Ray White celebrates its property managers

THE BACKBONE of Ray White’s property management business is its 2300 property managers who help the leading network manage its rent roll of 250,000 managements each day.

Yesterday these unsung heroes - whose day often swings from managing one crisis to the next - had their day dedicated to them.

The PM Power Up virtual event was the brainchild of Ray White’s chief executive of property Management, Emily Sim, after the coronavirus forced the cancellation of their Gold Coast event in March.

MC Natalie Hortz, Senior Corporate Affairs Manager at Ray White, said it would be hard to imagine many other industries would have had to respond so quickly to daily if not hourly legislative changes than property managers in 2020.

“What other job requires you to be a counsellor, a handyman, a negotiator, a salesperson and a debt collector, a lawyer, and these days more so, a meth and mould specialist. Not all heroes wear capes, but a property manager should - because frankly, if you’ve survived this year so far, you can handle anything.”

Over the last four years Ms Sim’s team of business coaches has delivered data driven awards, introduced elite recognition, growth to properties under management, an e-learning platform for career progression and led a network through floods, fires and a global health pandemic.

And today they delivered mindfulness tips, connectivity tools and a whole lot of laughs with funnymen David Hughes and Dave O’Neil.

Ms Sim told the 1000 virtual attendees from across Australia and New Zealand that by remaining 100 per cent focused on improving customer satisfaction and using new technology, the group would keep evolving in the property management space.

“Historically property managers have had to do trust accounting and property service. But we are also delivering on a third piece which is customer satisfaction,” Ms Sim said.

“The winners in our industry will be the people who embrace technology and break free from this outrageous capacity issue we are facing and redefine success through client satisfaction.

“If you start measuring yourself on what clients think of you it will be a game changer.”

Ms Sim added that when your clients are happy they become advocates and your business will grow.

“The interesting thing about customer satisfaction is what we are really talking about is trust with our clients,” she said.

“It’s not a new theory but that’s what helped me as a property manager. I communicated, genuinely cared and understood intentions - that’s all it took to find a shorter path to success.

‘It’s when a client doesn’t trust you that you get that grate and will have to do some much extra work to cover yourself.”

The day’s first speaker was Noosa-based Amanda Stevens, a global thought leader on marketing. She said everyone should be ‘silver lining seekers.’

“The last few months have been incredibly challenging, with tough situations and many difficult conversations to be had, but it’s really important to not look back, and to move ourselves from being fragile, to agile instead,” Ms Stevens said.

“There are no silver bullets to fix the situation we’re in, but we want to be able to look back and to be proud of ourselves for how we dealt with the challenges, stress, and anxiety.

“COVID-19 has actually given us an incredible opportunity to have more authentic and ‘real’ conversations and we now have the chance to reset, re-imagine, and re-engineer.

“There are a number of things we can do going forward to put us in the best position possible to deliver the best service to our customers, those being; credibility, curiosity, commonality, customisation and ceremony.

“Japan is a great example of this. Japanese is the only language in the world that has a specific word - omotenashi - that directly translates to being of service.

“If you want people to be advocates of you, then, you have to be advocates for them and you have to do all you can to give them the best service possible.

“The one quote I always come back to is from Eckart Tolle - ‘approach this crisis as though you asked for it’ - I ask to take a moment and appreciate everything that has been achieved in the last few months, from adaptability and resilience, through to grace and compassion.

“If you can have that mindset, and apply lots of self-care, then you’re a ‘silver lining seeker’.”

One of the day’s highlights was the founder and director of a business called EQ MINDS, Chelsea Pottenger, who spoke to the members about their mindfulness mindset.

Ms Pottenger, an accredited mindfulness and meditation coach, is a mental health ambassador for R U OK? and a woman on a mission.

She asked everyone to prioritise their mental health first. Her mission is grounded and inspired by her own experience as she experienced severe Post Natal Depression (PSD) following the birth of her daughter five years ago. Ms Pottenger offered practical tips to create mindful moments in your daily life.

“Give yourself eight minutes of peace in the morning as soon as you open your eyes, do not look at your phone.” She said to use that time to make notes in a gratitude journal and for affirmations.

Her other early morning tips to set you on a path of productivity was to brush teeth and tongue (using your opposite hand), 500mls clean water, take a probiotic to nourish your gut health, movement, a cold showerto rest the nervous system, always make the bed and write your daily To Do List before coffee and breakfast.

“We cannot control what happens to us but we can control how we react to it.”

Australia’s favourite comedian duo - Dave Hughes, host of Network Ten’s Hughesy We Have A Problem and joined by his friend and fellow problem solver comedian Dave O’Neil then attempted to tackle all our problems!