November 11, 2023Join Suneet Agarwal and Preston Guyton in a discussion with Brittney Pino about her luxury brokerage in Baton Rouge. Learn how Brittney, a former RE/MAX agent, established a client-centric boutique, emphasizing a white-glove experience and elite listing process. Discover her unique approach that propelled her business to a remarkable 60% growth compared to the previous year. Brittney’s success is attributed to a stellar team of agents and a superior administrative team.
Video Contents:
00:00 – Introduction
00:48 – Brittney’s Real Estate Journey
06:07 – Setting up Agents to Succeed
11:10 – Brittney’s Admin Team & Support
23:15 – How Brittney Manages Her Team
Episode breakdown: building a boutique brokerage around admin support
Brittney Pino runs Brittney Pino and Associates, a boutique brokerage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She spent 14 years at RE/MAX, opened her own firm in 2020, and for a while sold 100 homes a year as a solo agent with a full admin staff behind her. When the business outgrew her, she started adding agents one at a time. By the time she sat down with Suneet Agarwal and Preston Guyton, she had 10 agents, a handful of licensed admin, and a business up 60% from the year before.
Give every agent the seat you built for yourself
When the volume became more than she could handle, she had two choices. She could turn people away, or she could plug the right agents into the same setup. She chose the second, and each new agent sits in a seat that looks like hers did.
That seat comes with a listing partner, a marketing department, a videographer on staff, a runner who handles signs and lockboxes, and the call systems that bring in business. The agents are left with the revenue-producing work. A little past the halfway mark of the year, she had agents who had already closed 20 deals.
Send two people to every listing appointment
No agent goes on a listing appointment alone. Brittney splits her agents into certified and non-certified listing agents. A non-certified agent can take listings but has to bring a certified agent along, and sits in almost as an assistant, taking notes on how objections, pricing and the custom marketing plan get handled. Certified agents bring one of the two listing partners.
Once the listing is signed, the listing partner takes over home prep, production day, staging and movers. Brittney compares the agent to a physician who meets the patient, gives the diagnosis on price and the marketing plan, then hands it off and moves on. That handoff is what lets her agents carry high volume without getting stuck in the details.
Build the admin team for the volume you want
Brittney admits she once had an ego about third-party transaction coordinators. She met with one planning to recruit her in-house, then changed her mind. A single in-house hire would crash and burn at the volume she wanted, so she moved transactions to the outside company. That company brands everything to her system and covers sick days with its own staff.
I am big on being proactive and not reactive and communicating with our clients before they have to ask a question.
Brittney Pino
Around that, she has an in-house licensed client care coordinator, a licensed marketing director who can also step in as a listing partner, her main listing partner who doubles as operations manager, a runner, and a part-time college student who helps wherever she’s needed. Clients text one concierge line, modeled on a Four Seasons, that the TC, operations, marketing and the assigned agent can all see and answer. Her next planned hire is a virtual assistant who would sit on screen with the admin team all day, and the hosts pushed her to hire two. Suneet lays out how roles like these stack up in his guide to real estate team structure and hiring order.
Hire slowly and use a trial period
Brittney wants a few years in the business and a number of closings, because her team moves fast and she can’t stop to explain a purchase agreement. Experience isn’t everything. She looks for a spirit of contribution, coachability, adaptability, and agents who present themselves professionally and communicate well.
When she’s unsure, she meets a candidate a second time and sometimes brings in her operations manager. In a few cases she has hired on a 90-day trial with clear expectations. A couple of recent hires she was unsure about turned out to be, in her words, a perfect fit.
We’re not for everybody and everybody is not for us.
Brittney Pino
Tie lead access to a points minimum
After moving everyone into Follow Up Boss, Brittney used the leaderboard to set expectations. In July she ran a points competition, and the winner hit 15,000 points in the first two weeks before leaving on a trip. She set the minimum at 8,000 points a month. Agents who miss it come off the phones and lead claiming and work the leads they already have until they hit the number.
On the hosts’ side, the standard is 12,000 points including appointments, or converting at double the average, to stay on leads. Brittney also expects at least one open house a month, time in the office and time on the phones.
If you’re not committed and you’re not working, you’re taking up a seat on our bus.
Brittney Pino
Route every lead source to a race
Brittney doesn’t pay for leads, but yard signs, mailers, Facebook, seller lead campaigns and a little PPC all bring business in. Each source has its own phone number. When a call comes in, every agent who’s on leads gets the ring at the same time, and whoever answers first gets it. Online leads use Follow Up Boss click-to-claim. Calls are recorded, transcribed and linked to the CRM. The phone rings at least 100 times a month for her 10 agents, and the website her firm launched in 2020 brings in about 400 organic leads a month.
Key takeaways for team leaders
- Give new agents the same support that freed you up, so they spend their time on revenue-producing work.
- Pair newer listing agents with certified ones until they’ve learned your pricing, objections and marketing plan.
- Hire admin and outside partners for the volume you’re aiming at, not the volume you have today.
- Screen for coachability and communication as well as experience, and use a trial period when you’re unsure.
- Put a visible activity minimum on lead access, and give every lead source its own number so you can track it.
