Mete Karan, principal at Ray White Glenroy, is ambitious and passionate about real estate, but until recently, he was losing six out of seven listing presentations. Everything changed when he stumbled across and undertook an emotional intelligence program.
Today, Mr Karan’s business is thriving in a number of areas, including in sales revenue, which is up by a remarkable 250 per cent. His team has grown from eight to 19 people, their local market share is up from less than 1 per cent to 9.4 per cent and the rental department has risen from 349 to 584 tenanted properties.
But 18 months ago, with a strike rate of just 14 per cent, Mr Karan knew he had a problem.
“Most real estate principals come from a sales background rather than a business background. They typically were successful at sales, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to being able to run a business.
“We were salespeople working out of our business. We hit a ceiling and could no longer get beyond our sales revenue by working in the business.”
Mr Karan said that he wanted to get better, to fix the problem. A friend referred him to EQ business coach Daniel Tolson.
Slightly skeptical, he made an appointment.
“Our initial conversation with Daniel won us over as he was able to add value from the get-go,” Mr Karan said.
“The issues were around the new mindset and forgetting old behaviours. This required a lot of training, effort and discipline. We virtually had to forget a lot of what we knew and start over.
“Daniel was able to offer solutions to what was important to our business: leadership, productivity, EQ. These are areas we had a keen interest in and all of his solutions were measurable.”
Fulfilment
Mr Karan said the list of benefits in doing the program is long.
“Increased sales revenue, high levels of productivity and higher levels of retention. On a personal level, better emotional control, more happiness.
“We have seen increases in our recruiting, higher productivity levels of each staff member, more consistent mood, a culture built around high performance and good people enjoying coming to work.”
Mr Tolson said that when he first met Mr Karan, he knew there was lots of work to do.
“Mete scored very poorly on his initial EQ assessment,” he remembered.
“It was 62 in comparison to the population average of 75. His self-awareness was also one of the lowest I had seen; 44, with a population average of 74.”
Mr Tolson said that Mr Karan’s heavy reliance on feedback from others was holding him back.
“His lack of emotional awareness was also leading to conflict with others. I could see this in his leadership style and also the way he was interacting with his clients.
“He was working 12 hours per day, but only eight hours were unaccounted for and only four were productive.”
But he said that Mr Karan’s attitude stood out, and that was the cornerstone of his turnaround success.
“He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to be the best. He was not going to let this score prevent him from his future intentions.”
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