The "R" word is appearing more and more frequently now. No, I don't mean Recession. I mean Recovery. True or not is not so much the issue. Consumers are more buoyant, perceiving that good times are around the corner. All this means it's time to fill up the empty desks and make sure your office is fully staffed. Generally speaking, it takes a real estate professional about 4 months to get fully productive in a new office. So, if you start the minute you put down this article, you're into January 2010 for your best recruits to produce.

I last left you reading "The Fine Art of Recruiting the Right Agents: Part One", so it follows that Part Two was in the winds. The caveat of Part One still applies: If you take the point of view that your recruiting criteria is based on the premise that as long as the person in front of you "can fog up a mirror" and has the ability to pay desk fees, that's good enough, move on to the next page. I'm not offended.

The average cost to a broker who hires the wrong person, according to seasoned recruiters, is over $8,700. That certainly makes it worth your while to invest time and effort in learning more about a potential candidate you might want to have on your team.

In previous articles, I have stressed the need to have a clear understanding what the average agent's performance level is. Very few brokers I speak to everyday are tuned in to what is really going on. Here is a typical large MLS' 12-month performance of its agents. The reader will note that 53.99% of participants do 4 ends or less. This is generally true of most on North America's agents.

By understanding the performance of your candidate, it is entirely possible to know more about the candidate than the candidate knows about himself.

By studying the achievements of this agent, here are 7 conclusions you can draw:

1. With 45 combined listing and selling ends until is in the top 1.49% of all agents on his MLS.


2. Till's ratio of listing ends to selling ends is ideal, according to most real estate coaches.


3. 9 out of 28 listing ends were "double ends", which is 32%. The average double end in his MLS is 13.7%.


4. Days on market were not his strength. With a benchmark of 42 days, Till racked up an average 70.8 days!


5. The average sold to ask ratio for this MLS was 97.28%. Till's was 97.60. That means he got $791.54 more than average every time one of his listings sold.


6. Eulenspiegel's average sale is considerably below the norm. On investigation it turns out that he specialized in condos.


7. Most revealing about Till's performance unusual is that not one of his listings sold at 100% of the last asking price.

What is really nice is the ability to make your recruiting call that sets your conversation apart from all the calls this agents received this month. (Did you really think you were the only broker calling them?)

Your call might go like this: "Till, I have been studying your record of achievements this last year. Did you know every time you sell a condo, you get $791.54 more than average for your seller? Did you know you were that good?"

To those of you who like to write recruiting letters because making those phone calls is too much bother: Please remember that smart agents keep those letters in their listing portfolios. When confronted with a seller who wants to list with So & So Realty, they quickly whip out their listing book, turn to your letter and say. Yes So & So Realty is a good company, they asked me to come and work for them. But I decided to stay with my office, because they are more progressive, and my chances of making money where I am are better.