Hot Potato Hot Potato

Are you passing the baton or throwing a hot potato?

Remember the game “hot potato” when we were kids?  That game which involved a circle of people tossing a small beanbag or tennis ball to each other while music played?  The player who is holding the “hot potato when the music stops, is out!”

Many tasks, issues, queries and complaints fly across our desks every day that need to be addressed. Often we may not be the correct person to address or solve these tasks and issues, and I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of throwing a hot potato onto that person. And when that music stops, they are left holding the hot potato.  Perhaps we’ve been the person left holding the hot potato - the unresolved issue or angry client.

It’s time to stop throwing a hot potato to your team mates and start to look at how you can turn property management into a super efficient baton pass.  Remember the relay team that train for hours to ensure the timing, speed, release and capture all run seamlessly for a perfect handover? 

We need to bring the baton pass into property management, helping our team mates, managers and even clients by taking responsibility to ensure that all of the information and intelligence is handed over to the correct person, quickly, efficiently and seamlessly. 

By taking responsibility and spending a few extra moments to capture and relay more information (ensuring we’ve done all we can from our end), we can actually save time for ourselves and the other person.  This way they won’t have to come back to you asking the questions, or spend time picking up the pieces later, in turn saving ourselves some stress along the way.  Not to mention saving potentially the client having to re-explain themselves over and over again. 

I challenge you to ask yourselves this week as tasks and issues are handed over and allocated across your team and even to your clients, are you throwing a hot potato or passing a baton! 

If you missed last weeks 'To Do List', simply click here for a copy!

Hermione Gardiner

Would you want to receive YOUR newsletter?

Our clients and members often ask us for assistance with developing their monthly e-newsletter or e-marketing for property management. We can easily help them with content and ideas, we even have an e-book full of great investor tips they can use. However it is the execution and delivery of a regular, ongoing successful newsletter (that actually grabs people’s attention, has a purpose and keeps them reading each month) that is the challenge.

The concept of the newsletter has become somewhat washed out in our digital age (much like the plethora of junk mail and pamphlets that go straight from the letterbox into my bin each week). I can’t even tell you how many “newsletters”, “updates”, “blogs” and “specials”, come in each morning. Today I had over 30 new emails of this nature.  What happened to most of them? Terminal deletion - never to be seen again.

When we see similar subject lines and the same content over and over again we are naturally bored, closed off and less likely to open the email at all. I’m sure you don’t want this for your e-newsletter and e-marketing so it is important before pressing send each month to put yourself in your readers shoes and consider:

• Would you want to receive this newsletter?
• Would you open it?
• Would you read it?
• What benefit would you get out of it?
• Does it educate, inform and excite?
• Would you pass it on or share it with friends and family?
• Would it direct you to do more business with you?
• Would it strengthen your relationship?
• Does it direct traffic to your website?

Building and developing a regular ongoing successful e-newsletter doesn’t have to be a cumbersome process. But in this day and age you do have to be doing it well in order to stay at the front of your clients mind, easily communicate with them on a bulk scale and to be seen as the experts. It doesn’t have to be rocket science however so take a look at our e-Newsletter Procedure – usually only available to our members – which breaks creating a successful e-newsletter down into 10 steps. 

Communication for the Google Generation

It’s no surprise miscommunication is common in this day and age where more of our conversations take place over email, text or facebook message. A simple exclamation mark can indicate the writer of the message is either excited or surprised or angry. Whatever the intended tone was, the interpretation or meaning can be left open to the mood, mindset and setting of the reader and it’s no wonder the intended tonality can easily lost.

Even I myself have re-read my own texts or emails to ponder if it would have been interpreted the wrong way. I’ve certainly seen the perils of digital communication in both personal and professional situations where the meaning of what was trying to be said did not quite come across the way it was intended, or god forbid the message sent to or copied onto the wrong person – cue damage control.

Being the self-confessed systems nerd that I am, I have a few personal systems in place to help reduce the potential risk of miscommunication or conflict (which sometimes may take me a minute longer in the moment) but saves future Hermione some grief after pressing that send button.

