The importance of the first impression

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it takes around 7 seconds to make a first impression. This first impression can determine how someone else will perceive you and make assumptions of your personality and if they can like, trust and respect you.

Have you thought about how you come across to someone else in those first 7 seconds and the type of first impression that you make?

In an industry where first impressions are the order of the day, it is important that you are aware of the impression that you give to others as it could be the deal maker or deal breaker when it comes to something as important as beginning a relationship with a client and gaining a new listing.

There are two ways in which your message is delivered and these are through either verbal or non-verbal cues. Research has also found that non-verbal cues are four times more likely to influence a first impression than verbal cues.

When we are using verbal cues, it is a great tool to train yourself in the mind to mouth filter, the one where you think about what you are going to say before you actually say it. This filter can save you more often than not in a social situation.

In honing your non-verbal think about a few keys factors:

·         Posture and attitude – standing straight and tall and making eye contact can signal confidence and form a connection, while hunching your shoulders and looking down at the ground constantly can signal lack of self confidence. Also consider your attitude and how that may come across in those first moments. Are you confrontational or do you stand back a little and fall back into yourself?

·         Smile! – never underestimate the power of a smile. Smiling can signal that you are friendly and approachable and also helps to boost endorphins which is why we can often feel great when we really smile or even laugh. So why not pass that on!

·         Shake hands – this is one of the fastest ways that you can gain rapport with someone. Although it’s an idea to practice those handshaking skills! There is nothing worse than having your little hand crushed in a vice like grip of death or being given the “limp fish shake”. Your hand shake will also reflect your personality so it’s worthwhile thinking about what type of shaker you are.

When you are analysing your first impression style, ask your friends or co-workers their impression of you to gain some feedback on where you may be able to improve and, you might even like to use them as guinea pigs when you are trialling and testing how you connect with others and perfect your first impression skills.

Heidi Walkinshaw

It was over a coffee...

It was over a coffee, croissant and some fruit this week that I chatted with our team during a team meeting about the little things that make up a culture. I found myself recounting to them my infatuation with the bathrooms of businesses for which we are conducting an analysis.

Now of course to the novice you’d think that was pretty weird, my being so intrigued by a bathroom, perhaps you’d go so far as to call me weird. Across my time with the team and this discussion, they humoured me as I recounted the story, or stories of what I find upon closer inspection of this part of an office.

Ok, now I don’t have the white glove out and am checking for cleanliness, what I am talking about is the general aesthetics of the bathroom, and what it tells me about the company as a whole, and how it feels about its people, and how the team feel about each other.

Spending time in a bathroom, well you could say that it’s a pretty personal time, you want to feel comfortable whether its 3, 5 or 10 minutes. Let’s leave the details there shall we.

The surprising thing is the life that becomes to bathroom in offices we visit. To paint a picture. A bathroom can become a storage facility, for mops, sign boards, pointer boards, we’ve even seen files, last year’s Christmas cards, and heaven forbid the bathroom wash basin doubles up as the water facility (and yes I mean a basin that’s in the same four walls as the toilet), I don’t think anyone wants to make a cup of tea whilst smelling harpic flush.

Of course we can delve further and discuss the amenities, such as, toilet paper, towels, soap, freshener, etc. and the often lack of all of the above.

Each and every time I come across a bathroom that is so unappealing I’d rather go to the local park (ok that’s overkill but you get what I mean), I think about the team and wonder how they interpret these facilities and what it means about the relationship between business and employee, and team mates. Let me tell you, it’s less than favourable.

In these same businesses, you can feel a wave of discord, complacency, it’s not unusual for the office appearance to be lacking, the people are less engaged, and everything just feels that little bit sloppy.

 I challenge you today to go take a look at your bathroom, see what message it’s delivering to your people. How would it really make them feel?  I’m not asking for you to win bathroom week on the block, but appreciate the impact the small things have on your business.

We took a look around our bathroom, and the rest of our office house, we revisited our family rules, our values. Fortunately there was not much to change.  At its core I was reminded how important it is to provide the service to your people, and them to each other, that we all want provided to our customers and clients.

