If An Employee Can Go Alone, Imagine What You Could Do Together

“Are you scared your employee will leave you and start their own business if you train them too well?”

I’m not going to go with the joke answer, “If I don’t train them, imagine if they stay.”

This question naturally comes up as you advance your better employees. There’s a high turnover in sales and brokerages as many people don’t find their groove, and some aren’t the right fit for the company. However, until the start of COVID-19, Eastern Union took pride that only two successful brokers that were a great fit left on their rise.?

When they left, it’s true; it did hurt. We invested so much energy into them. But, if we hadn’t trained them, the company would not have produced the volume it did. Plus, it was a win-win because those employees advanced in life with substantial job offers, which motivated our other employees to push harder.

One employee received a seven-figure guaranteed offer to switch firms. He immediately came to me and wanted to know my advice, admitting he knew I was biased but valued my opinion still. Side note: this was one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever received in business. Despite any possible ulterior motives, he still felt comfortable coming to me for advice. With his current trajectory, I didn’t think it made sense for him at the time, so he turned it down. However, a year later, when they upped their offer to a five-year minimum guarantee of $12 million, it was clearly the right move, and I helped him negotiate the contract.?

The second instance was a broker who worked primarily with one client, and when the client made him an offer to bring him in as his in-house financing, we gave him the blessing to go.?

As difficult as these two were, everything was discussed above board, and until today, I have a great relationship with both of them.?

The biggest misconception is that employees leave simply to make more money.

Of course, anyone would leave if their needs aren’t being met; they don’t have a choice. I’ll talk more about the unique approach we took to this topic at Eastern next week. Once people have enough to live, there are two main reasons employees quit: they don’t feel fulfilled in their position and have room for advancement, or they don’t enjoy their work environment.

Many leaders talk about attracting and retaining employees, but not enough about developing them. That’s why we put such an emphasis on training at Eastern Union from the start. We always thought about it this way: wouldn't you rather have a company full of people who could go off on their own (and 1 out of 10 actually do) than a weak staff who never could?

Time and time, I’ve found that people who make a lot of money and are happy at their jobs don’t want to leave. But if you’re constantly in a competition mindset, you’ll only be setting your company up for high turnover and a low chance of success. Delegation skyrocketed our business growth, and it started with having brokers who were good enough to delegate to. Because we had amazing brokers who could solve problems independently, it freed up my time to focus on other growth opportunities.

It may seem counterintuitive, but to retain the best employees, you have to train them well enough that they could leave and compete with you. So Abe and I decided not to withhold any information or training from our team. My mentorship approach was simple: I trained my team as if I were leaving the company, and they would have to run it without me.?

So, now when I get the inevitable question from people, "Aren't you nervous your employees will start their own business if you train them like that?"

My response is simple: “If my employees are good enough to leave, just imagine how much we could accomplish together.”?

From my first job to operating GPARENCY today, this abundance mindset has allowed me to build teams that have closed over $1 trillion in volume with very little turnover. To this day, I’m still focused on passing on my experience and investing in the future. In fact, GPARENCY just launched a paid training program where we are paying to train salespeople, and we’re giving them full permission to take that training and work elsewhere if they want. That’s how much I believe in training!

If you want to build a successful company that people love to work at, you need to focus on your employees as much as you focus on your clients. That means releasing the distrust, worry, control, and insecurity, and giving your employees the tools and training they need for success. If you do, the sky will be the limit.