How to Quickly & Easily Build Your Recruiting Prospect List

Recruiting without a prospect list is like trying to drive a car without a steering wheel. Unless you get lucky, you’re not going far.

If you don’t have a list, building one is easier than you might think. If you do have a list but are concerned you don’t have the right agents on it or have left someone out, use the information below to update or revise it.

Building the List

Start by setting your minimum and maximum production standards (volume and/or units), experience level, and geographic range. Next, pull your prospect list based on those criteria. How you do this will vary by MLS.

If pulling data from your MLS is difficult, or if you want to control more variables, check out BrokerMetrics, Trendgraphix, and REality (powered by IMS). Those programs offer a variety of tools to help you build and refine your prospect list.

Once you have the raw list, scan it to see if there is anyone obvious you want to remove. Consider leaving other owners and managers on the list. You can often recruit many agents at once by buying/merging with another company or hiring away a popular manager.

Exceptions

Two effective methods for recruiting include asking for referrals from your agents and targeting prospects who have done transactions with your agents (co-op recruiting). If you use these methods, they are exceptions to the process above because your prospect list will build itself over time.

The only danger of relying on agent referrals and co-op recruiting is the list you build is likely to be too small to hit your recruiting goals. More on this below.

List Size

Your recruiting goals should dictate the size of your prospect list. By far, the single biggest mistake you can make is to build a prospect list that’s too small.

About 20% of the agents in your market will switch companies in an average year. And, unless you are the greatest recruiter on the planet, you’re not going to hire every one of those agents. Some will join the competition.

To give yourself the best shot at hitting your goals, I recommend your list be at least 7-10 times the total number of agents you want to recruit in the next 12 months. So, if your goal for the year is 20, you want at least 140-200 agents on your list. The larger your market share and current agent count, the lower your list size can be in that range.

If the list you created following the advice in sections one or two above is smaller than 7-10 times your goal, you have three options. You can loosen your standards, expand your geographic range, or lower your recruiting goals.

As always, feel free to shoot me an email or give me a call if I can help in any way as you build your list.

P.S. – There’s no downside to having a list larger than 7-10 times your goal. As long as you have the marketing budget and the time, you want your list as large as possible.