10 ways to improve your property management business from ARPM 2019

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The largest property management conference in the southern hemisphere, ARPM 2019 has come and gone, and if you couldn’t make it (or maybe forgot to take notes!) then don’t worry because we have you covered.

These are our key takeaways from the two-day conference designed to push boundaries, test your thinking and generally help you ‘breakstuff’–so you canwork smarter not harder with better results.

Create a buddy system in your office

Brad McHugh, a Partner at Highland Property Agents, has had great success implanting a buddy system in his property management department. All staff work in pairs, so nothing gets dropped when people have time off or staff leave. It means new staff are up to speed more quickly, and the buddies are able to split tasks based on strengths for overall efficiency gain. Is this something you can implement in your office?

Make Google your friend to build trust

Trust is a major issue on the internet today – anyone can say anything. Cliff Rosenburg, founder of LinkedIn in Australia and current Non-executive Director at Afterpay, wants you to ask yourself “Why can your customers trust you?”. References and reviews are highly important to potential customers as they surf the web. They don’t care what you say about yourself on your website, they want to hear it from other people. And it needs to be authentic. So, ask your customers for reviews on a regular basis, and make it easy for them to leave these reviews.

Take off your Teflon coat

Make sure you take off your “Teflon coat” when you go home at night. Whilst you need to have a thick skin and protect yourself from some of the things you deal with as a PM, you can’t live your personal life like that, says Robyn Gleeson, General Manager at Elders Real Estate Port Macquarie.

Go paperless

Elaine Stack has recently started a new property management business, in which she has embraced tech to go paperless. Not only is it great for the environment, you’d be amazed at how much money you spend printing paper documents every year. Programs like Inspection Express, FLK IT OVER, and cloud property management software, Property Tree, have enabled her to make this change.

Real Estate sales has 92% chance to disappear in 20 years

The Real Estate Sales Person is the 5th most likely job to be replaced by robots in the next 20 years, according to a Business Insider report Cliff Rosenburg shared. You need to keep up with tech and differentiate yourself through interpersonal and relationship skills that cannot be automated. These are the complex skills that will be prized in the future.

Create a wellness calendar

Robyn Gleeson uses a wellness calendar to make sure she is scheduling in the things that keep her healthy and happy.It’s easy to let work take over your life, and forget to find time not just for things like the gym, but for things that exercise your mind and keep you happy. You need time out from work, and scheduling time to do this will go a long way to helping stay mentally and physically healthy.

Virtual Assistants are life savers

If tech can’t automate it yet, then VAs can help, says Brad McHugh. They are great at taking manual and repetitive tasks like receipting off a property managers hands – so they can spend more time on what matters most – building relationships, getting out of the office and visiting clients.

They have two staff based in the Philippines who have made a major difference to their business. But they need to be part of the team, he says; too many people make the mistake of not integrating their VAs into their team and culture – celebrating their wins and helping them grow like the rest of the team.

One of his favourite examples of how these new team members have helped them deliver better service, is that his property managers now send their inspection data off to the Philippines after each inspection – so that by the time they are back at the desk the owner already has the condition report in their inbox.

Get yourself a mentor

Find someone you want to be and learn from them, says Elaine Stack. If you contact someone, tell them a bit about yourself and explain that you would love to grab a coffee and ask a few questions, most people will say yes. It’s quite flattering, not time consuming on their part, and can help them grow as well. Many established professionals also love giving back, so it can be a win-win for you both.

Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date

This is how people find you. A half-completed profile tells people you don’t care about what others think of you – it’s a bit like showing up to a client meeting in dirty clothes, says Cliff Rosenburg. Make sure your summary and role descriptions are filled out, because the key words here are how people – particularly recruiters – will find you.

Offer additional services!

Brad McHugh says Highland Property Agents offer a whole range of additional “concierge” services like moving services, gardeners, and more. Anything that your owner or tenant might need, that you can help them find, improves the customer service you’re able to offer. Not only that, this is a great way to generate additional revenue streams with a clipping fee – most businesses will be happy for you to take a cut for delivery them customers on a regular basis. Property Tree’s Movinghub integration is a great example of this that can see you generate additional revenue from within the system itself.