Coach: Fiona Blayney, CEO of Real+
Key Points
- Successful real estate businesses see value in breaking down the walls between sales and property management
- Property management is like a loyalty club; when your investors are members, they are more likely to use your services
“I want you now to think of your property management business like the Virgin lounge. It is the Virgin club, it’s the investor club. When your investors are a member of your club, they are more inclined to use your services.” Fiona Blayney
Video Notes/Transcript
We seem to have this great dividing range that used to be property management downstairs and the sales team upstairs, or property management at the front of the office and the sales team out in the back. There was this great divide.
The businesses that are wanting to become more progressive, become more consistent and create some greater stability: they’re seeing great value in really breaking down these walls.
For the purposes of this I’ll called it ‘lead gen through PM’.
Automation is a really big thing. I’m going to hopefully blow your brains today about what amount of data and clientele actually sit in your market right now and how much money is sitting there right now that is not coming into your coffers.
I’m not interested in how much you’re making. I’m interested in how much you’re not yet making.
Every single human that you see in the street participates in your industry in some way, shape or form. They literally have money in their pocket today that they are spending today in your marketplace on real estate services.
Because we’re in these silos, we look at this person in our normal day-to-day transaction. For you, as sales people and principals, you’re looking at these humans; are they are buyer, are they a seller?
You’re looking for this beacon on the top of their head and, of course, as principals of businesses, hopefully you’re looking at them as then, are they perhaps the landlord?
If we can break down that barrier and start thinking organisationally around the fact that these people are our clients, we’re going to start to talk to them differently. We’re going to start to think about them differently. We’re going to start creating a longer term approach to the opportunities that we have to take that industry-based income out of their wallets and get it into your business rather than the agency down the road.
On average, 5% of your rent roll will turn over each year for the purpose of selling. 5%. Now, if you’re in a marketplace and in a business model whereby you’ve got good quality relationships with your landlord clientele – and by good, it doesn’t have to be exceptional, it just has to be good. Of that, 80% of those clients will sell with the agent who’s managing their property.
Property management and sales is kind of ironic, really, because we get paid in property management to manage a database of people so they can pay us to be on a database, if you think about it that way.
They’re paying us to be on their investment database. We’re making a profit by keeping them there. Of course we’re giving them a service but then, ultimately we’re saying, “Hang on, good. You want to sell that now? Great, we’ll just sell you this other service over here.” It’s crazy. Those businesses, the economics of it, businesses around the world, they would thrive to be able to have a profitable database that we then sell another product to.
It’s a beautiful business model, but we don’t think of it that way. So, for us, I want to introduce you to the club.
This is the club. Now, I do about 100 flights a year and I am a member of a club. Any ideas what that club would be? No? Virgin club, right? I’m part of the Virgin lounge, thank you, not the Qantas. Let me tell you, if a client rings me and says they want to book my flights, I actually start to get really nervous because I’m like, “You want to book my flights? I don’t know about this. Listen, that’s fine but I fly Virgin.” It’s not prestigious, it’s not like I’m in the Qantas or Kahuna lounge. I’ve got the club card and I love being a member of the club.
When you’re a member of the club, you’re more inclined to use the club facilities. For you, I want you now to think of your property management business like the Virgin lounge. It is the Virgin club, it’s the investor club. When your investors are a member of your club, they are more inclined to use your services, they’re more inclined to fly with you, they’re more inclined to sell with you. That’s the easiest concept.
As a result, we need to get as many members as possible. We don’t need to make it easier for people to be part of an investor club.
We need to be communicating, enticing, encouraging, working as an entire organisation, not simply just a BDM in to PM department but the whole organisation working together to get more people in our club.
If you’re looking at that point of view, in five years from now, how many properties do you personally want to sell that are investment properties? It’s quite simple. Work out how many people you need to get into the club by referring them in now.
