I had the privilege, and good fortune, to talk at a recent conference on Hamilton Island. It was a tough gig being up there, but someone had to do it!
Not only were the surroundings amazing, but the content of the program was inspirational. There were strong leaders in our industry being open with their approaches to business and their philosophy on life.
People like Barry Plant, Sadhana Smiles, Di Jones, John Percudani and even John Eales shared their vision and philosophy with a crowd of business leaders.
Here are some of the inspiring insights I gleaned:
Build, measure, learn
We live in a complex world where what we did yesterday is not necessarily going to work tomorrow. So make sure what you do (or ‘build’) you also measure. You cannot learn and improve unless you measure the results of what you do. For example, if you do a mail drop, how do you measure the outcome and how do you learn to make it more effective? Always measure so you can learn and improve.
Disruption is coming, long live disruption
Is real estate going to get disrupted? Yes! Will it affect you? Yes! But if you focus on relationships and service, then it will affect you in a positive way – you will be the one disrupting others! That is because disruption is going to make it easier for people to refer you, to reference you from their friends, and to evaluate and research you. So if you do what you say, and say what you do, and remain honest while never compromising on service, you should get more and more ‘natural’ clients who come to you through referrals from their network.
What you have, others want
You are normally the first professional who sees the buyer or the seller when they start their journey of buying or selling a home. Multi-billion dollar industries in property, finance, insurance, utilities, and home services all rely on a relationship with that buyer and that seller. Yet you are the first to have any relationship with them. Look at how you can make that journey easier for each buyer or seller, keep them as valuable clients, and be the one to link them to trusted partners in finance, insurance and utilities.
Sometimes old can be cool
Sadhana talked us through some of the cool radio ads she has done in Victoria, and how these ads worked to change the perception of agents and the Harcourts brand in particular.
What impressed me most was the level of integrity, honesty and service focus in our business leaders. Agents provide an essential service in the biggest transactions in our customers lives; it is good to see our industry is in such good hands.