work: equipment or b2b service — he must have good results. This means that a person is a “result”, that is, his focus is on the result, and you, accordingly, will also focus on getting it.

Another life hack — feel free to call and collect feedback from the candidate's previous employers.

Many people don't, but we recommend calling two or three of his previous executives and talking to them. The main question you can ask is: would you hire him again or not? If there are any nuances there, or if you hear that the manager seems to be giving good feedback, but in reality to say nothing about the results, then it's better not to hire such a person.

How onboarding is built

The next step when you find a broker is onboarding. A stage that is often omitted and missed, but that carries a lot of value.

The onboarding phase is actually a training phase, the induction phase, and here Eduard would recommend:

• introduce an employee to the company
• tell us what your values are
• how it is customary for you to work and how it is not customary
• show some examples
• introduce colleagues

It is important: good onboarding allows brokers to be withdrawn faster. They'll start closing their first deals quicker than they would without it.

When you withdraw a broker, be sure to check points

Decide for yourself that the broker should do this in the first week; in the second week, say, make 100 calls a day or 500-600 calls per week.
If the broker fails to meet this figure, give him another week, and if they lose again, it's better to part with such a person.

So, from the point of view of the effort invested in the benefits and value obtained, this is the most effective action that, in principle, can be applied, because a person who does not meet the indicators himself also demotivates the team and prevents you from managing this team, and, accordingly, the rest of the team also looks at him and thinks that this is possible.

What is the basis for a sales department system that works steadily, increases team motivation and retains strong brokers

Contests

This is a game mechanic in which people get some “goodies” when they show certain results. These goodies do not always have to be financial; they can be, for example, traffic or a cup at the end of the month.

It is important to make a rating system (we've always done weekly and monthly)

• Those guys who were among the leaders according to the results of the monthly rating system had an increased commission
• Those guys who showed the best results during the week received a little more traffic or traffic from the warmest channels.

When you have a system like this — it's important to work with her. Every week, you need to review employees' results, recognize those who are among the leaders and those who haven't made it or aren't regularly. You need to have individual conversations with them, ask them how they feel, what's going on right now, and help them improve their rankings.

Contests with material prizes work very well

For example:

• iPhone raffle for the one who closed the most deals - Close 10 apartments this month - get an iPhone/MacBook or something else as a gift- Annual Car Raffle Contests
• Close 10 apartments this month - get an iPhone/MacBook or something else as a gift
• Annual car raffle competitions.

It is important, if you hold annual competitions for big prizes, you will be awarded not in January, but, for example, on May 1 or June 1 — this will help you retain brokers and keep successful ones right after the period ends.

That's it! We hope you found it useful and took something new for yourself. And if you want to know what mistakes you're making in the sales department and how to design marketing so that it leads with high-quality leads, sign up for a free consultation.