Blog / Leadership


Letting go of the fear


with Chris Hanley, Byron Bay First National

When Chris Hanley speaks, the industry listens. His Building an All Weather Business was so successful and demand so great, it has been expanded to two days. Chris says “One of the key messages for the two-day course this year is that nearly every issue of confrontation or anger or dispute in a business revolves around a communication breakdown.”

Chris is a firm believer in creating an open, transparent culture in real estate businesses. A commitment to communication and cooperation has to emanate from the foundations of a business and penetrate every aspect of its operation. In turn, Chris believes, the quality of communication influences outcomes in both the workplace and in the quality and nature of the service provided to customers - and ultimately, in turn to a businesses’ bottom line.

For consumers, Chris believes that, ”The main reason that sellers or buyers don't like real estate agents is because there's been a communication breakdown or miscommunication.” He believes that it is imperative that staff meaningfully engage with clients every day and don’t just rely on texts. He says, “You’ve got to be able to have face-to-face conversations with people. As a sales manager, you’ve got to be a great listener. Got to be able to listen. Got to be able to ask correct questions. You’ve got to find out how they're feeling. The best oneon- ones or the best meetings you'll ever have with sales people usually have nothing whatsoever to do with real estate. I go further than that and say, if you're talking about real estate in those sorts of conversations, you're probably not talking about the right thing."

When managing staff, Chris believes how a manager communicates directly affects the bottom line. Chris has observed that, “What happens in management of large numbers of people is that those in charge often leave out important bits, or they often deliberately fail to tell people certain things. Then, later on when there's a train wreck, people say, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’, I work on the view that if you tell people everything, for as much as you possibly can, all of the time, then people are smart and they will make up their own mind. If you don't tell them, then invariably they believe you're hiding things from them. Your culture gets eroded.”

Chris believes that it is vital for managers to ask their staff, ‘What's going on? Can I help you?’ and, more importantly, ‘How can I assist or help you to improve the results you’ve got right now?’. He says, “That's what you’ve got to ask them. Real estate is just the result of how people feel. Here's how it works. If they feel good, they'll get good results. If they're not feeling good, they won't get good results. You don't need to bash someone around the head with the fact they just worked another seven days without getting a result.”

Chris also thinks that in the spirit of cooperation and good communication, information needs to be freely shared in offices as well. He explains, “There're two types of people. There are those people who are afraid of information, and there are those people who feel that information should be shared freely. Now, I'm in the second category. I believe that a website on a real estate business should have lots of information and be a resource to the community so that, on their journey of buying, selling, leasing, they can see what you stand for and what you're about and that the information on the website makes them smarter.”

Further, he says, “I also believe within a real estate business that all the database should be there for everybody to share, that you should have no fear about that as a boss, that you can have a compartmentalised business.” Chris does not believe that sales, administration and property management should operate behind thick walls in their own drawers or boxes. He thinks everyone should have access to the database.

He explains, “Let's call it a vault like a library or a place that you can go and make a withdrawal from like a bank. It's there for everybody to use. We've all built it over the years. Nobody owns it per se. For our business, along with our culture, it has been the main reason that we've remained the top office for many years in the First National Network, the top office for nearly 20 years in that area; it is because we've got an open, transparent culture and an open, transparent, clean database.”

To register for Chris Hanley’s Building an All-Weather Business workshop contact Real Estate Academy on 1300 367 412 or visit www.realestateacademy.com.au

 

 


← Go back