Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

The subject of finding the right people to employ is so critical that it can make or break your efforts and your wallet. We all know we can’t do everything by ourselves and when we try to do it we find eventually submerged by all kind of menial tasks that burn our energies and prevent us from actually planning for the future and from observing the present, and with no observation and planning no growth can happen.

Additionally, if you try to do everything yourself, no matter how good you are, you will never find new and better ways to do what you are already doing and so you will eventually give an advantage to your competition. You don’t necessarily need employees, but you still need someone who is a specialist and who can perform tasks for you and possibly also instruct you on how to do them better.

I have just finished reading a document that gives some interesting concepts on how to go about hiring the right personnel. It has been written by Dan Auito, a friend who gives some good entrepreneur ideas (http://www.magicbullets.com/docs/Extraordinary_Minds_Transcript_4.pdf). He summarizes the information gleaned through a series of webinars with some top level business consultants in the nation and he lists three types of people you can hire.

The type “A” are the “Stars”, they will make you grow with your business and they number about 25%. These are the people who see opportunities in every challenge and don’t stop in front of problems but rather find solutions that can become a competitive advantage for you, for them and for your business.

The type “B” are the “Not So Great”. They are the average employee or contractor, around 50% of the people around you. They will do what you ask them, but they will require supervision and guidance.

Finally the “C” type are the “Nightmarish Energy Vampires” who sabotage your efforts and range around 25%. They will always find some reason to stop what they are doing and come back to you with some obstacle and some reason why it can’t be done or it should be done differently from what you want.

They sometimes commit costly mistakes and they almost never complete things on time if they ever complete them. You give them a task and you come back one hour later and you find them staring at something, waiting because you didn’t give them some type of instruction and they never dreamed of calling you to get it clarified. They also resist instruction because they believe to be extremely clever and not need to learn anything.

Sometimes they are not easy to spot immediately because they might start giving you a very good performance and then go downhill pretty fast. They can be convincing in the testing period. Some categories of workers have an higher percentage of type C, like Contractors. You recognize them because they usually criticize some previous employer or friend, they miss deadlines grossly and they seem completely unable to keep expenses under control.

Your goal is to weed out the type C’s, manage the type B’s and get as many as possible type A’s around you. Actually, when you find a type A you have found a pearl and you should go to all extent to keep her with you by using rewards, making her share the benefits of your project and spending as much time as you need to make her feel welcome and important. You can train her effectively and she can use you system very well and improve on them. Systems are great, but they need to be used by people and if you have the wrong people even the best system will simply fail.

And finally don’t think that a losing team will become a winning team just because now they have you as a leader. Losers tend to keep losing no matter what you do with them, so save yourself heartbreaks and stay away from projects and people that have already failed, even if it might seem a very good idea to take them over and you have all the experience necessary to turn the tables. Losers tend to team with other losers and by the time you get involved with them they will make every effort to make a loser out of you as well, and they will probably win.

On the contrary, when you find a pearl (type A) she will bring more of the same kind. Look for the pearls and throw the garbage out of the front door every time it arrives on your plate.

Roberto Mazzoni