Quick Tip Thursday! What Should I Consider When Looking Into Joining a Team?
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podcast for women who want to unlock the clarity needed to put your big girl panties on and rock your real estate career like the true boss you are. I'm Joanne Bolt, your host, and together we'll dive into the things your broker doesn't teach you in order to own your own truth, disown the things getting in your way to finding your place, and stop apologizing for the obstacles you have to overcome along the way.

Hey everybody and welcome back. It's another Thursday and you all know what that means. Time for a quick tip. This one comes from Becky in Idaho of all places. So Becky, thanks for joining in and listening. Becky wrote in to our text hotline and said, "Hey Joanne, I'm a brand new agent and I'm thinking I should probably join a team. What should I look for?"

Becky, I have got five things that you need to take into consideration when you're joining a team. Having run one for so many years myself, this is a lot of learning mistakes that I made and team members joining and leaving and staying on my team, all the discussions that we've had. This is kind of how we put this list together.

The first thing you need to look at is the leadership style of the primary person of the team, the owner of the team. They're often called the rainmaker. Is this a leader who is abrasive, abrupt, and rude? Or is it a leader who...

It's well-respected in the office or the local community because they teach a lot. People seek their advice. People seek their guidance. It doesn't really matter. Either one of them, by the way, Becky, is fine so long as it matches you. If you are someone who is also on the DISC profile, probably a high D, you're very abrupt. You're to the point. You might appreciate that leadership style of leader number one.

However, if you're soft-spoken, if you're more of an introvert, if it takes a lot to get you out of your shell and you don't appreciate confrontational, loud, and boisterous type people, then that leader is probably not the right one for you.

If you are someone who really wants to be taught, you really want to learn from the best in the best, then go hunt the person who is asked to teach a lot, not only in your own office, but around the community. That's a leadership style that you will probably mesh well with because it's a person who gives in a teaching manner instead of an instruction manner. All leaders have their strengths and their weaknesses. There's no one style that is better than the others for running a team.

What is better is for the right personality almost matches to be made so that you appreciate the leadership style of the Rainmaker for whom team you join. The second thing I would say to look into Becky is what is the lead generation style?

Just like we talk about the leadership style for the Rainmaker, let's talk about what is the primary form of lead flow within that team. Now, I do want to pause for a second and say, you should never walk into a team with the expectation of getting free leads. Girl, you got to earn those leads.

It is important to note that if you are looking at a team whose primary source of business lead generation is cold calling for sale by owners or expired or circle prospecting one to two hours a day, and you would rather slit your wrist,

then do that because what you really want to do is make homemade cookies and deliver them to your sphere of influence. That's a mismatch of lead generation styles and you are not going to love being on a team that does not push the sphere-based, relationship-based model for obtaining business. So I know you're new in the business and you probably are wondering, well, I don't even know what my style is because I have no business. But ask yourself this,

If taught how to properly get on the phone for an hour or two a day and dial for dollars does not give you the heebie-jeebies, then maybe that's an okay style for you and a transactional call all day long team is a good fit. If the thought of that does give you the heebie-jeebies, get a team and ask them specifically, what is your main lead generation source?

All teams can give you all kinds of answers. Now they may tell you that, yeah, okay, we do paid leads from realtor.com or Ojo and that's fine. That can be one of the sources of leads, but what's the primary source? How does the Rainmaker herself or himself get those leads? Because if you really want a sphere based business, join a sphere based team. If you want a

high volume, high transaction business. Join a team that makes a lot of phone calls every single day because you want to learn the style of business that matches how you want to do business. And okay, number three, ooh, this is my favorite one. Culture, go meet the rest of the team. If you're seriously interested in seeking an opportunity in a team, find out who is on the team currently and take them to lunch. Go grab a coffee or a cocktail.

Don't ask them about the team. I will repeat that. Don't ask them about the team. You're not there to interview them about the team necessarily. What you want to do is find out who they are as people.

Are the rest of the team people that you would want to hang out with? Would you want to go to dinner with them? Would you want to pick the phone up and call them on a daily basis? Do you trust the advice that they give you? Do they sound like bumbling idiots when they talk or are they thoroughly knowledgeable, enjoyable, and not stuck up at all to be around? If you have a great experience with the team members, then the culture of the team is most likely one you're going to enjoy.

Yes, there are all personalities that join a team and the best teams have a variety of personalities on them and that's what makes them well-rounded and strong. But ultimately, if there are three other agents on a team and you go to lunch with all three of them and you only liked one of them,

I would keep looking for other teams girlfriend because they are out there. But if you took all three of them for coffee, even if it was at the same time and we're rolling in the floor laughing because you felt so comfortable with them, that may be a team that you want to continue to pursue. Number four, when you meet with the Rainmaker or their head admin, ask what the expectations are of being on the team. It's okay to find out what they are looking for you to do.

Are they looking for you to spend two hours a day lead generating on the phone? Are they looking for you to show up once a month at a client happy hour? Are they looking for you to provide 100 names into a database right off the bat? Are they looking for you fill in the blank? Go ahead and find out now.

Because quite frankly, if their expectations of a team member are not something you feel you can commit to and live up to, it's not the right team for you. But don't sell yourself short. They may ask you to go ahead and lead generate two hours a day.

but not tell you exactly what hours those generation have to be. Thus, you just have to give accountability to the Rainmaker. And if that works for you and your schedule, then it's not a bad thing. It's just making sure that you can meet the expectations of the team. Because in order for it to be a good experience, you need to know that you can live up to what the Rainmaker is expecting of you. Number five, go ahead and ask for a copy of the team contract. And if they don't have one,

go ahead and walk away and find a team that does. A team contract is literally just the agreement between yourself and the rainmaker of the team as to how things are handled, what the expectations are, and quite frankly, it should include a divorce clause. In the event at some point you decide to walk off the team or the team owner decides that you're no longer a fit for the team, what

How do you handle contracts currently in place? Who owns the database? What obligations do you have to the team upon leaving? What kind of notice should you give? Treat this like a job interview when you're looking at the contract. Because if it's a well-written contract, it is a team that you should probably further look into joining. Here are some red flags, by the way, on a not well-written contract.

If the contract is vague about what happens with current clients and current contracts, if you leave a team, like when I say contracts, I mean the purchase and sale, then you need clarification on what it means. And if you have to ask for clarification, it's not a solid contract. However, if that contract very clearly states who owns the database, who owns what part of the database, then

contracts under that are in escrow will be carried out and who will finish them out what your expectations are upon leaving the team if they're clearly communicated and you have a very good idea of how this team runs right down to the exit line then it is a great contract now I want you guys to take note of something I did not tell you to look at did you catch it

I never told you to ask or find out what team splits are. That, quite frankly, should be one of the last things that you're looking at. You've gone through number one, two, three, four, and five, and the team seems like a good fit for you.

then you can look at what the splits are. Does it financially make sense for you to be on that team? And you've done your homework ahead of time to know if the split is a big one, but expectations and the contract and the type of lead generation and what you're going to get out of joining that team are good, then it's worth it and the splits really won't matter. If the splits are super tiny,

Go back and see what value are you really getting from numbers one through five in being on the team? Because chances are, if you've really done your homework on numbers one through five, you will get a good sense of what the value is of being on the team and you should equate it properly to what the splits are. But if you walk in the door asking what the team splits are before you do the homework on numbers one through five, then you're really hung up on, quite frankly,

quite frankly, the financial numbers, and you might miss a great opportunity. Hope this helps, Becky, and I would love to hear back from you once you decide which team that you have joined because I love to follow our followers on their real estate journey. Thanks and have a great day.

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