Technology innovators trying to disrupt the real estate industry have come and gone with no success. Not only did they lack impact but many missed the mark completely. These tech corporations aren’t real estate professionals and we have seen this in their approach. What they lacked was a strong understanding of our industry. This has been a major advantage for real estate as we are a service industry.
This year alone has proven how resilient our industry professionals are when it comes to adapting to remain competitive. We have continued to see growth while remaining fundamentally unchanged. The tribes we build, company culture we nurture and the relationships we create are the forefront of real estate.
Finding a Tribe
Real estate professionals are social beings at their core. The industry has over 130,000 people employed and in result has an extremely competitive and cut-throat environment. It has been shown that countless agents leave the industry within the first two years of starting their career. From this environment many agents will naturally gravitate to familiarity and like-minded professionals to form a tribe, just as we do in our social circles.
Forming a tribe is an important part of being in real estate and it’s something sales businesses do so well. Our tribe provides a space full of collaboration, allowing us to build the relationships that enrich our lives. Within our tribe we get support, leadership and education from others who inspire us to achieve. For agents, this means being surrounded by salespeople who ignite passion within the constant grind.
A tribe may look slightly different for every office and doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be sitting in the same place full time with your colleagues. Usually, however, it does involve participating in group activities that breed success. Anything from social events to sales training, these group activities create a productive work environment to allow agents, regardless of where they are in their career, to seek advice and security as they wish.
Our tribe brings value to our lives.
Focusing on Culture
Office culture remains highly important for business success. A strong company culture will often inspire and engage employees. Business culture makes up the foundations of a tribe. A culture is made up of ideas, customs and social behaviours created within the business. Getting this right for employees starts with the management team. This is something real estate offices have always done and done well.
A culture could be anything from a strong focus on a sale method to a highly social atmosphere with great banter. This focus will vary between each businesses but the emphasis on collaboration is crucial across the industry. Every business owner wants engaged and motivated employees for the overall success of the business which, in result, comes from positive and supportive office culture.
Recognising achievements, setting clear goals and celebrating success are just some of the ways management can inject positivity into a business. While many of us in real estate may not be seated at desks five days a week for eight hours a day, the culture is still important in a team. Communicating regularly, sharing the workload and striving for success all create a team environment.
Finding the right culture for you, as an agent, is an extremely important factor for your long term success. Being a part of a culture that brings out the best in you is often the leading industry reason to join a tribe.
Keep a Local Focus
Building local knowledge and having community expertise remains extremely beneficial in real estate. Agents often specialise in niche or local areas to build their connections and increase their income from target marketing. Customers are often seeking local knowledge during their buying or selling journey to either sell their property or fall in love with the neighbourhood they are moving to.
Building a strong local focus often takes years of living or participating in the community and engaging with its lifestyle to truly grasp the essence of the area. Mastering this approach allows agents to sell properties with an added element of features to put forward to buyers. More often than not, these agents are excelling in the industry and this knowledge is what sets a good agent and outstanding agent apart. This community expertise is something customers won’t get anywhere else and creates stronger, more trustworthy relationships between the agent and customer.
Local expertise continues to be a strong driver for agents seeking return and referral business through community connections.
It’s All About Relationships
At its core, the real estate industry is about building and maintaining relationships. An agent’s role focuses on nurturing these trusted relationships with customers to ultimately become their agent of choice. The experience of buying and selling a home is highly emotional with expectations needing to be carefully managed.
Without the human element of real estate, buying and selling a home would never be the same. With support and guidance through a property experience, customers have an extremely positive property experience. This relationship takes time and flexibility from agents to ensure they nurture each customer with their unique needs.
This process of relationship building and the human element of a property experience is something many large corporations have missed in their approach. This has caused countless PropTech companies to flop as they try to cut this crucial element of the property journey out. Regardless of the changes our industry may face moving into the future, the relationships agents create will always be at the heart of our industry.
Uniting on One Platform
The real estate industry doesn’t need disruption, it needs enhancements. Agents and principals need support to run their businesses and make the backend processes of sales more efficient.
The Property Platform supports and accelerates the industry’s strengths to deliver increased business efficiency and an outstanding customer experience. Just like coming together as a tribe, The Platform is bringing the industry together with strength in numbers. Uniting industry professionals on one platform will allow us to steer the industry in the right direction. There is no element of our strengths that needs to be discarded, they need to be accelerated.