Velda, your office sounds almost exactly like mine.

In my office, there is a cheat sheet for entering listings on the listing book, a cheat sheet for entering deals on the deal book, a listing/deal/closing file contents list on the desk of the agents and also on the desktop of the center office computer with all the procedures.

Our P/P manual is on the desktop as a PDF. So all the procedures are there handy at all times.

I'm a firm believer in cheat sheets.   :)

Yes, me too. I had one agent who kept whiting out her verbiage on  contracts and writing over it. NOOOO. Geez. Write it on a piece of paper, THEN go over it with the client and when it's RIGHT, then transfer it.

LOL, that is classic.

Once in my first office, I saw an agent just newer than me altering an executed. I told him before he did ANYTHING on an executed, he should go talk to the broker. He argued with me. I told him fine, don't believe me but go talk to broker.

He did, came back and DID THE SAME THING again.

I went and asked the broker if she told him it was wrong, she said yes.

He did not care, kept doing it. Now owns part of a KW office. Peter Principle in action . . .

Velda, I run things very similar to you. It's almost unbelievable how similar our ways are! The only real difference I see is that I have a bigger space that I NEED to fill with more agents. There's a front desk, then 4 unassigned desks, my larger cubicle and then two other cubicles with one set up as a computer room and the other one as a copier/whatever else room ... both of these cubicles have built in desk space to sit at. Plus in the back is a small room that will eventually be used as a private meeting room. As of right now we don't really need that.

The desks are not assigned ... to me, assigned desks are just a waste of space. Office is not where agents make money so why assign them a desk?

Each agent got their PP manual at the time of signing the contract with me. I don't have any real newbies, so that part I have only worked out in theory. The newest addition to our office ... well, I don't have to worry about her work at all. We have worked together in the past in our old company and know what to expect from each other. The other two agents working in my office have been in the business for awhile but don't have enough volume behind their belts to let them be completely independent. When they are about to submit an offer or go on a listing appointment, we walk through in some cases step by step to make sure they are comfortable. Any brand new agent that I'll hire in the future will have to get any offers approved by me before they go in (or anyone else who may eventually take that responsibility on themselves if I get too busy). That's how I got trained and I believe it is the best way to learn and to not mess up!

I offer two different compensation options - 1. regular splits or 2. 100% with transaction fee ... see, I told you our ways are very similar :-) I decided to offer quite good splits even to brand new agents. The way I see it, they need some motivation to work hard and stay in business. I remember how hard it was starting out at 50/50 and how many people gave up before making that first paycheck. The rules I made do not allow 100% commission option in case of brand new agents ... they need to learn first before they can be on their own!

As to E&O, I charge per transaction and have two amounts higher one for agents without designations and smaller amount for agents with broker licenses or certain designations. Two reasons for that ... to motivate the ones without designations to further educate themselves and be charged less in the future ... second reason being that the ones with designations may not get in trouble as easily and therefore deserve being awarded for that.

I have just recently started to work more seriously on hiring more agents and still have a lot to put together ... such as these cheat sheets that were mentioned and a lot of other things. The more organized system I create the easier it will be for me and for all of the agents to navigate through.

Now, here comes the hardest part ... I don't want to mass-hire all agents that walk through the door ... I want to hire those who I believe will fit my business model and will complement the other agents in the office. For example ... I interviewed an agent earlier this week ... it took me no more than 5 minutes to realize that she would be a GREAT addition to our office and I did let her know that. Now it's up to her to decide if we are the right fit for her (I hope she reads this :-) My idea is to build a team of independent agents who will want to stay for a long time. Am I too naive?

I don't think you're naive Michaela. I think that's a worthy goal to shoot for.

The E/O variable for designations is VERY interesting and makes a lot of sense to me.

Thank you ladies!

Velda, our market is huge. My office is a member of two different boards. The MLS that we are a part of is the MLS of Northern Illinois, made up of a total of I believe 9 boards (I'm kind of guessing here). I don't know how to find out the total membership but from what I remember, it used to be TENS of thousands of agents being members of the whole MLSNI and TENS of thousands of listings being in the MLS. I would think the number of listings nowadays runs in the 90 000 - 100 000 ... maybe a little less. I wish Gene would step in here ... he might know the actual data or may know where I could look it up. Now, obviously we don't cover the whole MLS area but do spread our wings quite wide. Most of our business is in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago ... radius of I'd say 20 - 50 miles away from the downtown Chicago. So my recruiting base is quite big! ... and so is the competition!

ok, I better make a correction here ... just found some market data and looks like as of June, there were over 140 000 properties for sale through our MLS.

