Daily habits to become a world-class agent

Small changes to your everyday routine can have a butterfly effect on the speed and quality of your service.

Speaking at this year’s Australasian Real Estate Conference (AREC), Place Bulimba partner Meagan Muir revealed how little alterations to her daily life have had a cumulative impact on her client service.

“First impressions count,” said Muir. “You can spend three to four hours doing all the prospecting in the world, but you’re actually waiting for the buyer that’s calling you.”

In her experience, one of the most challenging aspects of running a successful real estate business is holding yourself accountable to your goals.

“No one’s chasing you, saying, ‘Hey, did you take those phone calls?’ No one’s going to follow you up,” said Muir.

“I set some pretty high KPIs, and I’m absolutely relentless in making myself accountable to them.”

Here are six everyday changes that Muir implemented which have had a transformative impact on her level of service:

1. Ask the right questions

Many sales agents focus on explaining information to buyers and vendors, but Muir noted that asking questions is just as important.

“Asking the right questions is actually really helpful,” she said. “What you don’t know is what they know – and who they know.”

When it comes to buyers, the right questions are essential in separating the wheat from the chaff.

One question Muir always asks before setting up a viewing is: “Mr and Mrs Buyer, if this home is suitable will you be looking to make an offer?”

“Say they want to get through Thursday three o’clock […] we get the owners to spend all day cleaning, the buyer comes through, and they go, ‘I’m not looking to buy for six months.’”

As well as sifting out unserious buyers, questions can also identify sources of new business.

“When a buyer comes in, make sure you’re asking the question: ‘Can I just ask, if you do purchase a property at 12 Joshua Street, what are you going to do with your current property? Are you going to sell that?”

If a buyer needs to sell their property in order to buy, Muir concluded that “to me, that’s asking for an appraisal”.

2. Keep everyone informed

In her business, Muir uses information-sharing technologies to keep everybody on the team in the know about all properties for sale.

Before the first open home, Muir makes every vendor fill out a 45-question survey about their property. This information is then uploaded to the agency’s CRM, so that every agent who shows up at the open home can access key information about the property’s invisible value at the click of a button.

“All the key information also gets put onto our website,” said Muir. “It’s something that really sets us apart.”

3. Know the calendar

Getting top dollar on a listing is as much about timing as it is about the property itself.

“Often we’ll have a house, it doesn’t have a pool, so you go, ‘Maybe that’s a good one to sell in winter,’ because then people aren’t walking down and going, gosh we’re hot, we’re going to have to put a pool in – they’re looking at the property itself.”

As well as considering the best time of year to sell a property, Muir advised organising open homes around major calendar dates.

“Our marketplace is really a family marketplace, so school holidays isn’t the ideal time to have open homes,” she said.

“If there are public holidays, if there are any obstructions in the market, really try to optimise the time so you can get the best price.”

4. Set up 30 minutes early

To host an open for inspection that creates an impact, you don’t need fluff and feathers – just a little bit of extra preparation.

“My team will arrive 30 minutes early, make sure the lights are on, the doors are open, toilet seats are down, the place looks great,” Muir said.

“I think a lot of people underestimate how important that is, because people judge you on that.”

Creating a good impression is important because every neighbour that walks through the door could be a future buyer or vendor.

“If someone in your marketplace is walking in from around the corner, they are potential clients,” said Muir.

5. Use tech to save time

“Speed in service is so important in our business,” Muir said. “Everyone wants everything yesterday.”

With the plethora of technology available to agents in today’s era, there are ample opportunities to save time on routine tasks in order to dedicate more time to client service.

“Save all your current owners on your favourites list [on your contacts],” advised Muir. “You can have maximum 50, so if you’re on the go you can call them.”

She also uses text replacement and voice-to-text to send messages in record time.

“I can speak faster than I can type, so you get on your phone, hit the microphone, and you can actually talk and get the information out,” said Muir.

6. Seek regular feedback

Despite all the fine-tuning that Muir has done to her business processes, she knows there is always room for ongoing improvement.

Instead of waiting until after a sale to hear the client’s review, Muir checks in regularly with current vendors.

“I ask them on a weekly basis, ‘Are we doing everything we can to look after you as our client? Is there anything more we can do, any feedback you can give to myself and my team?’”

Running a high-volume business is not an excuse to not “find out any little things you can do to improve your service”, Muir concluded.