How I Managed to Recruit Agents from ActiveRain, Twitter, AND Facebook!
Jason Crouch
Last week, I realized that I have managed to attract agents to our company from each of my personal top three social networking sites (AR, Twitter, and Facebook). I have found that agents who are already embracing social media have some of the best potential around.
SO, HOW DID I FIND THEM?
I guess the quickest answer is to say that most of them found me. Two of my current agents, Christi Baylor and Marisa Ladd, came from my blog right here on ActiveRain. They were already AR members before we met, which made our "in person" connection that much faster/better. I thin
k both of them have the potential to be stellar agents in 2009 and beyond. They are certainly ahead of the curve in my opinion, based on my own experience running a brokerage for 4+ years.
Since I am a very active member here (pun completely intended), this first section of the post may not come as much of a surprise, but I bet the next part may. If not, then I'm sorry to have disappointed you. Okay, you got me. I'm not really sorry.
Considering the sheer number of people I have encountered who:
- Haven't started using Twitter
- Use Twitter for spam purposes, OR
- Don't see the value of Twitter,
I am guessing that you may be shocked to hear that I have recruited TWO very solid agents there in the past few weeks, both of whom have new home sales experience. Since their licenses are not yet transferred, I am not at liberty to publish their names here yet, but I will share the quick story of each here briefly.
I was chatting with one local Austin guy on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, then a mutual friend of ours (also an AR member) noticed and mentioned that the guy was looking for a broker. A few days later, we had a great lunch and he plans to start working with us in the next couple of weeks after he gets back from vacation. Pretty cool stuff, huh? Well, it actually gets even better...
I received an email a few days ago from an agent who wanted to meet with me. I am generally always available to meet with agents who are looking for a good place to work, so I set up an appointment with her. It turns out that her boyfriend is Mike Chapman, co-founder of the Austin Social Media Club, and he strongly suggested that she meet with me, since he had read my blog and he follows me on Twitter. He said something along these lines, "Jason has this stuff wired. You HAVE to talk to him!". Cool! After a solid and long interview the other day, she has already sent her license sponsorship change form to the Texas Real Estate Commission, and she intends to start with us in April.
But wait! There's even more!
Facebook is where I first began to realize that "friend" can often have a different meaning online. My best statement on this topic is to state that I have over 2600 friends on Facebook, each of whom is extremely 
close to me and will probably name their first child after me. :-) Truthfully, I probably actually know about 20-25% of my friends there, but all of them have the potential to send me business at some point (this has proven to be the case a handful of times).
Let's get back to the recruiting story...
Recently, I had connected to a bunch of people from my high school. After all, I needed to give them a chance to reject my friendship again 20 years later, right? Well, I was catching up on reading about some of them, and it turns out that the little sister of a girl in my class is in the process of getting her real estate license here in Austin! We are planning to meet soon to discuss her options over coffee or lunch.
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I guess I just wanted to point out that ANY of these sites and/or tools can be beneficial, and you never really know where the next lead or good contact will come from. Soon, I will write a post about how many newspapers and magazines have found me over the past year because of my blogging. Since I am starting to teach classes on this stuff, that is yet another opportunity.
My personal keyword for 2009 is "UNAFRAID". I am meeting people, teaching classes, and in general doing things that I never would have imagined possible two years ago. I look forward to what this year will bring.
Follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/jasoncrouch.
