What difference can a team make in real estate? Well, it really depends on the team just like it really depends on the individual REALTOR®. This blog really looks at the power of a team whether real estate, football or parcheesi.
Much has been written, spoken, documented, dramatized and fantasized about the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Why? They were the only PERFECT team in pro sports history. The ’72 “fins” beat everyone during the regular season and then did it again during the playoffs all the way to the Super Bowl. They are to this day, the ONLY major pro sports team to win every game they played during a season. Let that sink in…
They won every game they played that year. Many, many, many teams have come within a hair of matching that same feat, but they didn’t, and the funny thing is that although those other teams had amazing seasons, very few people can name them. Perfect teams are a real rarity, like the four-leaf clover or the Sasquatch, but when they reveal themselves, the world stands still to appreciate them.
To achieve this level of “team” each member must buy in to what’s being sold, that is, to completely and unthinkingly follow the concepts and goals that have been assigned to them. A team member has to have unblinking reaction to the job that is required of them on a day to day, hour by hour, play by play basis.
This approach is otherwise known as faith…
You have to have faith. You need to know that what you are doing is the right thing to do and has to be done, no matter what. A team member knows that the person to the left or right is going to get the job done just like he or she is. Trust is omnipresent. It never EVER goes away or wavers. A team member’s biggest fear is not failure, it's letting down his or her teammates, the fear of being the weak link.
When watching their favourite sports team on TV, most folks don’t see the high level of ‘friendly’ competition that exists between teammates. These are friends, not foes, competing for playing time or for a given position or for their professional sporting existence.
Often players will push each other far beyond what they would have ever achieved on their own, and even the teammate who loses out on the starting job ends up performing at a level they never thought possible.
This is the main function of any team: To RAISE the bar and up the daily level of achievement through the co-ordinated effort of individuals.
You can slap together a number of individual superstars onto one team (see the New York Yankees 2001-2013) and hope that their singular skills can combine to be an unstoppable force, but history shows that this rarely happens. It is often the case that a group of individuals, superstars or no, looking out for singular glory, fail, miserably.
The failure comes during conception, from the superstars “need” to succeed over competitors and teammates alike. They are unable to recognize friend vs foe, or in our case, competitor vs teammate.
This is where teams need to tread a fine line. What a manager must find is a harmonious group of people who can co-exist and function as a unit but they MUST be able to push one another to higher levels of achievement. Not through envy or jealousy but rather by the intrinsic need to support and succeed. Either way works. A team member isn’t mad at his or her co-worker when they achieve something that they were both after. Quite the opposite, they are actually happy for them, however the member who came out on the short end is motivated to do better and to be better. It’s healthy competition, where trust, respect and the honest to God desire to see a team become stronger, exist.
Add real estate into the equation and the waters get a bit more complicated. A team needs to see a goal that they are going to work to achieve together. Shared victories, shared defeats. The most successful brokerage will balance the need of the individual REALTORs desire to succeed with the growth and progress of the brokerage. The individuals in the team and the team supporting the individuals.
Sounds simple eh?
When you are looking to sell you’re home, consider this concept. What team are you signing on to work with? What is the culture and atmosphere? How much ‘buy in’ is there? Sure, maybe they’re not the 1972 Miami Dolphins but make sure their ultimate and singular purpose (aka Real Estate Super Bowl) is always one thing: your best interests.
To have a chat with our team, feel free to contact us anytime.
Thank-you for visiting!
THEbTEAM.
Thank-you to Riley Edwards for the great photo.