Your client doesn't care about you

Your client doesn’t care about you...

Hermione Gardiner

It might sound harsh, but we all know it's kinda true. Despite any relationship and rapport built when it's time to talk business, your client's only care is about what you can do for them. 

Why, then, do we make so many of our prospecting and new business conversations about ourselves??

Whenever I ask the question to my clients, “Why should someone chose you to manage their property”, all of the answers start with “we”.....

Typical responses include: 

• We are experience

• We are professional 

• We’ve been in business for 25 years

• We are local to you

• We have great marketing

• We have great communication 

• We have won multiple industry awards

These comments don't differentiate you from your competition. Everyone gives the same answers about how great they are and I can guarantee nobody is going in to bat with a potential client saying “We are unprofessional, unexperienced, won’t call you back and don’t know much about property management...”. Save the accolades for your press releases and websites. 

Stop talking about yourselves! New Business conversations shouldn’t be about you. They should be about asking the right questions and defining the solutions for your clients. That’s right, start talking about them!

Instead of telling your prospective clients that you’re an expert, be one! You know all about your market, and your products and services. You know best practices—what works and what doesn’t. Help them connect the dots between what you offer and the results they expect to attain. Be specific, targeted, and concise. Offer firm data results and share examples of results that other, similar clients have received.

Apply all that expertise to their unique challenges, and you’ll have not just won the business, but won a client for life.

Hermione Gardiner - Real Plus

Building a Budget for a Profitable Department Part 3

Building a Budget for a Profitable Department Part 3
By FIONA BLAYNEY

In Part 1 we started to look at how to build a profitable department, we took a look at our current position and planning. In Part 2 we took a look at Execution and Accountability.  Now we delve into the people component of setting a budget for a profitable department.

People

Achieving your business goals is as much about you as it is the people in your business.

You could not manage your business on your own, so why try to manage the most important aspect of it alone. In a team business, it is the team that together can build a profitable business.

I call this profit through empowerment. Empower your team to create a profitable business. Many business owners are sceptical about sharing the financials with the team. I hear comments like “oh if they know how much I make they will want more money”, they don’t need to know that, it’s not relevant to them”.

Guess what, this could not be further from the truth. Your team understand that you are in business to make money. Yes they in turn want to make money, but for many of them money is not their key driver and if it is, well my philosophy is the more the more. Additionally who wants to work for an under performing business? I have had some fantastic success on working with this principal alone.

Share the current business position and goals, as well as the individual’s goals. Use this in creating the plan, the plan to meet all goals.

Try this equation

GOAL - CURRENT POSITION = GAP

GAP X PEOPLE = PROFIT

Next blog we will wrap up this series on creating a budget for a profitable department with looking into how we can employ empowerment.... 

 

Want to know an undervalued component to saving time?

There are a tonne of hot quick time management tips I could write about here. Believe you me, I have found many a faster and easier ways to do things in order to remove as much stress as possible from our crazy property management worlds.

However in this instance, I want to focus on the importance of having a good relationship with your clients, and how taking a bit of extra time to build and work on those relationships can actually save us time in the future.

In particular the strength of our relationship with that client may a direct effect on the amount of time spent on dealing with difficult situations. We continually see that generally this 20% of difficult situations take up 80% of our time.

However the way I see it, the better relationships we have the more easily we are able to prevent issues, resolve disputes, settle negotiations, predict behaviours and effectively manage the people we are dealing with. This means, that the percentage of time spent on dealing with these situations, will minimise.

Of course we will still have what I like to call the soul ‘zappers’, where there is no winning, and we may need to make a decision as to whether we want to be in a relationship with that client.

I find we spend so much time at the beginning chasing and wooing our prospective landlords, building a relationship to win them over, however I cannot help feeling like often the landlord is left feeling like they are not getting what was promised to them in the courtship stage.

Because of this - resentment can build and it becomes much easier to fall into a dispute or argument, or we find landlord has a lack of trust in what we do making it harder for us to get the smallest of tasks complete without tedious backwards and forwards strain.

How can we spend a bit more time on building relationships throughout the tenancy not just at the start? How are we ensuring we are delivering what was promised? How do we need adapt our own personalities and behaviours to meet the needs of our clients when necessary to meet their needs? 

I would recommend to start with picking up the phone and having a conversation with your client on a regular basis, continuing to find out more about them and how to best deal with them. Next time you’re thinking of sending an email, pick up the phone and open a conversation, not just starting an email chain (which has its’ own time saving component in itself).

Food for thought...

- Hermione Gardiner

Don't Forget Your Swimming Pools!

With the news this week reporting that in NSW the changes to swimming pool legislation and enforcement has been pushed back yet another 12 months, the temptation may be to think it’s ok to put off the compliance measures.

This extended time frame allows for more time to get those inspectors in and ensure you are ahead of the curve and ready to go once that deadline eventually comes into force.

It has also allowed for extra breathing room as I have heard of some Property Managers struggling to get the measures in place due to a shortage of inspectors.

In NSW, the legislation includes changes such as;

• The requirement for an Owner to register their swimming pool with local council

• The requirement for local councils to inspect pools 

• The requirement for all tourist, visitor and multi-occupancy developments to have a valid compliance certificate for their swimming pool 

• The requirement for a compliance certificate to be attached to a lease or sale contract for a property that has a swimming pool 

• Not just in NSW, but all states, if you are taking on any properties with pools or in any current management’s it is also important when you are inspecting the property to ensure that the pool has the following safety measure in place;

• Child-resistant safety fencing and gates separating the pool from any residential building or adjoining premises, 

• Warning and CPR signs are displayed near the pool. 

• When carrying out inspections, make sure that all gates and doors are closed at all times.

As we steam roll towards the winter month’s it can become something we don’t put as much emphasis on as we are zooming around with so many other tasks that we need to keep compliant but a task that is incredibly important and could have the potential to save a life.

- Heidi Walkinshaw -