4 agent recognition ideas that go beyond pizza and pats on the back

In the world of real estate, keeping agents motivated is a perpetual challenge. From setting achievable goals and attractive commission splits to keeping agents inspired in the day-to-day, agent motivation is a moving target.

Today, we’re leaning into our community to go beyond surface level perks with four fundamental strategies to tap into what matters most for agents.

4 ways to reward and recognize agents

Everyone loves a free gift card and it can be fun to brainstorm different award ideas to recognize the agents on your team, but in the daily grind of working in the real estate industry, many agents simply want to be heard and seen.

Here are four recognition strategies that get to the heart of what every agent wants.

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1. Listen more than you talk

You’ve heard this advice before. But in a market where things are changing all the time, it can be easy to fall into reactive mode. Don’t stop at the annual agent award program. Instead, take the time to recognize your team’s hard work and listen to what agents need—not what you think they need. 

“It tends to be more about life, not just about business, when you’re building the kind of team we’re building,” said Emily Smith, COO at Wemert Realty Group during an interview for the Team OS podcast. 

At Wemert Realty Group, they don’t hire often and that’s on purpose. But for this strategy to work, the leadership team needs to keep their existing agents happy. “It’s important for us to feel the families of the businesses that supported us first,” says Emily.

On a practical level, this may mean revisiting the structure of your team meeting agenda or adding a list of questions to get the conversation started. Here are some of the questions Emily likes to ask:

• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• What were the pitfalls?
• What do you wish you knew?

Corporate awards are great. But initiatives that get to the deeper motivation beneath the stated goal are just as important. By setting aside time to get clear on what agents want, you can make sure every agent gets their needs met.

In the below video, Emily shares her reasons on the importance of listening to your people:

“As leadership, it’s our job to help the people in the organization feel safe and secure… that they have put their trust in the right place. A place that is going to continue to listen to them, hear them, build with them, grow with them, and also allow them to be humans who have seasons where they need to come in and out,” Emily explains. 

The way she sees it, motivations change over time. And every goal is a worthy one.

“You have to stop and ask, ‘What do you need? What are you looking to get out of this?’ For some people, that is money. So what is that number? What does the family budget look like? If we know the honest answer, we can help them chase the gap,” says Emily. “Sometimes agents say, ‘I need the recognition.’ In a team structure, sometimes that gets squashed.”

Action steps:

• Help agents decide how they want to meet their goals and which tools they’ll need to succeed 
• Ask agents to fill out a weekly database tracking sheet to help them stay accountable to their goals
• Automate follow-up reminders and train new agents in good database management habits to free up

2. Keep compensation competitive

You already know you need a competitive compensation framework that adapts to the needs of the market, but striking the right balance between splits and services is anything but easy.

For leaders like Winston Murray, Founder of Works Real Estate in Portland and Seattle, change is part of the game in the real estate business. He updated his splits four times until arriving at a tiered system that works.

“A lot of agents think, ‘In order to double my income, I gotta double the amount of hours I’m putting into it,’ and that’s not necessarily true. We’re trying to help our agents learn early on the value of leverage,” says Winston. He knows from firsthand experience that top agents need more than passion alone to succeed—they need systems.

Winston shared his experience setting splits and services in an episode of Real Estate Team OS:

By structuring his compensation to help agents meet both their current work-life balance needs and future career development goals, he’s paying it forward by applying the lessons learned from his own mistakes as a solo agent.

“I was that agent on a team that was like ‘I don’t need a team, I want the full commission.’ I did not know what I was getting into, but I was willing to figure it out,” says Winston. With a clearly defined compensation framework, he’s able to onboard agents with a three-year growth plan to help keep them motivated. 

Action steps:

• Design your compensation framework to reward the right behaviors
• Consider setting up tiered pricing to better balance splits vs. services
• Create a system for helping agents scale their referral business and grow their sphere of influence (SOI)

3. Lean into community

A clear goal-setting process is critical to supporting long-term success for agents, no matter what "success" means to them. But how many real estate teams take the time to pause and cheer each other on when a milestone is reached?

Leaders like Veronica Figueroa, Team Leader at Orlando based, The Fig Team, are making agent recognition a team sport.

“We do this exercise called ‘Go to the Board.’ Every agent is open and honest about their goals together in front of the community,” she explains. “We are there as a collective to cheer them on. We try to understand as a community, ‘What will that do for your life? What does that mean? How can we support you?’ And it just really changes how we look at each person’s individual goals.”

Here’s Veronica on why community matters for both new and experienced real estate professionals:

Whether it’s buying a dream home for their mother or sending a loved one on vacation, effective leaders use coaching conversations to discuss real, meaningful goals and how they can help agents achieve them.

Action steps:

• Keep training agent-focused by identifying the hard and soft metrics that lead to best results
• Consider setting up call recording and schedule time to listen in and identify new challenges for team trainings
• Be realistic about what agents have to do to get where they want to go
• Celebrate as a community

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Recognize agents every day with Follow Up Boss

Everyone loves perks. While incentives like points that can be traded in for swag, gift cards, or a free vacation are always great to have, motivating agents is about more than free pizza on Fridays or a pat on the back when they sign a listing agreement. 

Let team members set the goals and rewards they want to see, create a recognition program that puts camaraderie first, and be clear about what it’s going to take to reach the next level. With the right incentives and a clear plan for achieving them, you can help agents feel unstoppable.

Need help getting everyone on the same page? Follow Up Boss is the open CRM that includes what  you need for a high-performance team. From deal tracking and digital leaderboards to agent communication and call recording, scale your systems your way.

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