In order to have a sales or property management team that achieves great results, a great coach and effective coaching methods is an absolute necessity.

Think of a sales or rental department as an elite sporting team. Each member has their specialty position and skills, and as such, the coaching methods used to ensure their success should be tailored to their individual functions.

Too many principals implement training based on general sales or property management needs, where they should be focusing on individuals’ strengths and weaknesses, and the skills that these people require to excel in their specialty area.

For example, would it be beneficial for Jarryd Hayne to spend all his time training to make the big tackles and hard hit ups? Of course not, because he doesn’t play in the forward line. It would, however, be ideal to use those training methods for a front rower such as Petero Civoniceva.

Is it really a good idea to implement a standard training regime across the whole sales team? Or would it pay to take the time to identify each member’s role, and their strengths and weaknesses, and then tailor training to suit their individual needs.

The reason that players in a sporting team are chosen to represent their country is because they are the best player for that position. The winger is quick, the forwards are tough and the fullback is agile.

In a sales team, the best lister is confident and empathetic, the best seller is great at negotiating and the support staff have an eye for detail. Therefore, tailor training to enhance these skills. Make them market leaders in your area.

Consider joining strong members of your team with other strong members. Cameron Smith & Cooper Cronk are good players in their own right, but as a duo they form a force to be reckoned with. Likewise, band together a star performer with a weaker player in your team. Just as Darren Lockyer can make anyone look fantastic and inspire his team mates to perform, the weaker player will be driven to lift his game.

Another mistake some principals make is not ensuring the sales team sticks to their core market area. In a slow market, it is easy for sales staff to take on listings as business outside of their local or specialty area.

Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player of the 21st century, but he would probably get slaughtered if he ‘laced up the boots’ and ran onto the rugby field. As the old adage says ‘Stick with what you know and what you do best’.

But how do you put this training into practice? By conducting a simple training needs analysis. Sit down with each member of the team and discuss with them what they think their strengths and weaknesses are and what they can do to improve. Then implement training to suit their needs.

It can be something low scale like role playing scenarios they have trouble dealing with, or specific skills based training to broaden their knowledge of their core area. With the introduction of compulsory CPD, the popularity of skills based training has decreased dramatically. But as any proactive coach will tell you, training is the key to producing great staff that get results and remain a cut above the competition.

Just as all elite athletes aspire to be the best and represent their country, does your sales staff aspire to be the best and represent you?

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Ignite your career in 2010 – network with other young agents over a drink at The Loft in Sydney, and be inspired to do what it takes to achieve industry-recognised excellence.

Young agents Eddy Piddington, Jessica Thei and Adrian Wilson are all recent REINSW Awards for Excellence winners and will share what drives them to succeed.

Come along to the Young Agents’ first event for 2010!

Thursday, 15 April 2010 at The Loft in Sydney 4.00pm – 6.00pm (includes a short panel discussion)
$35 REINSW members / $55 Non-members (cost includes drinks and canapes)

To book your seat or learn more Click Here

I’m looking forward to attending this event and catching up with many of the dynamic young agents who are part of the REINSW Young Agents Chapter.

If you’re not in Sydney, there’s a great event being held for Young Agents next week (Friday 19th March) by the REIV on Creating A Successful Future.

This looks like being a great event, featuring one of the GenYre = energy contributors Braden Walters.

Here are the details of that event.

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According to ‘Breaking the Mold’ by Kevin Clancy & Robert Shulman, “It costs five times as much to find new customers as it does to retain existing ones”. Couple this with the amount ‘real estate’ and ‘real estate agents’ are discussed at dinner or around the water cooler, it makes sense that agents should be focussing more of their time and marketing efforts around improving client service to existing customers.

Providing a superior service that goes beyond our competitors will see our existing clients return and will often lead to them recommending our service to others.

But, how are we to know what specific areas of our service need to be improved?

Well, in order to improve our processes, we need to analyse how they are currently received by our market. This data will enable us to pin-point where to focus the most attention immediately and improve strategies and create a system to ensure our service is delivered easily, effectively and in a timely fashion.

What do they expect, want and what would exceed their expectations?

In order to be a successful agent we should track customers’ perceptions of our performance to discover our strengths, weakness and ensure that we are delivering beyond their expectations.

There are many ways to do this, including making it easy for customers to make a complaint or suggestion, or even conducting a mystery shopping exercise. The main method I suggest for tracking performance is via the use of a Customer Service Survey.

