The resignation is never the beginning of it. By the time an agent is sitting there telling you they’re moving on, the decision has been made weeks previously and they’ve already interviewed with your competitor.
So how do you keep the agents who are thinking of leaving? It’s largely a timing issue. The work is done in the weeks prior to any decision being made and it’s done on the roster you already have in front of you.
How to Keep Real Estate Agents From Leaving: Why the Monthly Review Beats the Exit Conversation
37% of recruiting is actually to replace the agents who have left. More than a third of the hiring in this business is going to be to fill a seat that someone has walked out of and most of those people had a run-up.
When you only have one office location you’ll pick up most of it by accident. Someone just stops turning up, or they look stressed after a deal falls apart. Once you’ve got agents spread across multiple offices and working from home (which the vast majority of them do) then noticing doesn’t happen automatically. It has to be something you actively do on a specific day each month with a list in front of you.
30 minutes a month is all you need. If you’re a LeadUp user you already have that in place for your day. If you’re not then just start by putting a standing block on your calendar and go through your own roster to find these four things.
The Four Signals to Review Every Month
Assess each agent against their own history. A 24 unit agent at 14 is a much more telling figure than a 4 unit agent at 3.
Production is down on their own trailing year. The comparison that really matters is the agent’s normal. Half a normal year by October is worth a call in October not a call in January.
A listing that’s been withdrawn or expired with nothing behind it. Listings go off all the time. What you’re looking for is nothing new in the pipeline after it (which normally means the conversation with the seller went badly and there was no debrief).
60 days quiet from someone who is normally monthly, quarterly, etc. No new listing, no pending, no closing from an agent whose rhythm is normally far more steady than that. Two months quiet usually means something has stalled that nobody has actually said anything about.
A change in the way they’re presenting themselves. They’ve stopped coming to the one-to-one and they’ve stopped answering on the office thread, engaging online. The help requests go quiet as well. It’s not independence, it’s drift.
Three of the four are visible in the MLS activity so you can just pull them rather than remember them. The fourth one comes off your own calendar.
How to Run the Call After You Spot a Signal
Just make the observation that the listing has gone and nothing has taken its place. Then ask what’s changed and stop talking for as long as you’re comfortable.
Don’t ask them if they’re happy. Everyone says yes to that question, including the agent who was interviewed elsewhere.
Offer one specific thing with a date on it.
Write One Line Down About Every Agent You Review
Record four things per agent you looked at on one line: the signal, the date, what they said in their own words and the next step.
First month it’s all paperwork. Second month it starts to pay as the review kicks off with what you learned last time rather than starting from scratch. The agent who told you in September that a lender was consistently missing their deadlines will be the one who picks up the thread in October.
Not every signal needs a call. It’s perfectly valid to log that an agent is quiet because they’ve closed two in August and have subsequently gone on holiday. That’s what stops you from calling them about it again in four weeks.
The bottom line is 30 minutes on the first business day of next month. Sort your roster against the four signals, select the three agents at the top of that list and make three calls. Write one line down after each. Next month you start by reading what you wrote.