The first article recently published here, ‘From Negotiator to Manager’, seems to have resonated with a number of people. It examined the leap from being a successful sales person to an office manager. Let’s now take it a step forward and consider a practical example.
Imagine you have just been promoted from negotiator to manager for the first time by your employer. You are placed in an existing estate agent’s office that has had moderate success in an area dominated by several other agencies. It’s not an office or area you are familiar with.
What are the first three actions you make a priority?
This is a situation that I’m sure many of us have found ourselves in as we moved up the property career ladder. And, I’m also certain there are many of you reading this about to take the same journey. So, what do you think about the following three steps? Leave your comments at the end of this article and share your own plan of action.
Step 1 Money
How much money is coming in to the office each month?
The majority of income in the estate agency is likely to be from property sales. There may also be other income from such sources as mortgage referrals, depending on the organisation.
How healthy is the office pipeline?
Knowing what income can potentially be expected in the short to medium term could include a variety of sources. For example,
- agreed property sales
- imminent exchanges
- outstanding offers
- exchanged property transactions with future completions
- diarised market appraisals
You will want to separate out the ‘wishful thinking’ here ie what income can likely be expected as opposed to what might appear ‘if we’re very lucky’?
For example, you have an offer from a buyer on a property worth £5,000 commission to the office. Sounds great. But, the buyer who needs to raise an eye wateringly large mortgage, hasn’t yet shown the property to their significant other half and when they do will they ignore the ever widening crack in the property’s back wall!!?
File anything like this away as ‘icing on the cake’ and don’t include it in your income calculations.
These include: What are the office outgoings? This will be a consideration if you have been given what’s left of a yearly budget for marketing or staff costs (including money spent on part time staffing for perhaps Saturday /Sunday office openings or show houses on property development sites).
Also,nhow do the current income figures compare with previous years? Are there times in the year that you can expect to be busier than others?
After an examination of all of the above you’ll have a clearer picture of what initial action might need to be taken financially. For example, if income is below expectations are you moving into a busier period where the shortfall can be made up? Or is your office expenditure higher than anticipated and needing a speedy review?
- Staff
The next matter on your ‘To Do’ list will be to review staffing. An office won’t be successful without motivated, effective staff.
You might decide to initially meet all staff as a group to briefly offer a welcome. It’s a good chance to set a positive tone because there may be some apprehension – they don’t know you, may have had a good relationship with the previous manager, don’t understand why change was needed or perhaps have their own agendas. Change can be a challenging time and you will need to manage this.
You will also certainly want to quickly arrange to see each person privately to
- gauge any concerns about a change of manager that might need addressing.
- obtain information on the office, systems and processes – the secret here will be to separate the office gossip from the nuggets of information that gives you a genuine sense of the office environment, productivity and potential.
- understand any issues that require immediate attention. For example, staffing gaps, staff sickness or impending vacations, existing customer issues needing attention etc.
- share your own expectations for the office and each staff member. At this stage, this is likely to be a light touch. After a period of time settling into this new office environment you might want to take this further.
What is important about the above is that everyone is spoken with as quickly as possible, particularly those towards the bottom of the office hierarchy such as junior negotiators. They are often the ones who can give you a real sense for the general office mood.
- Competition
Who is your competition? This might seems an unusual consideration so early in your new management role. But I think it is a critical one. You want to know
Who is your competition in the immediate area (and those beyond who might sell the occasional property in your patch)?
What’s your office’s popularity in the area? Your organisation might already have stats on market share. If not you can quickly gauge this by comparing your office with the competition in the number of
- For Sale and Sold boards up in the area or
- properties for sale on the most popular property portals
What differentiates you from the competition that you can quickly exploit, if not done so already?
What background information on the competition can be obtained that can be used to your advantage?
- How long have you and your competition been in the area?
- What reputation does the competition have?
- Do the competition specialise in particular types of property?
- Are they independent agents or part of a corporate chain?
- How many offices do they have?
- Their opening hours?
- The competition’s online presence?
- Are they members of professional bodies or have qualified staff?
- Their commission fees (and flexibility on these fees)?
- What services do they offer?
- What marketing do they provide?
The list here could be much longer but this is a good start.
Finally
So, there we have the first three potential steps you could take as a new manager of an estate agency. What do you think? Would you do something different? And I wonder what the next 3 steps would be? Leave your comments below.
Paul Jager is ‘Head of Property Programmes’ for MOL who provide a variety of training in property and management.
He can be contacted on 0161 674 1161.
Comments (11)
Depends if you are talking corporate of independent.
Corporate first 3 things would be
1. Scrutinize the pipeline and fall through any sales that have fallen through or not top and tailed. Chances are last branch manager was carrying a few cr*p sales.
2. Property list audit, chances are half the register are no longer for sale as last branch manager was under pressure to keep up listings.
3. Ask for the undermining negs to be moved – chances are the last manager lost their job because the staff are over ambitious and thought they could do a better job.
If it was an independent
1. Introduce myself to vendors explain that even though there is a change we know your sale and its still important to us.
2. Put some structure in place so neg know what is needed of them. Most indies, staff turn up and just get on with it, negs and business owners like direction.
3. look to increase fee, too many independents compete on fee as opposed to service
The big difference is corporate is about covering your ar*s and independent is about great service.
Ah for once I agree with PeeBee. What is the world coming to?
I’d add the following as well:
4. Dramatically reducing average time on market by repositioning otherwise “dead” stock
5. Discover individual staff motivations
6. Ensure there is a systematic prospecting plan in place
7. Use your expertise to generating worthwhile PR
Have a great day!
Thanks Richard. You make good points and demonstrate that I probably need to write a second article that lists at least another 3 tasks that need to be considered by a new manager.
How did you do that Richard, he hasn’t posted or are you letting the cat out of the bag that Smile please and Peebee are one in the same?
Shhhhh nobody is suppose to know Robert!!!!
So how come you’re posting? I thought it was your annual Goth gig at Scarborough this week and you were off taking photos.
Interesting comments ‘smile please’, particularly making the distinction between tasks undertaken by corporates and those undertaken by an independent. I wonder if this difference, in this circumstance is a matter that others have experienced?
As for ‘Ask for the undermining negs to be moved’ would you consider giving everyone a chance to work under your new leadership before making a judgement about them?
Many years as employee in indie and corporates and claiming the ladder as far as you pretty much can before going it alone. I would say before even stepping foot into a new office with a corporate you know who needs to move.
They will be the ones with a massive chip on their shoulder, talk a good game but look at the stats and just does not add up. Lazy individuals that think they know it, every corporate office has at least one in some cases its the manager!
Indies are different, everybody should be given a chance as chances are they have never actually been managed or had direction.
Thanks Gump. What do they do after taking ownership of a desk?
Not sure to be honest. They all seemed to look busy enough though.
In all seriousness, what you have pointed out does get done. or at least should. All the points are no brainers, interestingly though I never had one discuss the competition, they were more interested in getting their own ship sorted.
Your first priority is in fact, incorrect.
I was a branch based Mortgage Broker for many years and in my experience the first thing newly appointed Branch Managers do is to set up shop on the back desk.