• Remember the old school telephone – Quite often in our professional world we feel conversations need to take place in writing to be official. However it’s amazing how much more can be resolved and covered in a shorter period of time, with far less chance of miscommunication if you just pick up the phone and call the person!  Follow up the key points of the conversation in an email or the notes of your CRM software.
• Don’t play tennis – If you send an email, receive one back, and cannot close the conversation with the return email back to them then it’s time to pick up the phone. If you’re finding yourself in contact email tennis conversations you’re wasting time and maximising your chances of miscommunication
• Include contingency plans – when sending an email or a text offering a solution to a problem, or updating a client, or confirming information, be sure to take a moment longer to include the next steps or contingency plan. This will save you receiving an email back asking “so what happens next?”
• Take 1 minute more – take one minute more to re-read your communication from the other person’s perspective to see how they will interpret it – and if you would have additional questions as a result of reading it. If there are more questions raised you should endeavour to include them in your communication to avoid the backwards and forwards, help them understand first go.
• Don’t be sloppy – Abrupt emails with half finished sentences, bad grammar and spelling, abbreviations, all indicate one thing to the person on the other end, that you are far too busy to be bothered with writing back properly. Whilst this might be acceptable for your best friend who knows you and what you mean, in a professional setting this could result in you instantly losing your credibility and ultimately lead to misunderstandings and costly errors.
• Be specific – Saying you’ll come back to someone “soon” is no longer good enough. You need to give specific time responses or expectations from your communication. What you will be doing and when you will do it by.  Remember the definition of “soon” may vary greatly from person to person.

We can’t avoid digital communication completely in this google age, (and I’m here to tell you it’s probably only going to get more digital as time goes by) so these little personal systems will help you to ensure you avoid as much miscommunication as you can. Happy communicating!

Why do relationships fall apart at the vacate?

One area where relationships fall apart time and time again is at the end of the tenancy. Across all of the agencies we work with, this is one area of property management that whilst a company might have a great internal system, the system fails when it’s not communicated to the tenant or landlord thoroughly.

As a result, much time is spend to-ing and fro-ing between the landlord and tenant arranging the vacate inspection, finalising payments, reporting on the inspection and finalising the bond.  A lot of client frustration and misunderstanding, and hence conflict comes from a lack of communication of the process. Often we know that things are under control, or what the next steps are but we are not communicating this to our tenants and landlords.

Clients are more likely to get frustrated with us when they feel like they don’t know what is going on or when delivery expectations haven’t been set. We know from our end that things are being taken care of and a system is being followed.  However, from the outside looking in, the clients don’t know what we do every day that makes up the process and may feel that areas that have not been communicated to them are areas that are not in control.

To lift your success and avoid stress in the vacate process:

• Automate – automate how your vacate process is communicated. Instead of just sending a letter confirmation, give the tenant a step by step guide of how the vacate process will run.
• Systemise – firm up your internal procedures for the vacate, when was the last time they had a review and you looked at how you can streamline the process?
• Over-communicate – Quick messages to the landlord and the tenant to tell them where things are up to, even if you know they are under control, will stop them chasing you for an update on things, saving you time and stress.

We’ll have many more tips on vacating and communication during our next educational webinar on Creating the Ideal Vacate – click here to register. 

If you are Real+ member, click here to visit Real TV where you can watch the webinar, 'Creating the Ideal Vacate'

Hearing Vs Listening... You can hear but are you really listening?

As I close my eyes I can recall very clearly my father’s voice as he said to me (on many occasions) growing up, Fiona Ellen Blayney “you’re not listening to me.” I’d protest that I was, even to the point of repeating verbatim his dialogue only to receive the response, “Fiona you are hearing me, I want you to listen”.

Flash forward to 2014 and these words carry far greater meaning in my life, the difference between hearing and listening be that to a client, colleague, friend or family member carry an intense difference which can really define the result of the conversation. In my business world this will certainly impact the advice that I give and the decisions that my clients make.

Over to you for this to be considered. Are you listening to clients? I mean really listening? Or do you hear what they say, pay lip service and carry on brandishing every landlord or tenant with the same brush, the same approach and the same thoughts simply because it is a “similar situation”.

The similarities between events, people and properties should not ensue that you provide same advice, or take the same actions, thinking everyone wants the same outcomes. How do you really define the difference? It’s through listening. A few tips to get you to listen rather than hear…..

1. Close your mouth, and open not just your ears but your mind. Clear the thoughts of previous conversations and situations
2. Stop thinking about how you are going to respond and instead take time to ask questions and dig deeper
3. Get to know the “talker”, when you can understand things from the other perspective you will have a far greater ability to listen
4. Focus! Remove the distractions that prevent you from giving your total attention in the discussion. Turn off emails, social media, and ignore the phone or others attempting to take up your thoughts.
5. Be Real, Be Present. Whilst another person’s perspective may be completely different to yours, you may think them irrational, or unreasonable – remember you are not them! You have not walked a day in their shoes, to them whatever is happening at that moment is significant enough to require this piece of communication, honour it and respect them

These are just five elements of what is the maze that is communication; I truly believe that one of life’s best skills is the art of effective communication. One of my favourite business writers is John C Maxwell, I’d love to give you a copy of the abridged version of his book Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Click here and we’ll send it off to you!

If you are Real+ member, click here to visit Real TV where you can watch the webinar, 'Communication Concepts: Hearing vs Listening'

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