Managing People

There many aspects to an office manager's job. The non real estate aspects alone are enough to fill a person's day.

The hardest part of the job is managing the agents who operate from the office. They have problems well beyond rudiments and logistics of real estate:

They don't get along
They have egos bigger than Alaska
They're not making enough money
They undermine you
They gossip and back-bite
They want more of everything
They neglect their clients
They get sued
They are stubborn
The list is long

An old time broker once said, "Keep the people happy, keep them out of court, and make a profit. In that order!" For most managers today, that is still the job description.

What makes all this so difficult is that managers try to manage each person. Their job is to keep people happy. They try to coddle, boss or influence each person. They manage people. It's been described as herding cats.

Instead, we work with managers to form a vision of the office they want and create the set of standards that support that vision.

• Productivity per person
• Language and demeanor in the office
• Respect among agents
• Attitude and teamwork
• Level of competence
• Office Profitability

Then the manager's job is to manage the standards. They select, recruit, coach and let go of agents according to the standards.

Whatever a manager says, does or thinks is a description of their standards. Whether they like it or not.