We have a 'regionalized' MLS shared with 2 other BORs, so I don't have to be a member of 2 boards any more (didn't care about the other one lol, have good referral agents there)

We have about 10k listings of all types between the three.

There WERE 750 agents in our Association during the 'boom' but I think it's about 500-600 now? They dropped like flies . . .

I have two offices one large and one small but we run both of them pretty much the same. When we hire a new agent we have two meetings with them. One to get to know them some and feel them out, If we deceide we want them we give them our P/P and ask them to look it over and come back for another meeting so they can be sure they want to work for our company. If they are a brand new agent they are assigned to a mentor who takes them through every step including taking them to open houses on appointments etc. The new agent does not go on the calendar or phones until after they have one deal in contract, this forces them to get out there and communicate with people. They are to send out a letter or card to their Sphere of Influence, Family, Friends, Etc so everyone will know what they are doing. Our mentors do alot of work so in return they share the first 2 deals with the new agent, The new agent is very grateful because they are very nervous and love the hand holding they don't care if they lose 50% because they are getting hands on training.

For E& O we give our agents 2 options pay X amount upfront or pay per closing, most choose upfront. I also do not allow every agent in my office to handle referrals, I have a relo dept in each office 2 women who handle everything and they get 5 % of every closed referral or relocation for there work plus an extra 2 % on all their closings, This way I know everything is getting done right and we will keep the good relationships going. I would be happy to share our P/P on referrals and Relocations with you if you'd like I can email it to you. We have a pretty big referral and relocation department now.

Experienced agents who come into the office just get an orintation in the office from the office manager. We also have a recruiting program for the agents which gives them an opportunity to make more money on recruiitng agents for as long as they work for our company. Everytime the agent they recruited makes money so do they. Hope this has been helpful.

That's smart Peggy (give P/P then have the agent come back a second time)  . . . I do that also--gets a lot of things clear up front.

That is also GREAT about having only a couple of people handling the referrals.

Better yet Candice we also make them sign a paper saying they read it so they can't tell us later they didnt know it.

Absolutely, and my P/P is incorporated into the IC agreement. Whenever it's revised, the revision along with a signature page is distributed to the agents. No amnesia allowed (except mine) LOL

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good "template" policy & procedures manual?  It looks like there are several out there on the market to purchase but don't know if they'll do the job.  (I just took over running the office and want to recruit some new agents - but old P&P very out dated/inadequate.)

Thanks for your input!

Karen, check with your state association ... they may have a template that you could use. That's what I based my manual on and it was really helpful!

Velda, isnt' your cat tired of all these desk duties yet?

That's funny, Velda.  I'd love to get a pic of my cat at the computer (she loves it and the printer, as well) but she's usually on my lap swatting at my rapidly typing fingers......"Hello!  I'm here! Pay me homage!"

I'm not a Broker so don't know a lot about it.  

I CAN tell you that, if I were a Broker, I'd harvest from Assistants who have a good knowledge of the nuts & bolts or mentor the Asst myself.  Usually found among stay-at-home Mom's with prior business experience who can work Mother's hours.  Easy to train (generally pretty quick on the uptake.  Look for volunteer work they've done while at home that required organization, etc. Plus they've already developed a sphere of influence.  They just don't know it yet.), grateful for the pocket money and the opportunity to re-enter the workforce and still be available for kids.  By the time they get their license (and they will.  You'll know immediately if they can cut it), they can hit the ground running with very little massaging.  

They also don't become discouraged easily because they've already seen the deals fall through and know that RE requires a lot of work.  No crying to "Momma" when something starts to go south.  They just deal with it because you've already taught them how, for relatively short money!

The only time I see or speak with my Broker (I was formerly her Asst.) is Tuesday morning for sales meetings.  Other than that sometimes I call her just to let her know I'm alive or that I have an offer on one of her listings.

Because I learned the basics, and more, (from, arguably, The Best)before I got my license, I know how to enter a listing, write my own advertising, negotiate, write contracts, addendums, monitor deadlines, deal with lenders, attorneys, escrow, etc.  Our Office Manager doesn't have to do a darn thing for me. I show up at the office to drop of checks and collect my own.  Not as frequently as I'd like these days, but that will change soon!

IMHO!