Growth Drivers

There’s an incredible level of stress when total volume or average sale prices in your marketplace suddenly drop. In my Coaching Tip this week we’ll talk about growth drivers that affect your business, like average sale price, total number of transactions, your average fee, and how many annual leave days you take.

You might be surprised that annual leave is a growth driver because if you can take those days off and still write the same or more income, that indicates you’re more efficient in your office time, or you’ve scaled with a team that can list for you whilst you’re away.

You can grow regardless of market conditions if your marketplace is big enough for your aspirations. And markets are neither good nor bad, they’re just markets. You need to adapt and change with them quickly with a higher average sale price or a higher fee.

Think of your fee as simply the amount you charge for your services. Then you can adjust the fee according to the services you provide, and give your client a choice of level of service. Ultimately what the client will remember is the quality of service you provided and not the price point they paid for it.

The customer experience you provide is critical to your ability to get a better fee, but the customer has to see that experience first. We’re in the retail business that way because the customer’s first encounters with you at an open home or on the phone is their first experience of what it’s like to deal with you as an agent.

I want you to really consider that customer experience is one of your biggest growth drivers and you have to improve that experience in order to grow. Get this right and everything changes. Lead acquisition prices go down, you get better customers, and everyone will want to work with you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 158 – Pru Kelly on Planning Ahead

Our High Performance Podcast Special Edition series continues with Josh Phegan and Pru Kelly on going the distance throughout the year. Pru explains the importance of perceiving what happens over the course of a year and planning ahead by breaking it down in team meetings. She tells how alternating periods of intensity and rest helps their team sustain high energy throughout the year. Pru notes that part of team management is keeping an eye on the staff and giving someone a break if they need it. She notes that observation includes Alex, and tells how part of her role is to assume control to help him get back on target.

Josh summarises how Pru manages Alex and the team, takes action right away if they’re off, and helps effect a reset when needed, and he notes that your part as an agent is to maintain emotional management and work to the rhythm of the year.

Pipeline Progression

As a great agent you’ve got to think about progressing the buyers and sellers inside of your database, so my Coaching Tip today is about pipeline progression. Your part is to show them a new property, share relevant information with them, and motivate them to decide to make things happen.

When something is really important you meet on it regularly. Think about spending just 20 minutes a week going over your sellers hit list with your team. You can evaluate seller potential by finding out which situations they may be in right now, what their next step might be, and any barriers standing in their way.

Before a client will be ready to sell you have to find out what will allow them to make that decision. You’ll also need to help get a timeline worked out so that they know what they’ll be doing and when.

What you need to do is print a list of all your potential sellers and call every one. Ask questions to discover the problem they need to solve and what they want from their next home, identify their next steps and learn how you can progress them.

The most important thing in pipeline progression is the conversations you have with your clients as their agent. If you don’t know the clients in your database, and they don’t know you, why would they choose you as their agent? You develop your pipeline by spending time on it, so meet with your team, have quality conversations, and progress the client by helping them get past their challenges.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 157 – Pru Kelly on Team Productivity

As our High Performance Podcast Special Edition series continues Josh Phegan talks with Pru Kelly about driving team productivity. Pru emphasises that Team Phillips is goal driven, and their leaders lead by example. She adds the importance of getting sold calls done straight away and working with other teams to call cold lists and bring hot buyers in quickly to look at properties. She explains the procedure she follows if she sees the need for Alex to have a private chat with a team member who isn’t performing up to standard. They also discuss using motivators to help keep people focused on the results they need to achieve.

Josh summarises the discussion around being a team, clarifying intent, building technical competence, and really caring about your people – knowing where they want to go in their career and their life, and setting a vision that’s big enough to make the work meaningful.

All about Planning

If you want to do real estate for the next 20 or 30 years, then the way you work needs to be sustainable. In this Coaching Tip I’ll explain the importance of planning in everything you do, both on and off the field.

