Last updated 22 July 2022 ·
The real estate industry is one of the fastest-growing and most competitive industries. A high-end estate agent can be considered glamorous, dealing in high-value assets resulting in high earning potential.
However, estate agencies are encountering more challenges in the industry as they struggle to manage remote teams and often have multiple offices in different locations. This is why OKRs, objectives and key results have become increasingly popular amongst successful real estate agencies looking to keep their employees aligned with the overall organisational goals.
What are OKRs?
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. An efficient goal-setting practice enables businesses and cooperatives to define their strategic ambitions, identify who is best placed to work on achieving certain aspects of those goals and align them with the top company objectives to measure their success.
OKRs chart the course for achieving a goal and help employees focus solely on what is vital while prioritising actions that could lead to better performance personally and as a workforce.
How OKRs benefit estate agencies
1. A self-driven workforce
This may seem too much weight to punch, but the OKR framework leads to cultural change, encouraging agents to focus on outcomes rather than one-time outputs. Key results are integral in driving accountability, and structuring priorities in this way means estate agents can identify their roles, shortcomings, and strengths. Estate managers can also play a simplified role of monitoring agents’ work without micromanaging, ultimately building trust between them.
2. Performance boost
Achieving a shared goal means less friction between agents, boosting productivity. When people work together towards similar goals, performance improves. Estate agencies that use OKRs deliver results efficiently and benefit from improved team alignment, tighter focus and increased accountability. This leads to a significant boost in sales.
3. Transparency and alignment
Estate agency owners most likely have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish; this is their vision combined with purpose. However, the estate agency industry can get complicated as agencies may have multiple teams working on different projects and probably in other locations. This is where OKRs help teams with goal-setting, understand the existing ones and align their execution strategies so they are always on the same page at any stage.
OKRs are also highly transparent in nature. This is crucial as it gives agents everything they need to know about various objectives to avoid second-guessing. Whatever the goal is, all agents will know what to do to achieve it.
Examples for the modern estate agency
Below are examples of OKRs, objectives and key results that may be found in a typical estate agency striving for better results and faster growth.
Objective 1: Boost Sales Through Enhanced Customer Experience
Key Results
- Interview at least 20 customers monthly and process feedback to inform new initiatives.
- Increase customer retention to 98%
- Increase the number of viewings to at least 10 per week
- Achieve an NPS score of 50 or above from existing customers
- Provide a 15% discount for referrals and build out the referral offering
Objective 2: Build an Effective Organisational Culture
Key Results
- Agents to contribute 50% of the suggestions in the goal-setting process
- Achieve a weekly pulse score of 8 and above, representing employee engagement levels
- Celebrate incremental wins with all employees weekly
- Hold monthly Q&A Town Hall Meetings to exchange new ideas and raise concerns
- Every team member has a personalised development plan where progress is reviewed during every monthly 121.
Objective 3: Refresh Marketing Strategy
Key Results
- Generate 30% more qualified leads (MQLS) from structured daily outreach calls (60 calls or more per day)
- Enhance social media presence and increase closed Facebook group members by 20%.
- Improve website structure to increase conversions by 15%
- Get 100 quality leads from Google AdWords per month
- Get ten new inbound links from high domain authority websites
For further OKR examples that could be found in a range of different businesses, check out our blog OKR examples to help you get started.
Final thoughts
Operating as a successful estate agency requires focus, determination, and ambition. Using OKRs is a profound step in the right direction. Using OKR software improves cohesion between remote teams through visibility of OKR plans showing live progress, performance, and achievements. All main OKRs and expectations are centralised and structured using the format for all offices.
If you want to see how our 1-3-5® OKR software and expertise provide exceptional value within an estate agency business - check out Nock Deighton’s success story detailing their fully integrated OKR practice. If nothing else, this will inspire you to visualise how your OKRs could work in your agency and may even get you excited for the future.
Alternatively, if you are already keen to begin working with OKRs in your business but need some help to get started, download our OKR Builder™ today! It includes a step-by-step guide on writing compelling OKRs that cascade perfectly throughout all teams and all levels.
