Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE) held its first Career Gold workshop in 2014, offering unique learning and networking experiences for training and career development professionals from member brokerages. LeadingRE trainers are instrumental in the success of sales associates, managers, affiliated brokers, and LeadingRE training programs. The organization recognizes their contributions and provides this special networking and training opportunity just for them.
LeadingRE’s culture and philosophy is focused on quality brokers and agents—not on quantity (“body count” or number of licensees). Training is at the core of everything LeadingRE does: attracting and retaining brokers, empowering brokers to attract and retain the best sales and management talent, and “making the best brokers better.” Career Gold is critical for delivering on LeadingRE’s promises and meeting two strategic business goals: increasing affiliate profitability and recruiting/retention. As the knowledge and skills of LeadingRE trainers increase, the knowledge and skills of its sales teams increase, resulting in more business and, most importantly, increased professionalism for clients.
Program Details
An annual event, Career Gold interweaves outstanding speakers, games, and brainstorming with socializing and networking. The program is intentionally designed for knowledge, training tips, and technology implementation.
In 2015, topics included:
- Creative thinking and writing
- Storytelling
- Coaching
- Games
- Fun and visually rich presentations
- Measuring impact
- Bloom’s Taxonomy (revised)
LeadingRE hosts a private Facebook group for Career Gold attendees, and idea exchanges continue with regular discussions and resource sharing. LeadingRE holds quarterly group virtual events on training trends for additional follow-up.
LeadingRE continues to expand capacity to accommodate more trainers and provide networking and interaction that is delivering desired results. In many real estate franchises, a significant amount of training, especially for new agents, is delivered by other sales associates or managers who are real estate experts with limited andragogical training. LeadingRE’s “train-the-trainer” workshops and events help it bridge that gap and introduce new training research, techniques, and consumer trends into brokerages.
Results
LeadingRE experienced significant upticks in students and enrollments from companies represented at Career Gold—ranging from 20 to 70 percent. More attendees have incorporated live streaming of select workshops with facilitator guides distributed in advance to managers at remote facilities as a way to effectively train large teams in numerous locations, reducing time and costs. The use of storytelling, games, and the incorporation of LeadingRE Institute materials also increased.
Twelve months after the 2015 Career Gold event, attendees reported increased engagement and attendance as the two biggest impacts. Averages include:
- Attendance increase: 26 percent
- Increase in rating by students: 35 percent
- Conversion rates: 10 percent buyers, 17 percent sellers
- Sales production: 15 percent
The third annual Career Gold workshop saw a 25 percent attendance increase. Some 90 percent of the attendees were full-time trainers.