To be a great agent you really need rest and recovery, especially with more daylight, better weather and more late-night appointments coming up. Great for business, but without the right rhythms and routines in place you’re going to get tired and exhausted. Think about things that renew your energy and schedule time to do them regularly.

Renewal can also be about reviewing your achievements and getting purposeful around the work you do. Measuring your performance is important, but it’s not about the hours you put in, it’s about the output you achieve. My team is measured on what they bring to the table culturally, and the outcomes they achieve inside of their roles.

Achievement depends on planning, so it’s critical that you get good at it. First thing is to make sure you have holidays spread equally throughout the year so that every 4 to 6 weeks you’ve got something to look forward to. This helps you maintain perspective and stay in control of what matters to you.

To keep your way of working sustainably you may need to make some changes. Putting on an assistant will help assure that you can take time off and still get listings. Or you may be able to team up with a senior agent in your office before you leave so you can still earn some fees. You’ll also want to over-prospect and over-list by planning ahead for next year. And it helps to know when your peak seasons are so you can schedule your holidays around them. The better you get at planning, the more your business will grow.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Changed Agents Award Finalist – Linda Simmons

Linda Simmons from Barfoot & Thompson is one of our New Zealand Changed Agents Award 2018 finalists. She describes how a near death experience has given her a new perspective on life and better work/life balance.

Linda Simmons and her husband have both been close to death, which has given them a new appreciation of every day.

“Mine was illness related and my husband’s accident related. It has made us very conscious of not taking life for granted. Sometimes the real estate world can feel like it is demanding,” Mrs Simmons said.

The biggest struggle in her real estate career is something most agents know all too well.

“It is the seemingly never-ending challenge of achieving that elusive “life balance”. I feel like I walk a constant path of holding back on growing my business; if I get even busier, the rest of my life begins to suffer.”

[optin-form title=”Looking to subscribe?” description=”Sign up to get all Josh’s articles and more sent straight to your inbox”]

Before entering the property world, Mrs Simmons spent 20 years working on global marketing campaigns with the company, Nestle.

She believes the skills she developed in this role are what have made her stand-out and win awards. “When I look back the thing that I have been most excited about was in my very first year in real estate when I was awarded runner up for the REINZ Best Multi-Media Marketing Campaign for the very first listing campaign that I ran!”

Mrs Simmons said she integrated a different approach to the winning campaign. “I used emotion to engage buyers. Funnily enough, the family who bought the property had no intention of buying a home but were attracted by the marketing,” she said.

However, Josh Phegan taught her not to rely solely on her marketing background.

“It gives me a strong point of difference and that’s great, but it doesn’t necessarily make my client’s experience a better one in terms of how they feel as they go through the journey of selling their home,” she said.

Mrs Simmons said Josh’s training helped her to focus on reducing stress for everyone involved to make the journey of selling a home an enjoyable experience.

Her mantra is “to add value to clients every step of the way”. “I start from a base of understanding their needs and then working out how best to meet their needs and I then offer a tailored service to make sure all their needs are met.

I then go out of my way to understand what is unique about a home before I market it, with the ultimate goal of getting the highest price possible,” said Mrs Simmons.

By implementing this change, she said she gets more referrals, higher value properties and less people wanting discount fees.

“In simple terms, the way that we help our clients through the journey of selling their homes means our clients are not only happy because they sell their homes, they actually enjoy the experience and they become raving fans!” she said.

 

Change Management

People naturally resist change when it first happens, but they also want to be a part of change once they’re clear about what we’re doing. In this month’s Growth, Leadership and Management Tip I’ll tell you why the most important skill you’ll ever master as a business owner is change management.

Often a principal comes back to the office inspired by a great training session and holds a Braveheart speech about all the incredible things you’re going to make happen. But your people remember what happened – or didn’t happen – the last time you did this.

When you think about change, the first thing is to have a set of questions you need to answer. Identify the problem you need to solve and develop a positive leadership vision for what the solution is going to look like. Then think about who is going to be impacted by the change and develop an action plan so you can finally put it all into play.

