AREC2017 EA StudioElite AgentElite Agent TVFEATURE INTERVIEWS

Feature Interview: Arabella Hooper with Claudio Encina

In our latest feature interview from the AREC2017 Elite Agent Studio, ‪Claudio Encina talks to Arabella Hooper about the main takeaways from her keynote and networking for success; having personal conversations more than keeping to your call scripts.

Transcript:

Claudio Encina: Here we are at the Elite Agent Magazine stand at AREC 2017, and we had the pleasure of listening to Arabella….Hooper?

Arabella Hooper: Yes, you got it. Could’ve been a Cooper.

Claudio: It could’ve been a Cooper.

Arabella: Was once.

Claudio: I was like, “Hooper? Cooper?” From Harris Real Estate in Adelaide. Your presentation was amazing this morning. Maybe you could just recap some of the finer points of your presentation that you wanted the delegates to take away.

Arabella: I think it’s really hard. I’ve come to AREC so many times, and I’ve found it really frustrating. I hear all these rock star real estate agents that have so many awesome systems, and I come home and I’m so fired up, and then I’m like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to get kids to school and I’ve got to do this.” Every year I keep thinking, “Oh, it’ll be so nice to hear someone that actually has to deal with normal life as well.”

So I really wanted to be able to pass on a message that you can actually be a normal person too and that you don’t have to be some genius.

Claudio: I think, Arabella, the other thing I took away, you spoke about your ideal day and week and you had two days there that you had off. I think it was a Saturday and-

Arabella: Friday and Saturday.

Claudio: Friday and Saturday, yeah. You do opens on a Sunday, is that correct?

Arabella: Yeah. It’s just because where I sell in the Adelaide Hills, everyone’s quite centric in terms of sport. Saturdays is absorbed with ferrying kids around. So normally our attendances are quite low, so we focus on Sundays. That’s why we do it.

But I really make sure that I get two days off a week. I just find that when I don’t, I just become so wired and completely horrible as a mother and completely horrible as a boss and I don’t want to deal with anyone. If I get two days off a week, I can just recharge. I just find I can reset and I can actually deal with people.

Claudio: You were saying too about how you connect with people. It’s the pony club and the community and the school and et cetera. Tell us a bit more and expand a little bit more how you network.

Arabella: I’ve just had to make better opportunities, I think. I’ve been so busy with life that I’ve had to learn to make the most of every opportunity that I’m in. One of my daughters rides horses, which is hugely time-consuming, so I’ve sponsored all these riders. They all wear Harris [Real Estate] pink ponies T-shirts. I have these really cool, they’re about two metres high, they’re these horse heads.

Claudio: That’s brilliant.

Arabella: They just go around all the arenas, and people are just like, “I’m so sick of seeing your pink everywhere.” I’m like, “That is the whole point.”

Claudio: You’ve got this really good relationship with all these people that are in your database because you treat them like friends. They’re not like somebody you’ve cold-called and you put them into the data and then, “I spoke to you three months ago,” et cetera.

Arabella: I must admit I actually have a lot of difficulty logging into a database system. A CRM system just terrifies me.

Claudio: So you’re normal. I love it.

Arabella: The girls will print off a list and I’ll be like, “Can I move that to the side for a bit? Do I have to really do those jobs? Do I have to call those people?” I think a lot of it I can just do normally at the coffee shop. Our coffee shop is like, “She’s a legend.” The barista, she tells me everything. If I need to know anything, I just go there.

I think people learn to network in different ways, but Facebook’s so good. If you’re just integrating with people and actually watching what they’re doing and commenting, gratifying people’s lives, I think that they go “Oh, she’s actually a really nice person.” We feel like we’re friends.

Claudio: I think it’s almost like you see them on Facebook, and they may have gone on a holiday, and say, “Well, how was Fiji? Was that a great place to take kids? Because we’re thinking of that kind of holiday. We don’t know where to go to, but that looked beautiful.”

Arabella: I think that’s the difference these days with real estate. Real estate is so much more than just picking up a call and having some conversation about, “Hey, the house down the road sold for $750,000.” I just find that so boring.

If I can say, “Hey, listen, I saw you had an awesome trip away. It looked so amazing. Where did you stay?” they just want to talk to you and they want to know you, and that’s a much easier way of doing it.

Claudio: I agree. You know what I love, Arabella, it’s just simply having a conversation with people rather than coming up with some big script that you’ve got to come, and then what comes out is that salesperson versus just having a conversation with somebody.

How did you start to start a business when you’re your own agent? I suppose getting contacts and leads, how did that happen for you?

Arabella: I buddied up with another agent and I started to learn the lingo and develop the ability to have the conversations. I think that’s the best thing you can do if you’re starting out, is actually just get buddied up. Start working at how to talk the talk. I think if you can do that, you can easily walk it then. It’s so much easier. Then I just developed contacts from there. It was the simplest way to do it.

Claudio: I think it’s finding your own code, locate what works for you and work on your strengths.

Arabella: Yeah. Ashley that spoke earlier, awesome guy, he is a gun. He’s just this machine that’s just an output machine. Honestly, I got stuff from him, because not about the amount of volume of calls, but just the structure and-

Claudio: And process.

Arabella: Yeah. That’s a good thing about AREC, isn’t it? You can come to AREC and you pick things up from all these different speakers that are so different to you and you can just sharpen up your business.

Claudio: Arabella, we really appreciate your time here on the couch at AREC 2017 with Elite Agent Magazine. I love your energy.

Arabella: Thank you!

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