Time to Turn Complaints into Compliments?

I’m sure many of us in property management have noticed that our landlords and tenants are becoming more educated and demanding than ever. The skills of a property manager now need to extend to far beyond a collector of rent or a coordinator or repairs with expectations of a property manager higher than ever. This is partly because our client’s are easily educated by the internet, are persuaded by stories in the media, and are able to communicate both positive and negative experiences far easier amongst their community through social media.

Thanks to this, those we perceive to be “difficult clients” are far more prevalent in our day to day dealings and situations with potential for conflict are arising more often. At Real Plus our most common request for training is on communication and conflict resolution. What we see is that even experienced property managers in general are not always equipped with the communication and conflict resolution skills needed to cope with these increased demands, expectations and knowledge.

The most successful agencies we work have ongoing training plans into place to grow and develop their teams and business to both educate themselves, but also find ways to educate their clients, therefore becoming the expert in their field. Ongoing training will also enable them to add an array of communication techniques and training into place to help their teams avoid conflict and turn potential complaints into compliments. Some tips for ensuring you are staying one step ahead include:

• Stay educated – Ensure you know what your clients know so that you can proactively tackle any potential issues
• Keep training – Undertake ongoing internal and external training so that skills are continually being developed to deal with ever increasing client needs/demands 
• Peek out of industry – some other industries such as retail and hospitality can bring some great communication, conflict resolution and customer service skills to the table
• Look to improve – don’t assume that because it’s been done a certain way for a long time that it’s the best way to do it
• Listen – the best advice anyone working in property management can take on board, often we don’t actually listen and this is the root of most potential issues

If you are Real+ member, click here to visit Real+TV where you can watch our webinar Communication Concepts: From Complaints to Compliments

Happy Easter from the Real+ Team

With most of you hard working property managers enjoying a hard earned extra few days off this Easter long weekend, we’ve decided to place your regular weekly property management blog on hold, and instead, we have a more personal approach for you this week.  

This week, we’d like to remind you about balance. It’s easy to get caught up in the chaos that is Easter, what with chocolate egg hunts, kids running around and preparing family feasts. Make sure you are making the most of the break by taking time out to relax, rest and revitalise.

Take advantage of having no appointments and splurge on a sleep in, enjoy a cuppa and breakfast in bed, go for a walk or bike ride through the park (to balance out the chocolate), and most importantly, slow down! Focus on being present in the moment and enjoying the time off with your family and friends close by, so that come Tuesday morning, you are energised and excited to be returning to work!

Enjoy your break and Happy Easter from the Real+ team.

Winning New Business in Property Management Through Practising Scripts & Dialogue

What are the most successful rising New Business stars in Australian property management doing to improve their results? How do they manage to sign so many new clients and deal with any objections with ease, even if they don’t have the strongest communication skills?

Well there is no other way about it, these people are undergoing regular, ongoing coaching or training, including practicing their “Scripts & Dialogue” and role plays.

Ongoing training and practicing prepares you for any conversational situation that may arise in property management or new business, and ensures that you are prepared and poised with whatever is thrown at you (which is getting tricker the more educated our clients become).

Continual practice allows you to fine tune your conversational and practical skills before taking it out on the road. It is vital to the success of not only new players in the new business world, but even the most experienced professionals, to be constantly re-training and continually developing their skills in this ever-changing property market.

If you’ve been to any of Fiona Blayney’s training sessions you’ll know she doesn’t believe in “scripts” but likes the concept of dialogue, that is, knowing what to say, but putting it into your own words or dialogue.

Often one person’s method of selling something will not feel natural to another. You need to find what works for you. Through undergoing training, coaching and role plays you are given the opportunity to develop your dialogue and turn the “scripts” into your own words in a way that not only conveys the service you are selling, but highlights your belief and passion in it.

If you are Real+ member, click here to visit Real+TV where you can watch our webinar New Business Bootcamp Breakout: Scripts & Dialogues

From the Eyes of a Prospective Tenant

I have recently been in the market for a rental property. Whilst conducting my own rental search, I have been taking note of my consumer experience as a prospective tenant in order to be able to deliver live customer feedback, information and training to our property management clients.

I’ve almost felt like a mystery shopper at times, secretly taking note of the quality of advertising & photos, accuracy of descriptions and photos, response times from agents, presentation of the agent and presentation of the property. Along the way I also reviewed the application process across several agencies and in particular - how I have been treated as a prospective tenant and ultimately how this affected my decision in choosing which properties to visit and ultimately lease!

There were definitely some property inspections and agent response times that left me feeling bad for the landlord that the agent’s actions had turned me off renting their property! And even further still that if I was a prospective landlord that I would not be choosing that agent to lease my property.

Don’t get me wrong, many of the agents were doing a great job, however my experience was very interesting and eye opening which has helped me identify some key areas that leasing agents need to work on at the leasing stage of their property management process. (Without meaning to toot our own horns, I was very pleased to see that one of the best experiences I had was with an agency who is a Real+ Member undergoing regular training across their property management team – the proof is in the pudding).

So, want to know more? Well next week I’ll be hosting a webinar on leasing – in which we’ll be talking about ways to get properties leased faster, reduce vacancy and ways to make your lives easier. I can tell you now that what I’ve learnt from being a prospective tenant will be going into this session so be sure not to miss this one if you want to know how to improve your leasing process!

If you are Real+ member, click here to visit Real+TV where you can watch our webinar Just Leased! Leasing made Faster, Smarter & Easier.

NSW Swimming Pool Laws Postponed

The NSW Office of Local Government has postponed laws that will require all swimming pool and spa owners to have a certificate of compliance, which are now due to come into effect on 29^th April 2015.

Council officers have reported that it can take up to three months to issue a compliance certificate from the initial inspection, leaving real estate representatives concerned that not all of their properties would have been compliant before the cut-off.

The delay in commencement of this legislation will allow for a smooth transition period, and means at this stage no further action is required from you as a property manager. Be sure to inform your home owners of this change, and over the course of the year start including pool compliance registration into your procedures to ensure you are prepared once this legislation has been implemented.

You can read more about this Pool Legislation in our blog post, here.

Leadership – When the Leader is Finding it Hard to Lead

As you may know, I work with many leaders around the country as a coach and mentor; I am very humbled to be able to provide assistance and guidance to some amazing people. I often learn from them during my sessions or receive reminders of the importance of various leadership activities and traits and at times my own short comings.

In today’s session, I was reminded of one of the biggest challenges that a great positive leader faces, is the challenge of actually leading in the right direction all the time. Being a leader can be relatively simple when things are going well, but what happens during difficult times, times when our teams are frustrated and negative? What happens when the leader shares the frustrations of their team? Today we discussed how to lead a team during this time.

Let me share a few of our findings;

• Be real with the team, let them know you too are frustrated, but convey this in a realistic emotionless manner
• Ensure the team understand you are choosing to see the glass half full, however difficult it may be
• Constantly refer back to the core values of the business, are we or how can we embrace these in the current circumstances
• Empower the team to identify what they can influence to improve, even slightly, the situation.
• Provide the team with the task of formulating solutions, several of them, and if appropriate and differing expenditure levels

In times of challenge, your team are watching your every action; they look to you for not only guidance but confirmation that “things will get better”. Your first step…. Believe it yourself!

- Fiona Blayney