What motivates agents to switch brokerages?
What motivates agents to switch brokerages?
The obvious answer is they switch when they become unhappy with their current brokerage.
But, that is far less common than people think. In a recent survey, fewer than 15% of agents who switched companies said they did so because they were unhappy.
So, if only a small percentage of agents switch because they're unhappy, why do the majority switch?
The answer is, they find something better.
Yes, that's a broad answer. And that's because "better" is individual to each agent.
They might switch because of split, leads, support, technology, training, coaching, office location, culture, brand, or any combination thereof.
The point is, the majority of agents who switch aren't motivated to do so until someone shows them something better.
The reason we bring this up is we often see brokers focus their recruiting efforts on finding agents who are already strongly motivated to switch.
And that means they're missing out on the 85% of agents who would switch if presented with something better.
That's why it's critical to speak with as many agents as possible, regardless of their current level of motivation.
You never know when something you say will provide the motivation for an agent to switch.
You've heard us say before warm calls (referrals from existing agents and co-op calls) and cold calls are the most effective ways to generate recruiting appointments.
Nothing beats a live conversation because it gives you the opportunity to probe and find out what would motivate a particular agent to move.
Email, direct mail, social media, paid ads, etc. have their place in recruiting, but they play supporting roles (with the exception of brand new agents where they can be very effective).
So as you're speaking with agents, don't accept it at face value if they tell you they're happy where they are or aren't interested in switching.
In that moment, they're telling the truth.
Your job is to move past those responses and find out under what circumstances they might move.
Do that and you have a good chance to turn an "I'm happy" into "I'm interested".
