Blog / Property Management
Toop and Toop, Using sales skills in property management
Toop&Toop receives calls to its five South Australian offices, but always monitors the source of those calls to pinpoint exactly where property management business is coming from.
Measuring any marketing activity is essential to determine what is working and what isn't. These calls are backed up with local area marketing campaigns and prospecting, where the team builds relationships with people in the finance and banking industries, tax accountants, mortgage brokers and conveyancers.
Former Toop&Toop Business Development Manager and Team Leader, Suzie Hamilton-Flanagan started her real estate career in property management and then moved into sales. She combined her experience in both to get the best for clients from her team.
When it comes to generating business, Ms Hamilton-Flanagan said it was imperative to know the marketplace and understand your point of difference. “You have to believe in your team; you have to believe in your product and you have to believe the service that you’re providing is the best there is."
“I get up every morning believing that we do great business for our clients. It’s all about providing knowledge and information and giving back to our very loyal clients and the community as a whole.
At the end of the day we need them as much as they need us,” she explained.
Unlike clients of real estate sales agents who may only be around for a matter of weeks, property management clients make a commitment of four, five or more years, which makes the relationship very different.
“They are here with us for extended periods of time. We call it the lifecycle of real estate - people buy investment properties, they have them managed and then they sell them - and that is a normal phase or a lifecycle of property investors,” Ms Hamilton-Flanagan explained.
Known for its innovation and savvy marketing, Toop&Toop's brand recognition extends nationally because of its strong reputation. In the same way a sales team would, the property management team’s leasing partners work to prospect, appraise and convert business.
They are aiming to grow beyond the 2,000 plus properties Toop&Toop currently services, at a rate of 40-50 new managements each month. Ms Hamilton-Flanagan’s former colleague Arabella Cooper is a sales agent, however her take on relationship building crosses real estate sectors.
MsCooper said she found it easier to build relationships as herself, rather than trying to put on a front or pressure clients to work with her. She tells people straight, and they appreciate her for it. "I’m really lucky I’m in an area where I can be me and I can be honest and transparent. I can be quite colloquial, if I like, and develop really good relationships," Ms Cooper said.
Instead of getting bogged down in other's problems and allowing herself to be swamped by their emotions, Ms Cooper shows she understands and gets on with her job. "I can’t take on people’s burdens. I’ve learnt to not do it, but I’ve learnt to still be empathetic and sympathetic and understand people, because otherwise I would hurt them," she said. "If you can nurture [the relationship] properly and can deal with the people and not take advantage of them, but just do what you have to do to get the result, you’ll get the business," Ms Cooper added.
And it’s important not to forget the tenant in the property management relationship.
While the client is the landlord, tenants form the final connection in the three-way relationship. Tenants are often successful business people or executives who may have their own property portfolio. They choose to rent, rather than have the situation forced on them.
“As property managers we had to suddenly stop and think: they aren’t the person who can’t afford to buy the home anymore.
They invariably are the person who can afford to buy the home; they choose not to,” Ms Hamilton-Flanagan said. “Look after your tenant and treat them like you would like to be treated because then they will do the right thing by you, by the owner and by the property,” she added.
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