**Taken From Inman.com**

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Building relationships and looking outside the industry are key pieces of recruiting top talent to your real estate team, says Inman Connect Las Vegas speakers

BY INMAN AUGUST 20, 2019

One of the biggest problems real estate team leaders have is finding talent. The teams of the past had an assistant, a buyer’s agent and a listing agent. The teams of the future are attracting high level executive talent from outside the industry and major corporations to fill big roles.

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, Holly Priestner, director of talent acquisition and engagement at Xperience Real Estate powered by Keller Williams, and Chris Anuszewski, director of operations on the Figueroa Team, sat down to talk about how teams can find talent and what that talent looks like.

“We need to be able to brand ourselves as real estate businesses but also brand ourselves as the best places to work,” said Priestner, who in her previous job at Keller Williams recruited Josh Team, who would go on to become the president of the company. In her first nine months at Xperience Real Estate, she brought in $150 million in production based on the relationships she had been cultivating.

Her biggest piece of advice for finding great talent? Think outside your normal box. “In order to truly move our businesses forward, [we need to bring] people in from outside of our industry because that’s when we have true innovation,” she said. A pivotal hire — Orlando Solano, director of lead generation — came from the e-commerce fashion industry.

Anuszewski himself came from outside of the industry. He had previously worked for 13 years at a family-run business that taught babies how to survive when they fell in the water. His tactical skills as director of operations easily translated to the same role for a real estate team.

“My job is to give my team lead that … 100,000-foot view,” Anuszewski said. “[My team leader] tells us where we need to go, and I’m going to make sure we have the people and systems in place that we need to get there.”