One of our Alumni from The Listings Lab, and current member of our 7-Figure Agent Collective, Emma Pace, shared her TOP real estate leadership lessons in an interview with Jess. This post is based on her top takeaways in our program, The 7-Figure Agent Collective.
If you’re a real estate team leader, you know how difficult it can be to grow and maintain a successful team.
Turnover, hiring mistakes, and burnout can all be challenges that arise along the way.
In this post, we’ll explore Emma’s experience and the lessons she’s learned about team building, delegation, scaling, and creating a great company culture.
5 Real Estate Leadership Lessons With Emma Pace
Whether you’re a seasoned team leader or just starting out, these insights will help you grow a thriving and sustainable real estate team!
Get The Right People In The Right Seats
No one likes team turnover…
It’s stressful!
But if you’ve been growing a real estate team without the right strategy in place, team turnover is often a necessary evil.
In Emma’s words, she felt stressed as she started noticing team turnover and had the feeling that “something she’d built seemed to be falling apart”.
But sometimes you need to let old ways die in order to build something better.
Now, Emma’s finally got the right people in the right seats – and it’s changed her business for the better.
Sometimes, it can be easy to hire someone quickly if you’re swamped and feel like you need help yesterday.
But being intentional about filling your positions with the RIGHT people will allow you to build a team of people who are with you for the long run.
Don’t Cling To Something That’s Not Working
If you know you need to get new team members…
Don’t put off the inevitable.
One of the expressions I live by is “hire slow, fire fast”.
But I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
When I first started growing my team, I had an assistant that I knew I needed to let go of.
But I was scared to have the difficult conversation with her.
I kept her on for a YEAR before finally getting the guts to fire her.
Emma experienced similar feelings of hesitation about switching her team members.
In her words, she felt like she was “losing something she already put so much work into”.
But another expression I live by is:
“Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a long time making it.”
The more time you’ve spent trying to “make it work” with team members that ultimately weren’t a fit to begin with…
The more resistance you’ll feel to taking the next steps to replace them.
But at the end of the day, good real estate leadership is about having the hard conversations to move your business forward.
Focus On Strengths & Delegate Weaknesses
No one person can do it all!
We all have our strengths, and we all have our weaknesses too.
Good real estate leadership is all about filling your weaknesses with other people’s strengths.
I truly believe that’s one of the biggest reasons why The Listings Lab is where it is today.
Our members get even more value because they get access to 5-6 different coaches who specialize in various areas of business – from systems to marketing to PR to team management, the expertise on our team is pretty insane.
But in order to get to this point, I had to overcome my resistance and stop listening to my ego that wanted to do it all on my own.
Emma felt the same way. At first, she was hesitant to give more work to her showing specialist.
But once she developed the right business model and opened the lines of communication with her clients and her team, she realized she never needed to feel worried.
A lot of the time solo agents will complain, “ugh, I just wish I could outsource this to someone else!”
But the reality is…you can!
There’s no need to spend time on tasks you dread doing when you could outsource them to an expert who thrives on that kind of work.
Want more tips on delegating? Read this blog post to master delegation as a real estate team leader!
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
Getting to the four or five-hundred-thousand-dollar mark in real estate is one thing, but scaling to a seven-figure business is a completely different story.
Everything looks different, and you can’t just double down on what worked before and expect it to double your business.
Even if you manage to do it, your growth won’t be sustainable. You physically can’t scale your business without changing the way you operate. If you try, you’ll only experience massive burnout – as well as becoming the limiting factor in your business.
It’s a cliche, but what got you here won’t get you there.
Once you hit the seven-figure mark and have all the foundations laid, it’s a lot easier to scale from a million to two million and beyond, because the repeatable processes are the same.
And because Emma’s in our 7-Figure Agent Collective, she now notes that scaling feels so much easier. She’s already laid the groundwork.
Create A Great Company Culture
A lot of real estate team leaders make the mistake of thinking the only thing their team wants is leads.
But at the end of the day, agents that want to be on a team want so much more than to just be handed leads.
Your team members want an environment where they can feel like they can truly succeed.
Emma had to do a lot of soul-searching and business planning in order to create this environment for her team.
Prior to her mentorship in The 7-Figure Agent Collective, Emma lacked real estate leadership skills. She didn’t know how to set the right expectations for her team.
She knew she was an incredible agent, but being an incredible real estate leader was a whole other skill set altogether.
Now, Emma has clarity on how to create a team environment her agents are EXCITED to be a part of.
There are many agents out there who would rather be a part of a powerhouse team than build their own business from the ground up.
You need to make sure you’re attracting these types of people – the ones who are the *right* fit for a real estate team, rather than just anyone who can get leads.
You should always be aiming for a relationship that feels like a win-win.
In the words of Emma, “It’s not about me winning anymore. It’s about everyone winning”.
As a real estate team leader, you may face many challenges, from turnover to burnout. However, Emma’s journey shows that with the right strategies, it *is* possible to build a high-performing team that supports you for the long run.
By hiring the right people, delegating tasks, making tough decisions, adapting to change, and creating a strong company culture, you can build a team that not only survives…but thrives.
Want to apply to our high-level year-long mentorship program for agents looking to scale to seven figures and beyond?
Get more information and apply to our 7-Figure Agent Collective HERE.