These are the steps to make change really happen. The business that can change and adapt to new conditions is the one that wins. Change management is your role as a leader, to step your people through these changes, empower them, and get them engaged. Be that leader and your people will want to make change happen.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Growth, Leadership, and Management Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next month.

Changed Agents Award Finalist – John Campbell

John Campbell from Ray White is one of our New Zealand Changed Agents Award 2018 finalists. He describes how the first six month of real estate was the toughest time in his life.

John Campbell left a management role and joined the real estate industry at the age of 40.

“From being the boss to having a boss and starting at the bottom with zero income, a young family to support and a house in Auckland with an Auckland-sized mortgage – it was a tough time for my family and me” he said.

Behind this successful man, was a supportive woman. “I did talk with my amazing wife about the fear that I was not good enough, that maybe this wasn’t working out. She set me straight by reminding me that I was happier than I had been in years and that my results were accumulating. She was right, on both counts.”

Mr Campbell describes how his previous life in sales and management didn’t prepare him for the real estate industry.

[optin-form title=”Looking to subscribe?” description=”Sign up to get all Josh’s articles and more sent straight to your inbox”]

“It’s a whole new playing field. Good thing I am competitive and customer-centric,” he shared. Coming from a background that had nothing to do with real estate, Mr Campbell said he was soaking up every piece of advice, working seven days a week and 18 hours a day.

“The goal was to build my business fast and at whatever the cost. Thankfully Josh helped me realise there was another way. While I had to start at zero, I reached 100 in less than two years and I am still accelerating” said Mr Campbell.

Josh Phegan taught him to provide an exemplary service during every stage.

Mr Campbell also learned how to prospect and make follow-up calls with structure. “It transformed his business and my confidence levels. Listening to someone else make the calls, rather than being told how to do them – it was invaluable to me,” he said.

While Mr Campbell hasn’t been in the industry for long, he’s already ranked among the top performers in the country and has won a variety of awards within the Ray White Group.

His advice to other agents:

– Add value where other agents can’t
– Be memorable for even the little things
– Be genuine

“If you nail that, in my experience, you’ll stand out,” he said.

Ep 156 – Pru Kelly on Being a Great PA

This Special Edition podcast series continues with Josh Phegan and Pru Kelly around being a great personal assistant. Pru begins with understanding your boss and your team, and remembering that real estate is not 9 to 5. It’s about going the extra mile and always staying a step ahead. She tells how she keeps coordinated and on top of things, and how she prioritises tasks by understanding what’s most urgent to winning or losing the business. They discuss how they maintain communication and adjust expectations when things get stressful.

Josh ends with a reminder that it’s what you do when things are quiet that makes all the difference when things get busy. He tells how he uses trigger words to let his team know what’s going on, and how to prepare for high performance during quiet patches.

Be Intentional About Chosen Markets

The type of market you choose depends on how you intend to generate leads and the people you’ll get to meet. In my Coaching Tip today I’ll help you to be intentional about chosen markets so you’ll be able to build the business you want.

Consider your low, average and high-end sale prices. People buying high-end properties may be selling at an average sale price, whilst people buying at the average price may sell at a low price. And people buying low-end properties may be investors or landlords. Too many agents miss out on the opportunities these underserved customers represent.

As your career develops you may start in the lower price ranges, step up to the medium range, and then get to the high end. Regardless of price, make sure you start out in the marketplace that you want to end up in.

Choose a marketplace that is big enough for your aspirations and dynamic enough for the kind of business you want to build. The market you choose also determines the mediums you’ll use to connect with customers, whether it’s a social market, or you’ll use newspaper ads or outdoor signage.

Lead generation is changing. Realising that sellers are also buyers can direct you to generate leads in a completely different way. It’s about getting the average sale price right to bring you more trade-ins. To be intentional about chosen markets make sure the customer sees you as highly valuable. Learn how to trade in your marketplace and tell a better story to get the markets you deserve.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.