Fiona Blayney 

Avoid the email ping pong game

Technology is a wonderful tool that has allowed us to become smarter about how we work and has the potential to save us time in our day. However, we still hear the comments of “I cannot believe that it is this month already” and wondering where the year has gone.

While technology is perhaps contributing to the faster pace of our lives, it is important to remember that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation and it can become all too easy to rely on the traps of modern technology and lead us to become a little less conversational with our clients and peers.

Have we become too reliant on technology? We see what often occurs in offices is that we can fall into the trap of email ping pong which can lead to conflict should a message be misconstrued by the recipient.  We are highly social species and should never underestimate the power of physical or emotional contact. So how can we encourage our teams to incorporate more effective communication into their roles?

While email is fantastic, our entire client base is not necessarily up to date with technology and would much prefer a phone call. It also can easier to bury our heads in the sand when it comes to emails and try and ignore the fact that it was there. Not to mention that it’s so very easy to become lazy and send back a one line answer to a question that may require further detail.

In many cases, one email can turn into a much longer trail as both the sender and receiver fight for supremacy to get the last word in. This can sometimes result in having to up the phone and make the call anyway resulting in potentially lost time.

It is a great tool to encourage teams to also talk to each other or raise issues in meetings rather than emailing the whole team for trivial matters. There are also some great in office chat apps like asana which can help to streamline office conversations.

Should you pick up the phone and make the call don’t forget to record comments from the conversation in your software. This one is a non-negotiable. If you like, as an extra this call can then be followed up with an email to confirm with the client what was discussed.

The next time you are about to hit send on that email question if it could be dealt with via a  Could a phone call to save both the time and potential angst.

Heidi Walkinshaw

How Tough is your Arrears Process?

Arrears is often an area that can raise those stress levels and as the rental market becomes tighter in finding tenants and those vacancies rise, you can sometimes find that as a Property Manager, you are reluctant to issue a termination notice to a tenant or you may even find the Owner objecting to evicting a Tenant albeit a bad one for fear the property may be vacant for a lengthy period of time.

While it is tempting to stick with the devil that you know, it is important to ensure that you maintain a strict arrears process to cover yourself should something go awry and maintain regular Owner contact throughout.

Let’s take a look at some tips to ensure your process is on track.

·      Prepare an arrears list. The frequency of how often and when you produce this list will depend on payment frequencies of your tenants, the type of payment system you have and how challenging your market may be in relation to late payers.

·      Adopt a zero tolerance policy.  You can guarantee that when it comes to late payments, while there are those that will be genuine; you will hear every excuse imaginable. These become extra colourful sometimes with your habitual late payers. Explain your arrears policy at the lease signing to begin on the right foot.

·      Don’t forget to communicate throughout the arrears process. Keep in contact with your Owners to advise them when the tenant falls into arrears to inform them and ensure that they don’t receive a nasty surprise on their monthly statement. It’s also great to give them a call when the rent has been paid up to date.

·      Calling or even sending an sms to a late payer is more likely to receive a response rather than a letter and even talk with your Tenants about payment plans where they are really struggling.

·      Always record notes, even phone conversations in your software which can then be printed out should you need to go down the tribunal path. Following up the conversation with an email can assist your records.

·      Check your state’s legislative requirements and issue notices on the dates required. If you have Owners who are determined not to allow you to issue those notices, then follow it up in an email, just to cover your office.

Having strict arrears processes in place will assist in saving you time and reducing your stress levels in the long run. 

Heidi Walkinshaw

Tired of being a broken record?

Many days we will feel like a broken record, repeating things that we need to explain to each tenant and landlord, with a growing frustration of saying the same thing over and over. 

Our favourite phrases such as explaining where the two weeks rent are from when the tenant moved in, responding to similar rental enquiries, explaining to an owner the difference between wear and tear… I’m sure you could help me make the list even longer.

Each time we repeat ourselves we often act surprised and shocked at the nerve of the idiotic person on the other end of the line, however if they knew how many times we had repeated that same line and not done anything about it? They may be thinking the same thing about us.

I’m sure we have all heard from time to time that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So what is the solution to this recurring broken record syndrome? My advice is to educate, template and automate.

