Support Center is key to recruiting and retaining agents, Broker says

Real Estate Broker's Insider
April 2010

If an agent at Evers & Co. needs help touching up a photo or designing a brochure, she can ask the company's full-time marketing employee for help.

If the agent has trouble with her computer or scanner, she can go to the company's full-time computer technician.

And if she wants to bring the company president to a listing presentation, broker Donna Evers is happy to go along.

Evers says that sort of attention to agents is crucial to the success of her 78-agent company, Evers & Co. in Washington, DC.

While many brokers have boosted their bottom line by cutting costs and services, Evers has gone in the opposite direction. She uses a higher level of service to attract and retain agents.

"When things are tough, you really have to look at what you have to offer agents," Evers says.

Her Agent Resource Center aims to take some of the mundane administrative work off agents' shoulders and let them concentrate instead on selling properties and servicing clients.

"It certainly allows them to focus on their listings," Evers says.

In most companies, agents run their own "mini-companies." That approach often requires hiring assistants, who increase both costs and responsibilities.

Evers' service-heavy strategy means that only two of her 78 agents employ assistants.

"If you have an assistant, you're probably going to pay them $30,000, so it's nice not to have that," Evers says.

One of Evers' selling points is a marketing department that takes photos, creates ads, and then places them.

"We're very fussy about photos and making sure everything looks its very best," she says.

And Evers herself takes agents' business seriously. She doesn't sell, and her coaching efforts can extend to going to a listing appointment or attending the presentation of a contract.

"I can be their partner for a short term," Evers says. "It helps to say, ‘I am bringing the president of my company with me.' We're small enough that we can still do that."

While Evers won't disclose her splits, she says her market doesn't allow her to cut agents' take to cover overhead.

"Our splits are very good and very competitive," Evers says. "You have to be, because people are always going to ask, ‘How much money can I make?"

Dealing with a down market
Sales in Washington, DC, have plunged by more than 50 percent from the peak a few years ago, and Evers acknowledges that many brokers responded by cutting costs. She thinks that strategy is dangerous.

"You can't contract when the market is contracting," she said. "It's a natural thing to do. But you just can't do that, because you can really get swept along with the current and lose everything."

Instead, she has continued recruiting agents and adding services.

"We have a lot of overhead, but it's paid us back handsomely," she says.

Evers also dislikes the response by some brokers to move back into selling. Running a company while also selling homes create divided loyalties, she says.

"My whole attention is devoted to the agents and their listings," Evers says. "It's sort of fictional to think you can be the broker and be both the mentor and go out and sell."

Boosting service levels

Evers & Co. Real Estate recruits and retains agents in part by offering high levels of service. Some of the extras agents get:
• A marketing department shoots photos and creates and places ads.
• A computer expert troubleshoots technical issues
• The broker sometimes accompanies agents on listing appointments and offers other coaching.