How This Managing Broker Structures Meetings to Help Her Agents Thrive

For some agents, team meetings may seem like tedious distractions from client work. But when done right, they can be critical to your long-term success, pushing you to make time for skill development, feedback, and career growth.

Just ask Bailee Edwards. Early in her career, Edwards worked for a broker who only liked to meet for a few minutes a week to review contracts. These check-ins were useful but didn’t allow time to dig deeper, so when Edwards started her own brokerage with her husband in 2020, she wanted to take a more thoughtful approach.  

“Sometimes newer agents think everything will go smoothly early on,” she says. “Most leads will convert. They’ll only have to show three houses and the buyer will pick one. So meetings and trainings can help set expectations.”

At Bailee & Co. Real Estate, based in Oklahoma City, OK, Edwards believes her system for meetings is one of the reasons her brokerage has grown to over 30 agents who have made over 450 sales in the last 12 months. Here’s her blueprint for covering business-critical updates and supporting her agents. 

One-on-one meetings: 30 minutes every other week

Ideal for skill development and career growth

Regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings give agents a chance to keep improving, especially younger agents still finding their footing. 

Edwards meets individually with every agent at her brokerage, and each session starts with data. The first thing she does is pull up an agent’s call answer rate to compare their 30-day average to their most recent 7-day average. Did it improve or decline? They talk about why before getting into the status of recent Zillow connections.

The rest of the meeting focuses on coaching and opportunities for improvement. The agent listens to their own call recordings the way athletes study film of their games. Edwards likes the “praise sandwich” approach: bookending two pieces of legitimate positive feedback around constructive criticism. “It’s old-fashioned, but it works.”

Edwards has noticed the coaching has been most effective at helping agents nail intro scripts and softer skills around tone of voice or word choice. “If I tell you to stop saying ‘um,’ it might happen,” she says. “But if you hear it on your own during five recordings, there’s a better chance of it sinking in and changing.”

Small team meetings: 1 hour every week

Ideal for client strategies and objection handling 

Typical team meetings can conjure up images of leaders standing in front of a slideshow, lecturing their staff. The missing ingredient? Collaboration.

At Bailee & Co., agents gather every week in small groups of about six for a discussion with a team leader. This meeting gives agents – especially newer ones – a casual space to bring up challenges with a few peers and share tips. By blocking off an hour, there’s also enough time to go over leads and contract statuses.  

“It’s more personal,” Edwards says. “We’ve found it to be really helpful because they get to talk to other agents about their own challenges and the trends they’re seeing.”

One recent topic covered what to do if a buyer doesn’t show up for a tour they scheduled online. More experienced agents had the chance to weigh in with suggestions, like how to reschedule or send an update that could create more urgency around the home.

Brokerage meetings: 2 hours every month

Ideal for business reviews and industry changes

To keep everyone informed about the state of the business, Edwards hosts a mandatory monthly meeting for the entire team. This forum is also data-driven – every agent’s metrics are publicly displayed, and top performers have a chance to share best practices. 

There’s time carved out for industry news too. For instance, the NAR settlement has been a significant topic lately, so the team analyzed the potential impact for agents and buyers, and went over scripting options to address new policy changes. 

For Edwards, bringing in fun and laughter helps the agents build rapport with each other. Sometimes agents can play their best or worst calls for the team. And if they happen to get a live connection call during the meeting, they’re encouraged to take it.

“The goal is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” she says. “If you can successfully answer a call in front of 30 other agents, then you’ll master it quickly.”