Blog / Winning Business
Greg Paterson, Making your Real Estate Business Even more Successful
By Greg Paterson, CEO, Reef
Operating a real estate business requires courage, commitment and determination - of that there can be no doubt. Furthermore, it’s inevitable there will be a need to confront important managerial issues that may not be easy to resolve. It’s how an agency responds to those issues issues that will largely determine the opportunity for business improvement and hence, its success. Consider for example matters such as:
1. Retaining and recruiting quality people
An all too common trap that real estate management falls into is a preparedness to hang onto people who don’t support the mission of the business, make exceptions, change the rules, overlook unacceptable behaviours and justify on the basis that “there are not a lot of quality people out there”! According to American commentator and author, Richard Flint, the result becomes leadership driven by fear of loss.
It may not be so much a case of there being few quality people out there to employ but rather not a lot of quality companies to attract them. As Flint puts it, quality people don’t move to average companies. Any time a business lowers its expectations, makes exceptions or overlooks negative behaviours, it becomes average.
Being average will not only cost you your quality people but it also makes it challenging to recruit quality people. Lowering the standards rewards those who simply show up and are not committed to a mission of customer care. Rewarding negative people is a costly mistake.
2. Understanding the meaning of motivation
Most agency managers are exhausted from trying to keep people motivated. For some strange reason they have made themselves responsible for the energy of their staff. That should not be their job. It is not the responsibility of management to emotionally adopt staff. Their role is to design and maintain a healthy environment where motivated staff can excel.
Improvement demands staff are held accountable and responsible for what they should be doing - i.e. selling or managing Improvement demands staff are held accountable and responsible for what they should be doing - i.e. selling or managing real estate. Protecting a negative staff member simply validates their behaviour and increases the stress on the leader of the ‘orphanage’!
According to Flint, motivation demands people know who they are, where they are and what they want for their working life. Without these understandings they simply show up and hold the business environment hostage with their behaviour.
3. Strengthening the customer connection
It is just as important to focus on bringing a customer back as it is to get one through the door. When profits slip, businesses will inevitably start preaching the age old mantra…CUSTOMER SERVICE! But customer service is a process of building relationships. That process tells the customer they matter and it's people who demonstrate this fact. Flint suggests 99% of all customer complaints are generated by people disappointments…now that can be costly to an agency.
4. Helping staff find a balance for their life
Smart leadership understands that unhappy staff hurt a business’s profitability. Too many have unstable lives outside of work and they bring their personal issues to the workplace. These people lack focus, are constantly exhausted, driven by a negative presence and rarely give their best to what they are doing. Great businesses should strive to link work to living a totally healthy life. It’s not easy but one worth considering and pursuing.
Real estate businesses wanting to improve should seriously consider a closer examination of these issues.
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