Common management mistakes to avoid

As the owner and/or principal of a busy CENTURY 21 real estate franchise, much of your time is spent directing your staff and remaining abreast of what your team is working on.  With so much attention focused on the work of others, it can sometimes be difficult to step back and assess your own management style and whether you are working to the best of your ability and in the most effective manner.

In considering your management style, there are a few common mistakes that many managers across the board make, which you may also find yourself doing on occasion.  By simply acknowledging that these practices can be changed, you could find that your team works more productively, your office becomes more efficient and the profitability and success of your franchise business improves. 

Be clear in difficult conversations – try not waffle when giving bad news

For employees, there can often be nothing worse than receiving bad news from a superior, whether it is that you are being let go or made redundant, or that you haven’t reached your targets, and for the news to be delivered in an ambiguous way.  As a manager it is your responsibility to be direct with your staff members, ensuring they understand your message and, if necessary, the steps that must be taken for the situation to be rectified.  

Reward where credit is due – withhold when credit is not due

The very nature of a reward is that it is incentive based – given on the condition that certain tasks are performed.  If you have promised your staff a bonus or special activity for reaching sales targets or exceptional performance, try not to give out rewards until such milestones are reached, or until it is appropriate to do so.  Rewarding unnecessarily can see the motivation for your team to perform removed, and it may make it harder for you to set goals in the future.  

Outline exactly what is expected

For tasks that are broad and vague in nature, it is important to go through the series of smaller tasks that make up the whole project with your team.  This will ensure that the project is completed in the manner in which you had envisioned, and will remove any confusion that may have otherwise prevented or slowed your staff in their completion of the task.  

While for the most part an immensely rewarding role, the management of a real estate franchise office has the potential to present a wide range of challenges.  By taking stock of your own performance every so often and identifying how to easily rectify common mistakes that you may be making, you may be able to improve the success of your business and the happiness of your team members.  

New Year’s resolutions for your real estate business – and how to keep them

New Year can be a refreshing time for a real estate franchise business to re-evaluate its goals and priorities, particularly as many people will have come back to work after a break and with renewed focus, energy, motivation and ideas for the company.  As such, this period is an excellent time to set a renewed series of resolutions and goals for your business to achieve – giving the company direction for the year ahead. 

While the resolutions for each business may differ, according to the internal state of a company as well as its stage in the business life cycle, there are several resolutions that many owners and/or managers of real estate franchises could find value in achieving. 

These include:

·         Improve delegation tactics.  As owner and /or manager of a busy real estate franchise, there are usually a number of tasks to be done at any one time.  Consider improving your time management and levels of productivity by selectively delegating suitable tasks to appropriate staff members – as a result freeing up your time for other management activities. 

·         Ensure staff members feel appreciated.  As offices become busy and stressed, acknowledging the contribution of your staff can sometimes fall by the wayside.  There is much to be said for thanking and showing appreciation for your team through small gestures, which don’t have to be costly. 

·         Investigate the potential of social media.  While social media tools will not be the most effective form of marketing for all real estate franchises, it is nonetheless a rapidly emerging and influential tool.  As owner and/or manager it is important for you to remain up to date with this technology to ensure that you don’t miss the boat and miss out on valuable marketing opportunities. 

·         Ensure you maintain a healthy work/life balance.  As the year progresses and work becomes busy, it is important for owners and managers not to lose sight of their personal New Year’s resolutions and to ensure that there is a balance between work time and personal time. 

With these resolutions (and others that may also be important to your business) in place, it is important to give yourself the best chance of achieving them.  Potential tactics to increase the likelihood of staying on track with your resolutions can include:

·         Limiting the number of your resolutions to five, listed in order of priority;

·         Setting further ‘sub’ resolutions under each main resolution outlining the necessary steps to achieve them;

·         Keeping your top five resolutions close by as a daily reminder of what you wish to achieve;

·         Setting yourself a deadline by which each resolution should be achieved, with a reward for success; and

·         Revisiting your goals and monitoring your progress on a regular basis (e.g. monthly) to ensure you stay on track. 

Goal setting is important for all businesses, and real estate is no exception.  From a managerial perspective it is important to start a New Year refreshed and with goals in sight, both to encourage yourself and to motivate staff.  By setting key resolutions to be achieved, and having an understanding of how to accomplish them, your real estate franchise should be in a much better position to succeed over the year ahead.

Employing and integrating new staff for the success of your franchise

As the owner and/or manager of a CENTURY 21 real estate franchise, one of your key roles and responsibilities will surround the hiring and successful integration of new staff members into your office environment.  As many experienced managers will understand, this is not always just as easy as hiring the person with the best credentials and most experience, but rather can involve selecting somebody who is the best overall fit for your workplace, and having systems in place to assist them settle in smoothly. 

When hiring new staff to join your team, personality, along with qualifications, is an extremely important consideration.  In most cases (and dependent on your existing staff and office culture), an ideal new employee will be somebody who fits easily into the office environment, getting along reasonably well with most existing members of the team.  While personality shouldn’t dictate who you hire, particularly if somebody is well suited to the job at hand, it is definitely worthy of contemplation, especially if your new employee is to settle in quickly. 

Some offices may find that it can also be advantageous if new additions introduce a certain level of healthy competition into the workplace – driving all existing employees to achieve even greater feats as a result.

Upon hiring new team members, real estate franchise owners and managers may like to hold a series of activities to promote healthy team bonding and interaction – particularly outside of the work environment.  These do not have to be expensive or time-consuming, rather could simply be the suggestion of a social get together after work at the end of a week.  You may find that the integration process is furthered quite effectively when your team members are given an opportunity to get to know one another away from the pressures of work.

In addition, it may also be a worthwhile exercise to establish a system akin to a ‘buddy’ system upon a new staff member starting in your office.  By assigning the person to spend time with various other team members for a period of time as they engage in their day to day roles (such as going to visit a client, updating the office website, presenting a house for inspection, conducting an auction) the new staff member gets a fairly indepth look at each of the roles present in the office, as well as an opportunity to get to know individual team members. 

A flourishing working atmosphere in any industry is often the result of staff members interacting well together – creating an enjoyable and productive environment.  The successful hiring and integration of team members thus becomes an increasingly important exercise if such a balance is to be maintained.  Owners and managers of real estate franchises should note that there are a number of ways that new staff members can be suitably hired and then incorporated, ensuring the team, and office, continues to thrive – giving your office the best chance of achieving ongoing success.