5 Common Mistakes Realtors Make When Hiring a Coach

What do Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, the Miami Heat, the Top 20 Realtors in your market, and every championship winning team, be they in sports or business, have in common?

They all have kick-butt coaches!

Every top realtor I know has a coach. Period.

Why?

Because a great coach takes a great performer and makes him better. Michael Jordan’s brilliance blossomed under Phil Jackson. Tiger’s dominance flowered under his coach, and the Top realtors in your market are where their talents flourished under their coaches.

My good friend Joe DiVita, one the fastest rising real estate brokers for Century 21, went from being an average broker to top 5 broker after he hired a great real estate coach. He went from selling 7 – 10 homes per year to selling 65 – 80 homes a year in less than 3 years with great coaching.

So should you be hiring a coach? Only if you are interested in increasing your sales and commissions dramatically! If you are not, then forget it!

Having said that, there are 5 common mistakes most agents make when hiring a coach that you should take care to avoid:

1. Neglecting to outline the coach’s role – a good coach will act as a counselor and mentor for you, and help you set goals, create a detailed action plan for achieving them, and hold you accountable for taking actions daily, weekly, and monthly that you both agree should be undertaken. A coach will NOT do the work for you, that’s up to you. But they will support you in getting it done.
2. Neglecting to check references – many agents hire coaches from some of the well known real estate coaching programs that are out there. However, the brand name coach at the head of the program seldom coaches new clients anymore, he has new staff for that. Some of these coaches are very good, others less so. Make sure you check your coach’s individual references before you begin working with her.
3. Neglecting to ask for a guarantee – when hiring a coach, you should both set targets for you to increase your business, by usually somewhere between 25% – 250%. Your coach should guarantee his work, so that if you follow his coaching and fail to move the needle, he should give you 100% of your money back.
4. Neglecting to set fees upfront – when hiring a coach, you should definitely discuss fees upfront, and agree to a price package. Most good real estate coaches charge from $150 — $500 per hour, and the best will also ask for a 5% — 25% of the increase of your sales in the back end on a yearly basis. If they can help you deliver, they are worth every penny.
5. Trying a coach out for less than a year – if you are an agent who is in this business for the long haul, you should understand that you similarly need to commit to a coach for the long haul. You cannot expect coaching to deliver you maximum results in anything less than a full, sustained commitment, and that includes being coachable and signing up for a minimum of a year. Anything less is a waste of time, and lost opportunity to grow your business.

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