The division of labor: leads and contacts

Dividing leads among team members takes highly developed people skills on the part of team leader. It requires knowledge of the prospective client, as well as an understanding of each team member’s suitability for handling that particular type of lead.

Cherubin-Delisi and Otto split their clientele, though both have specific communities they are aligned with. Otto has strong ties within marketing and corporate sales, as well as within the LGBTQ community. Cherubin-Delisi is Italian by birth, and has connections within multiple international communities, in addition to involvement in her local school council and her family’s Lincoln Park restaurant, Trattoria Gianni.

“I’m fluent in Spanish, Italian, and English, and I speak some French,” she says. “I’ve dealt in the past with Italian buyers, Spanish buyers and so forth.”

Passaro serves as his team’s rainmaker. “Most of the leads come in to me,” he says. “I try to match each client with the appropriate agent. Sign calls and Internet leads are done through the systems we have. They rotate from agent to agent.”

Diversity in demographics can be a boon for real estate teams. Passaro’s team features agents in their 60s, mid-40s, 30s, and 20s, though that generational representation occurred through a happy accident rather than by design. Still, demographic representation counts for little if the agents are unable to make those vital connections.

“Their everyday experience plays into that,” Passaro says. “They know what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses are.”

No matter what business model a team employs, its suitability for an individual agent will depend on more than individual factors such as compensation, structure, or who leads the team. Each real estate team represents a unique alchemy of these and many other factors, and it’s up to the agent to know if a team can help them meet their goals.