I spend quite a bit of time talking to real estate managers and owners about the topic of experienced agent recruiting.  This topic has been of particular interest in the last three or four years for many hiring managers.  
 
The interest is most commonly driven by simple demographics.  As the real estate industry started to decline several years ago, there were too many real estate agents for the amount of work that needed to be done.  As a result, many of the non-performing agents quickly left the industry, leaving a much smaller group of experienced agents to compete for a diminished number of opportunities.
 
Even with the smaller numbers, the 80/20 performance distribution still exists in most real estate companies (i.e. the top 20% of agents produce 80% of the revenue).  The top-performing agents in any particular company are difficult to dislodge in the recruiting process.  Why?  They’re making a good income, things are typically going well, and they have no compelling reason to make a change.
 
As a result, most hiring managers (i.e. real estate office managers responsible for recruiting) focus their recruiting efforts on the next group of productive agents in a competitive company — The typical demographic of this agent is someone who has been a real estate agent for less than five years and is closing five to ten transactions per year.  The hiring manager’s line of reasoning goes like this… "If this agent left their lousy company where they are marginally successful and stepped into my wonderful organization, I could help them double or triple their production.”
 
I suspect that greater than 90% of hiring managers in the real estate industry use this strategy.  As a result, there is tremendous competition to recruit this relatively small group of agents.  These agents get constantly bombarded with recruiting calls and emails.  Those with even a remote bit of business acumen quickly realize they possess a desirable negotiating position.  Even if you are somehow successful at breaking above the recruiting noise they hear every day, a discussion rarely leads to a new hire under desirable terms.
 
If this is your only strategy, you may be finding that your recruiting results are not meeting the mark.  And, you’ll continue to be frustrated if this is the only methodology you use.  As an alternative, I’d like to suggest you focus on a new group of agents in your competitors' companies—those who are failing.
 
In a typical real estate company, 40% to 60% of agents fit the following description–they have been a real estate agent less than three years, they complete fewer than four transactions per year, they have an ancillary source of income or a  part-time job to make ends meet, and they often have no clue why they’re not successful.  Also, many of them regret their decision to go into real estate because of the time and resources they’ve wasted in attempting to make this career change.  
 
In short, these agents are failures.
 
Here is an important recruiting question you should ask yourself:  What if you figured out a way to reliably convert failures into successes? 
 
That’s what we’ll be discussing in the next couple of WorkPuzzles.  The reality is that most failures will remain failures.  But, there is a small percentage of individuals who can become successful inside the right system and under the right coaching. 
 
The key to picking these individuals is understanding both the nature of their failure (not all failures are created equal), and recognizing the common characteristics that some people possess which enable them to turn failure into success.

Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.