Love your agents, and have fun. It’s Wisconsin broker Dawn Christiansen’s secret to building a cohesive and engaged real estate team or brokerage.
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With 40 years of real estate experience, I have reached a point in my career that few ever attain: I just renewed my commitment to Century 21 Real Estate for a fourth time. In fact, I have only ever worked as an agent aligned with the Century 21 brand. Together with my daughter Brittany Voigt, we lead the largest female-owned and locally-owned brokerage in our market of Appleton, Wisconsin.
I credit a lot of the company’s success to the power of the brand, but it’s our agents who are our most important priority. That’s because, without them, there is no us. That’s also why Brittany and I focus a lot of our time and energy on creating a collaborative work culture that is supportive and fun. Here are some of the ways we regularly engage our agents in support of their success.
1. Regular production contests
We do a couple of yearly games for listings and offers, with a variety of big-ticket baskets and prizes. Everyone who has a transaction wins something — prizes range from a $20 bill to airline tickets. We like to say if you don’t list, you don’t last. We also stress the importance of a healthy pipeline.
2. Weekly business meetings
During our meetings, we hand out king-sized candy bars to every agent who converts a lead. This is a great way to show everyone who is converting leads — and it avoids the appearance of favoritism.
In addition, anyone who is regular to our weekly business meetings qualifies for phone duty. This is a privilege at our firm because of the number of paid leads they get from us, along with all of the leads they get off of working phones.
Once a month, we arrange to have food trucks visit our office following our business meeting. In colder months, we order in food.
3. Big awards gala
It’s bigger than a wedding, and we celebrate every agent and their accomplishments each year. This event includes an invitation to their significant others; we talk about each person, and give them a personal gift from us, and present them corporate awards.
4. Happy hours
Several times a year we do happy hours with our agents. In the summer, we hire a houseboat for all of our agents and spouses to attend. There’s a big food spread, drinks, music and lots of fun.
5. Help agents be memorable
We rent out a local amusement park for our customers and agent appreciation. This is a yearly tradition that they all love.
In addition, we encourage agents to take specific actions to get in front of their spheres. For instance, when mortgage rates dropped, we sent out an email saying to reach out to your people or reach out to ask if they want an equity report.
We also pay for all of our agents to have their clients enrolled in Century 21’s Preferred Client Club, which offers three personalized mailings a year and custom lifestyle content, helping agents stay connected to their clients beyond the transaction. We also pay to do videos of our agents for their testimonials, advertising, etc.
6. Community events
Our company is widely known for our unrivaled, passionate and steadfast commitment to our community. We sponsor a number of charity events throughout the year and pay to have all of our agents in attendance at them: sports teams, backpacks, food drives, you name it. I’ll be the first to tell you I have a soft spot for any cause for kids.
7. Face time
Every month we draw 10 new agent names to take them all to lunch. We continue drawing until everyone gets picked and starts over. We also hold twice weekly in-person training in our office.
The bottom line for us: We love our agents, and we love to have fun. It’s been a winning combination to keep our agents engaged, productive, and happy at our firm.
Dawn Christiansen is broker-owner of Century 21 Ace Realty in the Fox Cities region of Wisconsin. Connect with her on Instagram and Linkedin.
