I get asked this question a lot as it seems the best way to ‘ease’ young or inexperienced people into the world of real estate. But why waste their energy if you know from their SIP results that they are capable of prospecting from the first week and becoming profitable members of the sales team within months?
This is a great idea ONLY if it is a busy reception where they have plenty of interaction with the public so they can start evolving their communications and rapport skills. The high-speed variable nature of a busy reception will energies them making them great representatives of your business.
However, in any downtime or if the reception is always quiet, they should NOT be doing real admin/PM work as they will:
1. be bad at it, no matter how often you show them and upset the PM staff
2. get discouraged that they shouldn’t be in RE when what they shouldn’t be is doing detailed admin work and so you will waste their early enthusiasm which often gets people through the barren start-up stage of sales.
3. leave you as they will feel useless, but with a strong EXP score, they will have the courage to leave and find something better. They have poor memories of your business and may harm your reputation as they will become a good salesperson somewhere.
With digital payments and mobile phones, most offices do have very quiet reception desks. In that case, you could have them share reception with someone who is a real admin person and do sales work in the other half of their time, like;
1. Being a leasing officer, ie showing rental property and general making phone calls to set up things for the PM’s. Again, don’t expect them to be good at processing the applications.
2. Prospecting for either sales or management
3. Out doorknocking and expanding the database for the business. If they did two half days a week that could be hundreds of new contacts over a few months and get them into great prospecting habits for when they are ready to be in sales.
If you have hired using SIP, no matter their age or background, they will take to selling, including cold calling, with minimal angst and be productive members of your sales team within months.