DISCerning my ideal real estate team: Which personality profiles will work best in which position?

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Last Sunday’s New York Times featured an article about a foreclosure caravan in South Florida. It was the usual NYT sob story, but what popped out at me was the real estate agent. All through the piece he is arm-twisting his victims, and in several places his is plainly guilty of unsolicited — and very likely ill-advised — financial planning.

This morning on ActiveRain I read a post from an agent essentially boasting that he blacklists certain agents listings, keeping them from his buyer clients so that he won’t have to deal with practitioners of whom he disapproves.

I’ve been a real estate broker since October of 2005. If you’ve ever wondered why we don’t have agents, those two examples are perfectly illustrative. Presumably both of these Realtors are acceptable to their own brokers, but I would sever both of them in a heartbeat. They are each one of them a lawsuit waiting to happen, and I could not be rid of either one of them quickly enough.

Except that I will probably never have this problem, because, even when we do start to recruit agents, I will never have anything to do with people who would even think of putting their own interests ahead of the client’s.

You may at this point want to protest that I am being too harsh, but my belief is that Caesar’s wife must be above reproach. Never-been-sued is not a mark of pride. What we want is to achieve a level of rigor and candor in the work we do such that there is no room in our clients’ mind for even an implied accusation. We will have done our jobs the way I want them done when there is no possibility of even a hint of a doubt that we would ever serve our own interests at the expense of the interests of the people we work for.

People here and elsewhere have written a lot about the ideal post-Web-2.0 real estate brokerage. I’ve not participated in those discussions, because it’s not something I’m interested in. I don’t care how someone is going to make a brokerage of 10 or 100 or 1,000 agents work. I don’t want a brokerage like that. I don’t know that we will ever have independent agents, out in the world trolling for business — out, that is, from underneath my big fat thumb.

For now what I want is a very strong team built around the work we are already doing. I think we will probably grow to five people this year, and we’re going to do it using the DISC system, which I talked about last week, because DISC tells me where we are strong, right now, and where we are dangerously weak.

Here’s a nice rundown of the DISC personality types from Wikipedia:

Dominance: People who score high in the intensity of the “D” styles factor are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low “D” scores are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High “D” people are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering. Low D scores describe those who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.

Influence: People with high “I” scores influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. Those with low “I” scores influence more by data and facts, and not with feelings. They are described as reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

Steadiness: People with high “S” styles scores want a steady pace, security, and do not like sudden change. High “S” individuals are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. Low “S” intensity scores are those who like change and variety. People with low “S” scores are described as restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive.

Conscientious: People with high “C” styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High “C” people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful. Those with low “C” scores challenge the rules and want independence and are described as self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and careless with details.

Right now BloodhoundRealty.com looks like this, with our tasks shown in the order or relative time-commitment:

Greg Swann, Di, investor-buyers, buyers, print and on-line promotion, investor-sellers.

Cathleen Collins, Sd, big-ticket sellers, staging, photography, buyers.

What’s missing in a big, bad, obvious kind of way?

We have no C in the mix, really essentially none between the two of us. We can both do C-like stuff, but we don’t like it, we’re not good at it, and, in consequence, that kind of work does not get done quickly or satisfactorily.

We are what we are. I don’t hate washing a big sink full of dishes, but I will almost never was a single dish. Big jobs are for D’s. Little jobs are for later — when they’ve had a chance to grow into big jobs.

So what we need more than anything, and I mean right away, is a high-C. We need a high-C for CRM, for Transaction Management, for the back-end on short sales, for management of our vast and ever-growing web presence — for everything! I love to convert new business, but I hate schlepping around dozens of little scraps of paper, upon which I’ve scribbled almost-instantly-forgotten notes and details. We need someone who really likes going to the office supplies store — and knows what to do with all that stuff.

With emphasis: If you are a high-C assistant or virtual assistant, we need you now. Email me and we’ll get the discussion started.

What next? As I mentioned in passing at Christmas, I want to put an assistant in my car with me, as I traverse the Valley of the Sun. I’m thinking I want a Dc, if such a thing exists, or a Cd. I want someone who can hammer out a lot of detail work, but who can also handle showings if we need to double-book. We will have investors buying in bulk this year, and I want to have someone with me who can stay behind in the car writing contracts and ironing out details while I’m showing, or, alternatively, preview properties while I am on the phone making rain.

For Cathleen, I want an Id or a Di, I think, someone who can help her with the endless visual details and quality issues that go into selling high-end real estate. Much of what she is doing now — such as promoting our listings on all the many RealtyBot sites — can either be handled by the back-office High-C or by software, but I want for her to have help with the staging and photography. I want for her to have what she needs to list one $500,000+ home a week.

Except for the high-C, everyone is a photographer. We already have photos from hundreds — maybe thousands? — of homes, but what I want, going forward, is for us to have a complete photographic record of every home we set foot in. With engenu pages for every one of them, all archived in a database so that we can share those photos on demand — which will be the high-C’s contribution to our archival efforts.

Again, except for the high-C, everyone will do open houses, with the bulk of that burden falling on Cathleen and her assistant. And when any of us have spare time, we’ll be out taking pictures of other Realtor’s high-end listings, both to add to our archives to extend our reach to buyers searching for those kinds of homes.

So: Two questions: In your opinion, am I thinking about this the right way? I know I am going to deprive our agents of a lot of the independence common to new licensees, but, in exchange, we’ll be training them in our way of working and providing a steady income from the outset. Is there something I’m missing in the way I’m thinking about setting this up?

And: How do I pay these folks? We will never have a 1040 employee, so hourly is only possible for a virtual assistant, someone with other sources of income. What I’ve been thinking about is a split on every deal we close while a particular licensee is under our roof. You could make money on your first day, but the money will stop on your last day. Meanwhile, we don’t have to worry about who worked on what. Does that make sense? If it does, how big is the split?

I want this now. We’ll add the high-C as soon as we can find someone, but I want every piece of this team in place as soon as we can get it done. I think five Bloodhounds on the trail can tear this town up.