Have Fun With Your Co-Workers!

Morning, everybody. I want to talk to you about having fun with people on your team, people in your brokerage, even co-workers. You don’t have to be necessarily a team leader or a broker-owner to have fun with the people that you work with. We just put out a video, Thursday night, it was with a group of people who joined the company back in May and the video was literally touching, for me. It’s the longest one we ever put out, it was 23 minutes long and I was listening and paying attention. They were talking about different things we have at the company and all that.

The one thing that I picked up on, the part that they were speaking with the most passion, the most conviction in their eyes, was when they talked about the culture at our company. When I was thinking back about that and thinking about what we’ve done or what it’s been like since they joined in May, I mean it’s September, and I think about, “What have we done?” Few times, we’ve brought the group together and I’ve been there for a few and I haven’t been there for a few. Brought the group together for a couple of drinks after work. We had an event in Boston on Thompson Island. Once in a while, at our company, we do a bowling night. Today, I found out yesterday I’m actually not going to be going but, today, there’s going to be just a cookout. They’re getting hot dogs, hamburgers and they’re having a cookout at our Worcester office. It got me thinking about the importance of, a lot of these videos I do with you all, I’m talking about, “Do this and do that” and, “Use this tactic” and, “Use that tactic and don’t be lazy and pick the phone up” and blah, blah.

I was thinking to myself in the last day, after watching this video and taking it in, the most simple, fun things can have the biggest impact, because, when people feel good, they do good. One saying I always have at the company, with, especially newer employees, I find myself saying this is, “Hey, I want you to like what you’re doing because if you don’t, you’re not going to be good at it”. “What’s up, Billy, how you doing my friend?” If you don’t like it, you’re not going to be good at it.

This relates to that saying that I have but when you really think about it, people have to feel good, they have to feel happy, they have to feel connected. When I look at the culture that we have and the culture that we have at our offices, each branch and then company-wide, I look at a lot of the stuff we’re doing. If I added it up on a course of a year, it would sound like a massive dollar amount, but when you break it down per person or break it down per office, it’s not that much, but those little things, those gatherings, those get-togethers where people can get to know each other mean a lot.

I’ll also say something else. For you agents out there who don’t participate in these kinds of things at your company, you’re making a mistake. I was joking just the other day in a training about how we’ve got a guy who, he’s done fantastic, was off to a great start with us as an agent. Now he works on our business development team. His name is John, many of you will know who I’m talking about and I was joking with a new group of agents and I said, “Hey, look at John. John’s the only guy I know that goes to everything he’s invited to and stuff he’s not invited to”. [laughs] It’s true.

This guy came in the business, he went to every single gathering, every social event, got to know everybody. I’ll tell you something, we have offices all over the state and he wasn’t in the business three months. When someone in the Waltham office had a referral to someone out in the Worcester office, he was getting those referrals. The same goes for our other organization that we’re a part of, Leading RE, he would go to those events. We’d come home and then people that had referrals would ask to send them to him because they met him. Sometimes we’d be like, “Well, he’s not exactly in that territory”. “Yes, but I want him to get it”. “Okay.” The point I’m getting at is, guys, for a small amount of money spent, you can get a big bang for your buck, for your leaders out there, just by bringing people together to have fun. Have a couple of drinks on a Friday night, get to know each other, support each other. For you agents, you could pull together your co-workers to do that and you’d be surprised what will come of it and go to the things you’re invited to.

Another thing that I spoke about this past week, and I’m bouncing around but they’re all related, is, I was out at the Mass. Association Realtors event and I moderated a panel about “What do we all get for the dues we pay?” I put a long post out and I talked about how I wish I’d got involved sooner. I started the business in ’04, didn’t get involved until ’11. One of the things that I said there and the other panellists said there is, “Go to the events”. There are, realtor associations put on awesome events. Why not go?

Hey, there’s John. John, I was just talking about you, buddy, you just missed it, somebody probably texted you. Go to the events, mix with people. We did it, we went out there, we had some of our business development folks out there, some agents out there. We went to the event and then we went to the bar with a group of us, just connecting and having fun. That’s really what this message is all about is, connect, have fun, spend time with the people that you work with because good will come of it. That’s about all, that’s the end of my Saturday morning rant. I hope you all have a wonderful day. That’s all, thanks, guys.