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How efficiency can give you the edge: Evan Broadbent

In a highly competitive industry such as real estate, individual agents, agencies and franchise groups are constantly seeking ways to gain an edge on their competitors. A new automated process for managing listings could be the answer, says Evan Broadbent.

Finding and implementing new processes can benefit agents significantly, not only through increased revenues or margins but often by providing their clients with a better level of service, cost savings or – even better – both.

Currently, most agencies use a CRM software that assists them in the listing and selling process. This type of software has come a long way in recent years and provides a great tool in the day-to-day operations of running a professional real estate agency and managing their valuable databases.

Although agencies can differ in their property listing processes and procedures, broadly speaking most would go about it as follows: Property is listed. Sign, photos, floor plan and video booked. Styling and ad script done. Advertising space booked. Eventually we are ready to load it all into our software system to go to market.

Although my brief description of the process makes it sound relatively straightforward, that is not always the case. It can consume hours of precious time, at considerable expense to your client and sometimes to yourself or your agency.

So the property gets loaded into your CRM system and automatically uploads to the major portals, allowing you to email market the property to your relevant database. Then bingo! A buyer from your database receives the email, finds it matches their buying criteria, arranges an inspection and ultimately buys the property. The listing and sale process worked seamlessly as it should, and you sold the property as you were employed to do. Great result, right?

Or was it?

This was happening in my office and I would envisage it happens on a daily basis in real estate agencies across our nation. Although it seems logical to be happy about each sale, I wasn’t. We already had the buyer in our database when we listed the property. We spent hours getting the property to market, at considerable expense to our client, and time-wise to us. The inefficiency of this method frustrated me immensely; I saw this as a major flaw in the process and a problem that needed fixing.

Yes, you could argue that individual agents need to manage their database better and contact buyers regularly, updating them about newly listed properties that may interest them. This would still not be enough for me;

I wanted an automated process for my business for better efficiency, and the removal of human error caused by poor database management.

An automated process would also provide an opportunity to better service our buyers, who yearn for early notifications of property listings to increase their chance of purchasing a property they want. Not to mention that better servicing your buyers is a successful long-term vendor prospecting strategy.

Quickrealestate.com.au now solves this problem for us and has made our office far more efficient. It allows us to instantly upload properties to the site with the information available. This information is also the criteria buyers search with: Property type, address, number of bedrooms, bathrooms and car spaces, and price or method of sale. The system then automatically alerts matched buyers who have registered to receive alerts.

Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister, recently said, “I will be ruthless in cutting out waste, streamlining structures and improving efficiency”. Theresa runs a country, not just a business. It’s a reasonable assumption, then, that she would approve.

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Evan Broadbent

Evan Broadbent is the Managing Director of Harcourts Warragul and the Founder and CEO of Quickrealestate.com.au.