When we spoke to our clients, what surprised us most was the lack of effective systems in place to help retain the agents they worked so hard to recruit. The Retention portion of Brokerkit offers a simple but powerful way to track your agent's growth, enable mass communication with your team, and build long-lasting relationships.
Regardless of who handles recruiting for your office, your entire staff plays a part in retaining your agents and should have a hand in the Retention portion of Brokerkit, right down to the Compliance Officer.
To move a contact from the Recruiting list to Hired, you need to change their status to “Signed.”
Open the contact profile, and in the upper-right corner, update the contact’s status to Signed. This will move the contact to the Retention list with an Onboarding status.
You can then update the status again to Active so they appear as an active agent on your team.
Click Recruiting at the top of your screen, and select Switch to Retention.
Just like the recruiting side of Brokerkit, Retention is broken down into a few sections:
Just like with recruiting, your Today view is where you'll start and spend most of your time.
The Add Team Member button allows you to bypass recruiting and add someone directly to your brokerage, whether they're an agent, staff, or affiliate. This also means they won't appear on your Pipeline Report and muddy any reporting if you're just trying to update your roster.
📝 Note: Be sure to check your current leads before adding someone to your team. If they're a licensed agent, it's highly likely they already exist in the system, and adding them directly to Retention will create a duplicate.
On the right, you can select Blast Team to email or text all your agents. Keep in mind that Blast Team purposely excludes affiliates but will send an individual email or text to all admins, staff, and agents.
Next, you have any Follow Ups assigned to you or your staff for the day, along with any that are overdue.
Onboarding is where agents will show up after they've been marked Signed in Recruiting. This way, you can easily track an agent who's yet to complete training, paperwork, or other initial steps to join the brokerage.
Once they complete Onboarding, select the agent to open their profile. Select Active in the upper right-hand corner to make them a full-fledged agent.
Active is where you'll find any agents that are due for Retention calls. By default, they are sorted by the longest since you personally made the last contact.
By design, Brokerkit will guide each staff member to call agents on your roster whom they haven't spoken with the longest to encourage the entire staff to build relationships with everyone on the roster. This way, the possibility of a single point of failure is eliminated, and each agent's relationship with the entire office is strengthened.
Managing the Agent Onboarding Phase
When you add an agent with "Signed" status, they automatically enter the Onboarding phase in Retention. Use this phase to track their progress through training, paperwork, and licensing before marking them as Active.
What to Track During Onboarding
In the agent's profile:
- Notes: Document completed onboarding steps
- Training sessions attended
- Paperwork and contracts submitted
- License activation date
- System access granted
- Company policies reviewed
- Follow-up dates: Set reminders for next steps
- Training session schedules
- Document submission deadlines
- License activation check-ins
- Important dates: Record key milestones
- License activation date
- Contract signing date
- First transaction date
Typical Agent Onboarding Checklist
Most brokerages track these steps during onboarding:
Week 1-2:
- Welcome communication sent
- System access set up
- Company policies and handbook shared
- Training schedule provided
- Initial orientation completed
Week 2-3:
- Required paperwork and contracts submitted
- License verified and activated in system
- MLS access confirmed
- Marketing materials provided
Week 3-4:
- Training sessions completed
- First transaction support ready
- Team introductions completed
- Ready to mark as Active
Tip: Customize this checklist based on your brokerage's onboarding process. Use the Notes section in each agent's profile to track completion.
Using Smart Campaigns for Agent Onboarding
Automate your onboarding communications by setting up a Smart Campaign:
1. Go to Campaigns and create a new campaign
2. Add emails/texts for:
- Welcome message
- Training schedule and company policies
- System access instructions
- Check-ins at week 2 and week 3
3. Apply the campaign to agents with "Onboarding" status
This ensures every new agent receives consistent onboarding materials.
Moving from Onboarding to Active
When the agent has completed all onboarding steps:
1. Open their profile in Retention
2. Change status from Onboarding to Active
The agent now appears in your Active agents roster and is ready to transact.