When compiling a survey for your customers, remember to keep it short, relevant and easy to understand. More information about creating an effective survey can be found at All Business. Plus, here”s a great survey that I came across the other day ~ City of Ryde’s ‘Customer Service Survey’ .

Innovation and Implementation

Customer service surveys can provide some amazing insights into what you are doing right & what areas need to be improved upon. After receiving feedback on the quality of your work, strategies should be developed to overcome any limitations.\r\n\r\nFor instance, one of the customer surveys I did revealed that one of my customers felt that I had an impersonal approach to customers & yet prior to doing the survey I had no idea that some of my customers had felt this way about me at all. It was a bitter pill to swallow at the time, but now I”m a better agent for it.

I”m currently in the process of  implementing a system for customer relationship management so I can design a better daily approach to my workflow and communicate more effectively with my customers. I currently use Box & Dice’s BOOM, a Customer Relationship Management System. I now input every person I come into contact with into this system, and document any communication that is made. This allows me to refer to my past notes on a client and remember our last few conversations.

Another issue was my constant follow up. I discovered this was due to a lack of valuable information being provided, resulting in a negative relationship. My solution to this is a Quarterly Report, which includes facts about what”s happening within their suburb such as statistics, sold homes and more.

If you”d like a copy of this Quarterly Report please feel welcome to email me at chris.shepherd@rwfm.com.au and I”ll send you out the latest version.

Within the CRM, I have also set up specific campaign trails such as Hot, Warm or Cold seller trails so that the BOOM system reminds me of what communication I need to make, at the appropriate time.

While I encountered these two problems, there are many others and it is important to develop a solution specific to the weakness.

What to do?

Given the financial and time costs involved in getting new clients, it is important to fix our current systems and maintain a healthy relationship with our existing clients. By so doing, it is only a matter of time before lots of extra business is generated via ongoing referrasl.

Using client surveys, complaint/comment systems or even mystery shoppers can establish weak points within an agent”s current systems, which can then be enhanced for a much better customer experience. Plus, you”ll get a much better appreciation of what your clients needs & expectations really are, so you can deliver what they want and more.

Once these issues are highlighted then they simply shouldn”t be ignored by brushing them under the carpet. Find a solution and then take the necessary actions required to ensure that your customer service is implemented on an ongoing basis, you”ll very quickly generate lots of ”raving fans” and a fantastic reputation within your service area.

I”d be interested to hear if other agents have used Customer Service Surveys and what sort of response they”ve had? Or maybe what”s been the most enlightening question they”ve asked in their survey?

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In a market such as the one in which we find ourselves today, agents need to have a rapport with their current clients to be able to work with them in achieving the highest possible sale or rental price for their property. They also need to look to past clients for future business.

Real estate is possibly the industry which most relies on referral and repeat business to ensure continued success.

How do we make sure that the clients and customers we deal with today will come back to us in the years ahead? The answer is relationship banking.

Think of the relationship that you have with a client as a bank account. To keep that client happy you need to ensure that there are always funds available in that account.

To do this, deposits must be made. Things like returning phone calls promptly, providing detailed feedback and going that extra mile for your client are all forms of deposits.

Once the account is in credit, you have built a rapport with the client and they should now trust you with the sale or management of their property. If necessary, you can now look to make withdrawals from the account. If you need to adjust the price, arrange an inspection after hours or if we make a mistake and leave the living room light on after an open house inspection, we possibly have enough credit to cover this.

While dealing with their vendor, an agent provided a comprehensive weekly report outlining how many inspections had taken place, what prospects there had been for the property so far, and what kind of prices these people were gravitating towards.

The agent also made regular contact with the vendors to make sure they were satisfied with the job he was doing. After their property had been on the market for six weeks without having any offers that met the vendors

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As an ex-elite athlete I was taught to only be affected by things within my control. i.e not getting angry because it was raining during an open house. What I have found over the last year is that more and more young agents are being affected by things outside of their control and it is completely throwing them off their best game.

My advice to everyone is to stay focused. Don’t let things like a buyer falling over because they cannot get finance alter your positive attitude. It is really important when times get tough that you aren’t distracted.

Stay focused on what you know best, stay focused on what is directly affecting you & stay focussed on your goals.

We cannot change whether interest rates go up, we cannot change whether the government passes new legislation- so get on with what you do best!

My 2 cents for this week. Have a great break everyone.
See you bright and early in the New Year.
Braden

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