Broker of the Month

Nam Phan
Director of Real Estate Services Development
zipRealty
Emeryville, California

Interview

1. How many agents do you currently have working on your team? What are your short and long term recruiting goals?

Currently zipRealty has 350 sales agents on our team covering 17 markets. Our goal is to double our sales agent size by year end. We are currently on an aggressive hiring push to achieve our year end objectives.

2. What is the key differentiator about your company that you present to candidates that you are interested in recruiting?

zipRealty is unique in several key areas:

The sales agents are employees of the company compared to the industry norm of having independent contractors. As employees of the company, zipRealty agents enjoy many benefits and advantages over independent contractors, including ownership in the company.

Sales agents receive leads through our website. Therefore agents don't need to spend the time or incur the expense of obtaining clients through traditional means. zipRealty's strong value propositions for buyers and sellers attracts a large number of leads which are provided free to our agent employees. This allows our agents to focus on servicing customers and applying their real estate expertise.

zipRealty has invested and continues to invest a lot of it's resources in developing technology that assists agents in client and administrative management. zipRealty has developed a powerful CRM application which has enabled the sales force to manage a larger volume of clients leading to a sales force productivity that is one of the highest in the industry.

Finally, with our employee model and agents who are focused on customer service, zipRealty clients receive a higher and consistent standard of service, which is another differentiator for zipRealty.

3. What is your primary selection criteria when looking to recruit an agent?

Finding and retaining good agents is an area zipRealty is very focused on achieving. We've found that successful agents in our company have come from diverse backgrounds.

We look for expertise to provide customers with guidance and an understanding of the complex details of the real estate transaction. We continue to upgrade the agent profile. Responsiveness, professionalism, service orientation, real-estate knowledge and tech savviness are some of the sought after traits.

Our company is dedicated to training, and ensuring our agents can provide superior expert service that will exceed customer expectations.

4. You are using the Real Estate Simulator in a unique way - can you describe the process and the outcomes you have seen so far?

We have been using the Real Estate Simulator for a period now where some trends can be identified and benchmarked against productivity.

The Real Estate Simulator is used to evaluate a number of skill areas. In particular, we are looking for the Simulator to provide insights into the areas of relationship building, time management, problem solving and intitiative. Having agents take the Simulator during our training program allows us, as well as the agents, to be aware of strengths and possible
weaknesses.

Some of what we're finding is:

Agents scores on the Real Estate Simulator generally reflect their abilities in the field. Listening skills, reponsiveness, time management and cognitive ability scores are good indicators when measured against an agent's ability to develop relationships with clients, manage the high volume of business working at zipRealty and solve problems on the fly. In particular, the Detailed Assessments provide valuable insights into these specific skill areas.

5. What would you recommend to a broker or manager who is interested in recruiting, selecting, and training stronger agents?

Brokerages need to look beyond the pool of candidates within the industry to augment their sales force. I would say the agent of the future needs to possess the qualities mentioned in question 3. Also, brokerages looking to retain their agent force need to invest in training and developing their agents, especially in the areas of technology and learning to build loyalty from customers who have come through the web. Brokerages and managers cannot do the same things they've done in the past; that is hire as many agents as possible and hope the best ones survive. As customer service expectation levels rise, the premium on hiring the right sales agent also rises. Screening and choosing the best candidates is very important.

In broad terms, brokerages and managers working under the old system will be left behind unless they hire and invest in increasing their agent's skill set and savvy on the web to match that of buyers and sellers.