Do I Hire Generalists Or Specialists For My Team?
Philosophically speaking, are you a person who wants and believes that people can do a lot of things well or a few things well? There are huge differences in businesses that follow the philosophy of hiring generalists or specialists. Your vision for the size of your team a few years down the road will also determine the generalist versus specialist discussion.
In a specialist business, it doesn’t mean that people aren’t doing things that they aren’t so good at. In a specialist practice, your objective is to minimize the time in your staff’s day that this occurs. You must segment your business, tasks, and activities at a higher level than you would in a generalist practice. Obviously, if you are faced with a first hire, that person will have to wear many hats and be a generalist in the activities. The most glaring mistake I see agents make in this area is lumping administrative functions with sales functions in one person’s job description. The result is the creation of a hybrid position where the skills and behavioral style of most individuals are incongruent with the position designed.
I have made this mistake, as well, so I speak from experience. I came back from an agent seminar where I got 1001 new ideas. One of the speakers said, “Everyone on your team should prospect for at least one hour every day.” He was a very credible trainer in the industry, so I came back and handed down the new edict to my two administrative assistants, Robin and Julie. In one day, I had created two generalists out of two specialists. I had created two hybrid positions in one statement. The results were disastrous. Not only did I spend time training two people who really didn’t want to prospect; I wasted my time doing it. They obviously were not thrilled to be doing something that clearly was against their behavioral style, which I didn’t know at the time. The results were nil. I almost lost Julie because she got dissatisfied with her job because of that daily hour of forced pain. She played a major role in the growth of my real estate practice, and she is still a critical cog in the machine at Real Estate Champions some thirteen years after that poor decision.
We, as lead agents, tend to create these hybrid combinations or get talked into them by our staff. We combine sales and administration under one job description or position. We have an administrative person who wants to sell because they see the money in sales. We create the combo buyer’s agent/administrative assistant. This is a recipe for failure for the person and especially your business. If they fail at one, you will lose them. It will be hard to go back to the old position without losing face, so they quit. The other likelihood is they start slipping in performance in the area they are skilled at because of the lack of focus, so you have to let them go.
Champion Team Rule - Don’t create hybrid positions with sales and administration.
We live in a world of specifics
We have to recognize that more people are doing fewer things; that most people’s skills are in a very narrow range. Most of us could do about half a dozen things at world-class levels with the proper training, coaching, and encouragement.
When you look at the world of business, especially in the accounting, legal, and medical fields, they have exploded in areas of specialization. In the medical field, we have specialists for every part of our human anatomy. We also have specialists for stages of our life and leading to our death. In the legal field, we have legal experts for contract law, trial law, business, estates, family law, environmental law, personal injury. I could write pages and pages of specific specialization for both the legal and medical professions.
In athletics, we also have specialization, especially in the team sports. On a basketball team of only twelve people, you have specialists: The guy who is on the team to stop and harass the opponent’s best player, the guy who is the outside shooter who stretches the defense to the three point line, the first guy off the bench who is called the sixth man whose job is to give the team a lift in scoring right away. In football, you have the designated pass rusher, the extra defensive back called the nickel back, and the third down running back who comes in on long yardage third down plays. Even kickers and punters are on a football team for one purpose. We truly live in a world of specialists.
Dirk Zeller is an Agent, an Investor, and the President & CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 250,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. He’s the widely published author of Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Agent Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.
Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.
You can get more information at Real Estate Training, Real Estate Marketing, Realtors- Have A Drive To Succeed
Tags: Real Estate Coaching, real estate investing, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Training, sales
