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REAL ESTATE COACHING

Kathleen Black AFTER YEARS as a top performer in Ontario’s highly competitive Durham Region, Kathleen Black launched Kathleen Black Coaching & Consulting in 2015, leveraging the strategies and experience that made her a heavy hitter into repeatable systems that have helped turned 80% of her clients into top 1% producers. Known as North America’s top team-builder, Black specializes in the unique challenges facing individual agents as they begin constructing their own real estate teams.

a years-out perspective also leads to some serious errors in actual business structure: training, compensation and recruitment. These seem like simple concepts, but there are so many sub-structures to each one – and each of those has its own pros and cons – that it’s easy to make mistakes that not only harm a business’s bottom line, but also can hamstring or completely derail any attempts at further expansion. People often give up on having a team because they lack the ability to see how the systems plug into each

“A team leader needs to slow down and inspect every aspect of the business at its most minute level. It can seem so slow and frustrating compared to sales, but that scrutiny can’t be avoided” REP: Where do agents go wrong in their attempts to build a team? Kathleen Black: I think the first mistake is

other, but that’s hard to do when you’re just starting to build your team.

not knowing exactly where they want to get to, or making decisions based on where they’re at today versus where they want to get their business to in five to 10 years. That difference in perspective is so important because it dictates the approach and direction agents need to take in order to scale up. Failing to look at team-building from

REP: There are a lot of stages involved in the transition from indi­ vidual to team. How do you guide agents through what is often a very messy process? KB: The messy stages are often when you’re

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still selling, and you need to lead the team, and you’re trying to hire, recruit and train.

You’re trying to be all things to all people. That’s when it can not only be tricky but frustrating, too. We guide agents by helping them identify the areas that get them stuck and teaching them the systems that enable them to take their business to the next level – without butting their head against the wall or feeling like they need to invent a new strategy whenever they hit a roadblock.

REP: What are some specific personal challenges faced by agents building their own teams? KB: I think there are two. The first has to do with understanding: understanding their role as team leaders, understanding their leadership and communication styles, understanding their personal strengths and weaknesses and how to offset them by having the right people around them. Nobody can be all things to all people, so it’s important to understand what you need to be and how to become that. Second, it takes patience. A team leader needs to slow down and inspect every aspect of the business at its most minute level. It can seem so slow and frustrating compared to sales, but that scrutiny can’t be avoided. The gut-level quick reactions that help us so much when we make sales can actually be a huge detriment to us when we’re building a stand-alone business.

REP: What sets KBCC apart from other real estate coaching organizations? KB: We have a decade of specialized experience building some of the industry’s top teams. We’ve jumped off this cliff hundreds of times, so we know what the likely outcome is. But we also consider ourselves consultants who can position our clients not just as great agents, but as professionals who understand the value of what they’re bringing to a changing marketplace. I think that’s something Realtors are