What to do When You Want to Grow Your Small-market Brokerage

Faced with fewer new licensees coming through the pipeline than in large metropolitan areas, brokers in small markets have to recruit smart to stay successful, because they and their competitors are pulling from the same tiny group of candidates.

You can try to woo the go-getters in your market, but you risk creating tension with competing brokers. “You don’t want to alienate the very people you have to work with on a regular basis,” says Carolyn Harris-Beck, broker-owner of Prudential Carolyn Harris Realty in Shawnee, Okla. Her area has about 10 brokerages and about 30,000 people. “If I were in a large market, I’d probably be more open to recruiting from other offices,” she says.

To snap up new licensees in West Plains, Mo.—there are fewer than half a dozen new licensees there in a typical quarter—broker-owner Inez Freeman Pahlmann keeps her company, United Country—Missouri Ozarks Realty Inc., top of mind among key people in the industry, particularly instructors teaching licensing classes. There are a dozen brokerages in her town of 12,000 people, she says.

A good relationship with the prelicensing instructors is a big plus because they hold a lot of sway with students and typically recommend which three or four brokerages to interview with first. “We don’t have to do any active recruiting at the school, because we’re often one of the companies the instructors recommend,” says Pahlmann. Getting on the receiving end of the recommendations comes from being in the market some 30 years and establishing a good reputation among associates, she says.

“We’ve been getting a lot of new licensees coming to us on name recognition alone,” says Kris Sheridan, CRB, CRS®, president and co-owner of Park Co., REALTORS®, in Fargo, N.D., whose company, at about 75 associates in two offices, is large for the area. Sheridan interviews about one new licensee a week and affiliates about half a dozen a year.

Even better is getting your brokerage on people’s radar screen before they start classes. The way to do that is simply to start asking your contacts if they know people looking for a new career. “There’s always someone who knows someone who’s thought about going into real estate,” says Kathy Polkinghorne, GRI, broker-owner of Algerio GMAC Real Estate in Elko, Nev. “That’s one of the advantages of being in a small town. I’ve had people to whom I’ve suggested going into real estate turn around and make the same suggestion to people they know.”

For those who take up the suggestion, hers is the company they come to first because of its role in the conversation.

Polkinghorne and other brokers believe getting associates right out of school is crucial if you want to train them your way. All new associates must make a set number of calls to their sphere of influence and existing business contacts each day, something that associates find easier to do when they’re not already used to other ways of prospecting, she says. “We have extensive training, script practice, and a lot of accountability for our new recruits. We review their call numbers every day.”

Whatever the approach, there’s a modest but steady influx of people in small markets looking to get into real estate now, thanks to continuing solid home sales at a time other sectors of the economy aren’t as robust. Says Polkinghorne: “People see it as a good way to make money.”