Last year’s recipient of BDM of the Year at the Real Estate Business Awards has started her own business focusing on premium client service.
Elizabeth Hood started Elite Real Estate in Rockhampton, Queensland in January because she felt there was an opportunity to fill a gap in the market by providing personalised care for landlords and tenants.
“I’m very passionate about providing a quality product, which is where my point of difference is,” she told RPM.
“The reason I didn’t buy a rent roll is because I wanted to grow the business right – I want to start from the ground and build the relationships.”
According to Ms Hood, the key to success is creating longevity in business by building rapport and trust with clients as well as local business professionals.
“I’m having coffee with local experts pretty much every day of the week and continuing those relationships with builders, insurance assessors, brokers and banks,” she said.
As a result of these working relationships, Ms Hood said she’s able to arrange events such as seminars and home shows with banks.
“I want to create a working relationship with some of these business professionals so we can create a team approach and I provide value-added service to my clients, because there are things that they need that I can’t provide myself.”
In starting her own business, Ms Hood said marketing is paramount, but doesn’t necessarily have to be a costly investment.
“Social media has just worked magic – over Christmas I did a pre-launch on Facebook and that already got people talking, plus LinkedIn has been good and I had my car completely decaled with branding,” she said.
“The local paper did an editorial about me. I rang them because I wanted to be pro-active and knew I couldn’t just sit at home and wait for them to call me and I actually got some inquiries off that story.”
According to Ms Hood, she signed four managements in her first week and is on track to have ten managements within her first month of operation.
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