Protect your Assets with Retention Banking
Protect your Assets with Retention Banking
A simple technique to make retaining key talent easier
“Real estate companies are talent agencies. Their greatest asset isn’t technology or capital or data. It’s people. And those assets have feet.”
That piece of insight shared by my mentor twenty-five years ago continues to prove its importance. I’ve heard “recruiting and retention” a million times since then, but oddly, it remains a back-burner priority by too many brokers enthralled by an endless stream of shiny distractions — from commission schemes to artificial intelligence…
… which is somewhat ironic because if you’re running a talent agency, it’s always the human intelligence that matters most.
(But I digress.)
Getting talent is easy; Keeping it is trickier
From newly-licensed agents to acquisitions of entire firms, capturing talent isn’t the challenge. And periods of turbulence often shake up people’s commitments to their current firm, especially if they feel their leaders didn’t prepare them for change.
In 2024, surveys show over 39% of real estate agents say they’re likely to change firms, compared to only 25% of agents in 2023. And that’s even when they’re already associated with firms with deep cultures, world-class technology, training and extensive market presence.
This leaves only one thing (other than more money) to keep them firmly growing where they are planted:
A strong relationship with their leader.
Enter, Retention Banking
You’ve heard of investment banking for money, but we’re not applying this concept for people. Retention banking refers to the purposeful, consistent and timely investment in vital relationships between a leader and those they lead. And just as “compound interest” adds up in a savings account over time, being “consistently interested” in someone else adds up as strong credits in a leader’s favor when conditions (market cycles, competitor offers, industry shifts) threaten to rattle the relationship.
Furthermore, when the day comes (as it always does) when a leader must make a withdrawal from their account, such as making a difficult policy, budgetary or business change, a positive balance will go a long way in keeping the relationship from walking away.
Not All Investments Are Valuable
Leaders know they can’t just “throw anything” at a relationship and hope it sticks. At some point, they run out of obvious items (corner offices, awards, credits, trips, and, of course, money). So what does matter when it comes to investing for the long-run to retain important relationships?
Relevance.
Relevance means, making contributions to someone’s personal and professional life that matter to them — rather than simply being easy and routine for the leader to make.
Relevance is critical because people must feel like they matter in a relationship beyond the contractual obligations of their job. Leaders must cultivate conversations that go beyond small talk and into important talk that demonstrates their concern for what’s going on in their whole lives (to the extent that they share them). Leaders who express knowledge and concern for the complete person - not just their production - don’t ask: How’s the family? They say, How’s Anna-Marie? whose name they recall without having to rehearse. And then follow up with the names of the kids, cats and even cars.
To compound their interest in the relationship, leaders must be completely interested in the relationship.
Insider Baseball
How can a leader keep that information in mind — let alone quickly recall it in the middle of a busy day? The same way we ever remembered important things — from the answers to a test to our favorite players on the team: by using a memory aid —
Like a baseball card!
Even if you didn’t trade baseball cards as a kid (full disclosure, I traded Star Wars cards) you probably know the general concept: Each card contains a cheat sheet of vital stats and interesting tidbits about every position on the team. And (so I’m told) every player has a card, and every collector wants a full set of cards in their collection.
This is exactly what leaders collect about their favorite team — Your Company!
Two Sides of Every Player
Whether you use a database or physical cards (we taught it this way for years), the concept remains: develop a personal and professional profile — a front and back of the card — for every relationship in your firm.
And get ready to be surprised: If you think you already know everything about your people, wait until you try to put it down formally. Most leaders I have coached quickly realize they’re missing a lot of important details in their heads.
Front of the Card: The Professional Profile
On one side of the card (or one set of data in your CRM), create a deep business profile of each person. Get specific about these points:
Career before this role
Current sales/performance model (first-time buyers, investors, luxury, etc.)
Key value proposition in their role
Specific business talents / advantages / skills
Recent production (units / dollar volume) for last 24 months
Current production / salary / output (if employee/staff)
Current responsibilities / tasks / projects (if employee/staff)
Market area (geography, consumer demographic, price point)
Updated business goals (current year)
Recent / lifetime awards, achievements, recognitions
Certifications, designations, and unique training
Current and expected career longevity / succession plans
Known business needs / challenges
This combination of data points and qualitative traits provides a solid “professional picture” of everyone in your firm. If you were operating a sports team, you could reference individual talents, records and positions to engage with each person meaningfully. From business planning to coaching, or simply having a casual conversation, you’ll know exactly what you’re talking about by preparing for those moments with deep information at hand.
Back of the Card: The Personal Stuff
You might think this is obvious, having completed the professional side of the card, but it’s often much harder to compile the personal information. You might be a master business strategizer, but getting this right can be an even bigger deal. One small misstep, like forgetting their favorite food or the name of their oldest child, can leave a mark. So take time to get it right on points like:
Hometown / where someone grew up
High School or University (and course of study)
Major family moments (birthdays, marriage, children, divorce, adoptions, deaths)
Hobbies (sports, travel, crafts, etc.) and Pets
Entertainment (music genres, movie types, food, literature, art, vacation spots)
Important Commitments (philanthropies, social clubs, volunteerism, associations)
Personal values (favorite quotes, spiritual or social traits, articulated views)
Brand loyalties (clothing, automobiles, technology)
Special skills (languages, certifications, physical abilities)
Personal goals / growth plans / accomplishments (past and future)
“If this person were not at work today, they would most likely be found…”
Most leaders find themselves “filling in the blanks” the first time they create a detailed list like this. And yet the advantages of these answers are vital to sharing interesting conversations and demonstrating you’re not just making small talk:
You’re making a big deal out of the relationship with them.
Using the Baseball Cards to Retain Talent
Once you have a full set of “cards” or data about your people, the real investment (and fun!) begins. Use your information strategically and authentically to make small “deposits” on a consistent basis.
For example, prepare for a coaching session by refreshing your memory - and updating data - about their professional record to make tailored, specific recommendations about how to grow their business. You’ll sound prescient over the broad generalizations and industry cliches they can get elsewhere. Similarly, recall personal side information to turn small gestures into memorable moments, like sending a gratitude card featuring cover art from their favorite vacation spot. Or knowing their music is coming to town, and producing the right tickets, not just a random company reward. Or as one of our leaders mentioned on one of our Monday Coaching calls, have their favorite snack or candy handy and just pop by with the treat for a little chat.
The possibilities are endless because the combinations are infinite. Each person’s unique set of traits helps you gather, study, and deepen your understanding of what’s important to them.
And don’t think of it as contrived, because it’s not any different than what great salespeople do with prospects as they nurture relationships:
Learn. Take notes. Reference them to build better relationships.
Everyone wins
That’s how leaders make an investment, rather than a contribution. You’re not just paying for a relationship. You’re transforming efforts from throw-away routine management moments into memorable ones of time well spent.
What people join and leave is…
Not what you think: It’s not a commission plan or corner office or logo or lead-generation system. Ultimately, they came to your company because you wooed them; and they’ll leave as soon as they feel like you’ve forgotten them.
When it comes to retaining great talent, remember that people join and leave you.
Direct your intentions to nurturing relationships by knowing what matters to others, not just the business. Ultimately, to keep people growing in your own firm’s soil, you have to remind them not about what you do as a leader —
but that you care as only a leader can!
— M
Download Your Leadership Retention Banking Forms and Spreadsheets
Here are some old-school / new-school templates to help you develop your own deep-dive relationship management sets to invest in better relationships.