EDUCATE

We do this job every day, the same process on multiple properties, we know how to move a tenant in and how to move one out. However, the tenant or landlord on the other end of our transaction does not deal with that same issue every day.

They cannot know exactly how the process will work, and even if they have been through it at one point previously, firstly they have not committed that process to memory and secondly they have not usually been through that process with your business.

Our job is to educate them so there is no confusion as to what has happened, and will happen next. When we book a flight online or order products online, we are educated at each step (throughout the purchase process), our actions confirmed (a confirmation email) and next steps outlined (perhaps in the same email or a follow up email afterwards). 

So it would make sense that our consumer needs the same level of education in their property transaction.

How can you better educate your clients along the way?

TEMPLATE

Having templates ready will go a long way to supporting this process. We do not want to be writing out an explanation at each step of the way. What templates do you already have in your business? How can they be enhanced? What other templates could you create that would help your cause?

What about “Commonly asked Questions at the Vacate?”, “Wear and Tear factsheet”, “Tips about viewing properties with us”.

Having these ready to go so that you can easily attach, or copy and paste specific paragraphs into your emails, will drastically help in the time it takes to explain these things.

What else can you think of that could use having a template document or paragraph in place?

AUTOMATE

Now how can we streamline and speed up this process even further? What systems do you have in place to automate and support you in responding to and dealing with your clients?

There are some great tools right under your nose such “quick parts” in your outlook – used to easily create, store, and find reusable paragraphs of content. There are auto responders and rules that you can apply to many mail clients to control where your emails go and how they are responded to. 

Even just using your ‘out of office’ to actually explain the answers to a few common queries when you are busy. And ensuring that there is an FAQ section on your website so that people can find the information they are looking for, or you can link them to this section when they have a question.

There are awesome tools outside of the business such as online booking systems for your rentals that respond to and manage all of your enquiry and other maintenance programs that automate the communication throughout that process. 

If you are really looking to take things to the next level you could even consider virtual assistants or trialing out the new Facebook Messenger for Business to create an autobot that can respond to all common enquiries.

The sky is the limit, its just about how you look at the problem of the broken record and putting the steps and process in place to minimise the occurrence, so we can find something else more important to worry about.

Hermione Gardiner

How do you handle your tenant enquiries?

Recently I have been at various events or speaking with colleagues, friends and family and one topic that often comes up, as it does when you mention that you are in real estate is this automatic urge for them to feel like they need to unload their frustrated real estate story baggage right into your lap. 

It still surprises me that given the technology and the training out there, that I still more frequently than I would like to, hear nightmare stories of potential tenants and even potential investors vent their frustrations about their hunt for a property or to find the right property manager. 

You are probably going to guess what the one main complaint is that they all come to me with before I even mention it. If you haven’t, let me enlighten you: “I have sent several email and phone enquiries and I cannot get anyone to return my call or email”.

Really? In this age of modern technology and all of the systems that are at our fingertips, is it still even possible that we still can’t quite get the simple art of returning an enquiry right?

Now I know I will get a myriad of excuses ranging from, “I just don’t have time”, to the even more amazing attitude of “urgh, they are just tenants”. But, let me ask you, if the shoe is on the other foot and it were you desperately looking for somewhere to move home to and no one even bothered the courtesy to return your enquiry, how would that make you feel, remembering that as a species humans are social creatures believe it or not.

Something even further to contemplate, do you know who that enquiry is from? Where it is coming from and how much potential business you have just turned away? Because let’s face it, today’s investor is very different from the one in days of old and the enquiry that you just snubbed could be an investor who has 3 other properties right down the road from your office.

With all of this in mind, have a think about your enquiry strategy. Do you have a strategy and system in place to deal with your tenant enquiries?  With vacancy rates varying all over the country, we hear stories of properties leasing in the space of a week to those that are still struggling to find tenants six months later after a multitude of advertising changes and rent reductions.

It is good practice to have a system in place to ensure you are getting back to potential tenants. Where possible, arrange your property opens and inspections at the beginning of the week. 

