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The importance of selling and communicating a message to market can’t be underestimated in the residential project world, according to one projects-based agent.
Speaking to host Phil Tarrant on a recent episode of Secrets of the Top 100 Agents, the director and head of sales at Laver Residential Projects, James Lampropoulos, has highlighted that many project marketers simply “don’t understand the importance of selling”.
“When you think about it, you can have the best brochures, the best CGIs, the best showroom, but if you don’t have the best salespeople on the ground actually communicating that message to the market, it’s just not effective.”
From his perspective, despite being a director at Laver, he thinks it’s critical for him “to be an agent first and foremost”.
“You understand the market a lot better,” he said.
“You’ve got a touch and feel on the market. Markets are always changing.”
The head of sales noted that sometimes, when he goes through competitor projects and talk to their agents, some of them are quite inexperienced despite there being some “really good operators in the marketplace”.
“But you don’t often find them in the showroom selling,” he conceded.
When quizzed by Phil on what it does then take to be an “exceptional” agent, Mr Lampropoulos highlighted transparency as “a really big thing”.
“I’m really big on being transparent throughout the whole process — understanding your project,” he offered.
“And just genuinely liking being able to communicate with people — and it’s got to be a genuine thing. It’s not something that you can put on, you know?
“The way I see it, whether you’re a first home buyer with a budget of $500[k] or a high-net-worth individual looking at a $5 [million] or $10 million project, they deserve the same amount of time and respect, because for them, it’s the single biggest investment they’ll probably make at that point in their life.”
So, what then constitutes success for Mr Lampropoulos?
It’s not the number of sales he makes in a week.
“For me, success from a project marketing point of view is ensuring the management of [a client’s] project,” he commented.
“If I launched the project and sold 50 apartments in the opening weekend, but I sold 50 apartments on one side of a building, that’s not success for me.”
He countered that as being “really ad hoc and selling as many as you can as quickly as you can”.
“Success for me would be launching a project, taking half the number of sales, but spreading them evenly throughout the project,” he said.
“That’s when I know I’ve delivered a good result for my vendor.”
Especially on a larger-scale development, the director said “the market dictates to you the demand”.
“If you’ve got 200 units in a block, you have an idea what will sell better than other units, but really, the market will dictate to you what they prefer.”
He said it’s about being able to “see that and understand that, communicating that to your vendor and coming up with a solution to make sure that you price it well and the sales are spread evenly”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
