Real Talk

Written by Acme Mag

ACME: How has the team changed during this time?

SR: We’re working remotely but my team hasn’t changed a whole lot. We’re still meeting twice a week in our normal fashion, we’re on the phone to each other pretty much every day and we have a little WhatsApp group that we utilise for communication of our deals – so we’re still very, very active on those things.

Our tasks have changed in that we have switched our focus from filling the pipeline with listings to really getting crystal clear on who the best buyers in the market are. The greatest change hasn’t been the way we work, more so the focus of our work.

As a team we’ve realised remote selling is actually quite rewarding and liberating – there’s a lot of deals being done in pyjamas at the moment!

ACME: Have you had any challenges working from home?

SR: Since we’ve had to start home-schooling the kids, that’s been a bit of a challenge just from a family perspective. Wearing the
hat of a teacher, a real estate agent, a business owner as well as a parent is a challenge.

From a business perspective, not really. As a team, we really appreciate the moments we all catch up at the office now and if
we cross paths while working on deals we really appreciate that.

Broadly speaking, a challenge has been the routine of being able to bounce out of bed and get into exercise and then planning the day. You tend to take those sorts of things slower and when your day is at home that’s come off the ball a little bit. To remedy, we push ourselves to stick to a routine and when we have, we’ve been successful.

ACME: We’re glad to hear you’re perfecting wearing the multiple hats of a teacher, business owner and agent – we’re guessing you have a newfound respect for teachers?

SR: Yeah, it’s not something we want to be doing forever, that’s for sure! (laughs) I’ve got three kids and I don’t know what it would be like managing 25 kids in a class, because three is PLENTY!

ACME: Moving on, do you think there are positives in the changes that have had to occur due to COVID-19?

SR: Yeah, the positives have been the clarity and the decisiveness of the buyers and the sellers in that when we are bringing properties to market, we’re really finding that the people who are selling are really clear on their intention. Typically you would get vendors in any good market saying “here is my price and if we don’t get it we don’t really need to sell” and I reckon every single agent would hear that 40 times a week. At the moment that sort of thing isn’t happening and I’m enjoying that sense of clarity, direction and being able to guide vendors to a sale without having to debate them on price – so, the strategy becomes more about how do we get it done rather than how do we knock it out of the ballpark? We’ve been able to narrow in on our days on the market because of that vendor clarity and because we’re qualifying buyers really well and starting conversations early about what it’s going to take to buy a house.

ACME: How did Real Talk come about?

SR: Initially, a colleague and I had an idea about putting on a training/coaching seminar or conference-y kind of thing with a point of difference, that point of difference being that it was being run by agents who are active and practising real estate with the aim of helping people unlock their real estate challenges through our real-time experiences.

I really enjoy the coaching and training aspect of our industry and I’ve been an avid learner – you could probably say slightly obsessed with training and learning. When we saw an opportune time to get Real Talk up and running, we were full steam ahead, however, we ended up having to shelve the concept because our market got really busy, the market took off and we just didn’t have the time to wear both of those hats.

But, when this kind of COVID-Era kicked in and disrupted our marketplace, I could see that our guys, particularly in our office, were in search of some guidance and leadership about how to manage this time. I thought that this kind of information and guidance would be broadly appreciated if it was shared.

So, we decided to flip Real Talk from a seminar situation to an interview situation and Livestream those chats for the benefit of our team and everyone in the industry. It’s a way of giving back to everybody that I have learnt from over the years and it hopefully helps people on their journey.

ACME: What has been the response to Real Talk?

SR: It’s been amazing actually! I’ve had so many calls and messages and words of encouragement from the industry. I’ve tried to keep the conversation, or rather the interviews really relevant to managing this current environment and we might continue and adjust that when the market improves to broaden the topics but the feedback has just been amazing and it’s great to see that we’re penetrating and making a difference for people. I had a call from a lady who works in the Bayside market and she said that she listened to one of my interviews, wrote a couple pages of notes and made changes to her business overnight and that’s really what Real Talk is all about.

ACME: Do you have a long term plan or goal for Real Talk?

SR: Yes and no – nothing I really want to commit to publicly! (laughs) I think it would be great to continue and just develop the conversations with leading agents in the market and see where it goes. I would love to be able to run a conference or a seminar with these leading practitioners and give really practical tools for our market in the future.

First and foremost, I’m a real estate agent and a business owner, and my focus is that and that’s probably why I’m a bit reluctant to make a hard-call commitment to the public about what Real Talk might be. #WatchThisSpace