This way, anyone that sends through an enquiry can be informed of a time once they enquire. If your department has a leasing consultant, the task of tackling enquiries should be their priority, even if it means sending through an email to say we have your enquiry and will let you know as soon as an inspection time is available.

 In smaller offices, this may be a task for the receptionist and in this instance, provide times and a script so that the receptionist knows what is expected and keep it simple so that she can give the information and move on to the next call on a busy switch.

Don’t forget that there is also software out there to assist and help to take the headaches out of this process, however like all software if you implement, you must use it to get the full benefit!

One of the best agencies I have dealt with added me to their mailing list and while I didn’t end up renting through them, over twelve months later I still receive updates and properties that may interest me. Now while I am not interested in moving, they are now cemented into my mind as an agency who manages enquiries well.

There is an old saying about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes which I am sure you are familiar with. Have a think about your enquiry process, and put yourself in the shoes of potential clients that enquire through your office. 

Do you respond or do you let them fall away into the ether because they are too much “work”. Even try secret shopping your office. When you take a look, you might be surprised at what you find. 

Heidi Walkinshaw
Consultant at Real+

heidi@realplus.com.au
0411 747 520

The Bot and The Human...

It’s been a great week! So much has been jammed packed into the week, I cannot quite believe it has only consisted of 5 days, and well really as I write this – I’m only just embarking on the 5th.

You’d be forgiven for assuming I’ve got a lot done and I am feeling so pumped as a result of my achievements, in fact it’s not what I have got done that has created the ‘jam packedness’ it’s the learning.

Across the week I’ve discovered “the bot” which led me to think a little more deeply about “the human” in this crazy world of a service based business, there is a light when it comes to the disruption tunnel. It’s time to start thinking.

“The Bot”

I knew that robots existed, but my oh my do they exist. These things are getting so advanced they are now able to teach themselves by watching us! According to Neale Cotton (speaker at the recent REB Technology conference) production of robots is now at a point where for some industries, the cost of a Robot less than that of a human wage is for a year.  

Neale showcased a variety of examples on how robots are already here. Think about it, self-drive cars? They are a robot taking you to a destination. Robot technology is so advanced they are even entering the space of creativity, the one area we believe to be a human traits. Robots are being programme to paint, and even write poetry.

Take a test and see if you can tell the difference between a poem written by a robot and a human at botpoet.com

Whilst I have no doubt we are not quite ready to create the R2D2 Property Manager or Real Estate Agent, there are elements that are close by. Consider for a moment a self-drive car,  it arrives at the workplace of a prospective purchaser, drives them to an available property, the front door opens on arrival via a geo tracker in their phone, when finished, the door auto locks behind them and the car drops them back to work. Now that’s not such a crazy idea!

"The Human"

Over the next few months you’re going to hear a lot about what it is “to serve”, what it is “to connect” from me, and how important it is to get better and both.  The bold reality is that with the advancement of technology, and believe me it will continue to advance, forget “combating” the tech disruption. There will be a point, in a week, a year, a decade, (you don’t know as tech comes from Silicon Valley or two kids in the garage of the house next door) where a property owner and a tenant / purchaser will come together to transact online. It will be a serious player in our market and will be here to stay. The first company to do it may not get it right, but someone will.

The good news is, when it happens, there will still be a place for the human, and the buying decision between tech and people will come down to connection and service.  Of course the market will contract in some way, the decision that you make now is do you want to be the contracted.

So what will keep a client with you, with an agent when technology is available? Well perhaps it’s the same thing that keeps someone going to the supermarket when you can order online, or visiting the Doctor for a routine prescription even though you can logon and download one yourself, its relationship, and its connection.

Your emotional investment into your client and their life will be of paramount importance in the decision making process to stay local v go tech for the consumer. For you this means developing a strong client relationship, gaining a true connection, providing another layer of service. It’s about really, I mean really caring about the consumer.

Right now, it’s time to start thinking. Thinking about the relationships you have with your clients, I mean the real relationships. The relationship that will be more important than technology, the one that provides a different true human connection and care, the value that could not be replaced by a “bot”.

Fiona Blayney
Managing Director Real+

email: fiona@realplus.com.au