The rationale behind RecruitingSocial is that experienced agent recruiting will be much more effective (in general) if you allow competitive agents to become involved with your team before you ask them to leave their current broker. 

The traditional recruiting model of coaxing individuals to make a change from a position of dissatisfaction (i.e. “You’re unhappy with your current situation, come work with me and life will be better…”) will always be an uphill battle.  A person has to be in a lot of pain to make a change under these circumstances.

A better way is to initially let candidates experience and gain benefit from your organization as part of their normal business activities–this makes conceptualizing a change seem much more natural.  In essence, you’re encouraging competitive agents to test-drive (become involved in) your organization before making a new commitment.

This involvement is called collaboration, and it is something that is very compelling to the up-and-coming generation of agents.  You will also find that it is interesting to seasoned agents who are embracing new technologies to remain competitive.

As Dave mentioned earlier this week, the best place for this type of collaboration to happen is in a virtual office.  While physical offices will remain an important part of any real estate company, collaboration that includes a broad range of participants will not typically happen there.  Technology has equipped conversations to take place outside the physical realm, and this is where the water is flowing downhill.

A couple of questions we’re starting to hear frequently as we share ideas about virtual offices powered by private social networks are…

1.  “What is the manager’s role in the virtual office?”

and

2. “With all the responsibilities the manager already has, how can this significant responsibility be added to an already full plate?”

To answer the first question, I believe it is important to understand the reason a competitive agent would potentially be interested in collaborating with your organization–especially if that collaboration happened inside the safety of a private social network.

Master Burnett, a social networking thought leader at BraveNewTalent, recently documented the following trends concerning how talented individuals are now using social networks in the workplace:

• Social Networks are becoming the new “meeting places” for even local citizens.
• Social Networks are becoming the backbone of the modern support system.
• Social Networks are where content gets discovered.
• Social Networks are where discussions happen (whether you participate or not).
• Social Networks are where perceptions are formed, vetted, and cemented.

Let these discoveries sink in for a few minutes…  

If this type of information is really starting to flow between individuals in the real estate industry along social networking pipelines, there is a huge advantage to becoming a significant node in this information exchange.  You’ll never be the center of the information exchange (social networking doesn’t work that way), but your goal should be for your private social network to become an important meeting place for these discussions to take place.

So what is your role as a manager?  The best analogy I’ve heard on this topic is to think of yourself as a gardener.  What do gardeners do?

1.  Gardeners plan.  How do you want your social network to look when it is full grown?  What groups and topics would make your social network interesting?  What areas would need more of your personal attention than others?  If you start small, how do you plan to expand the boundaries of your garden?

2.  Gardeners plant.  With an initial framework in place, think about how to seed your groups and discussion so they can get off to a good start.  This can mean getting advocates (perhaps existing agents or staff members) to take responsibility for certain groups and discussion topics.

3.  Gardeners weed.  In every social network, there are discussions that need some moderation and oversight from someone in charge (remember this is a private network that you own).  While the idea is not to be authoritarian or heavy-handed, it does help to have someone shape discussions when they become unruly.

4.  Gardeners harvest and replant.  Every discussion eventually has a natural end.  Someone needs to be responsible for pulling the plug and re-starting discussions that are relevant and interesting.  Without constant replanting, the whole network dies.

Now for question #2 — How can the typical over-worked real estate manager make all this happen?  

We’ll have to put this off until the next blog.  I will tell you this—it is not as hard as you might imagine, and many real estate managers are a natural fit for the tasks required to be successful at this.  Stay tuned… 

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.