Every Agent Has a Story: Tara Bradbury

This story comes from Tara Bradbury. Director of BDM Academy, who shares the key lessons she learned during her early days as a BDM.

• Review your management agreements and contracts regularly and ensure they are completed correctly.
• Follow your checklists down to a T, and be thorough with your procedures.

Every Agent Has a Story is proudly brought to you in association with Console

Transcript

Tara Bradbury here from the BDM Academy. 

My story that I’m going to share with you today is probably going to be one that’s going to scare quite a few of the principals out there. 

In the beginning, for myself as a BDM, I would fly into the properties, I would do everything really quickly, I wasn’t as very careful with my paperwork. And this was something that my business owner picked up on very, very fast. 

As we progressed through our relationship and the rent roll continued to grow, over that last 12 months we had refined a really good checklist to make sure that I had completed the form from start to finish, signatures were completed and making sure insurance details were in there, contact numbers, and bank account details. I wasn’t actually paid my incentive until that form was handed back 100 per cent to the business. 

However, when it came to the sales stage, we went through and then we reviewed our management agreements. We reviewed everything like your entry condition report, your attendance, your authority. And I was absolutely heartbroken. 

It was throughout that process where I had the opportunity to work directly with our business owner, I realised that right from the very beginning, at the stages when the processes weren’t as refined, that there were actually nine of our contracts where I’d either had a missing signature, or a missing initial, or there was something that was missing on there where, as part of the sale, the solicitor had actually come back to her and said, “We’re actually going to have to discuss the negotiation around these properties. You won’t be able to get the full price that you have asked for on them, based on these concerns.” 

I knew and I was aware of the impact that that was going to have on her, and obviously the value that she was going to make from just those nine properties across the asset. It really did break my heart. I felt terrible, I was completely gutted. 

From watching this today, take the time to review all of your management agreements, all your contracts within your business, to actually make sure that they are 100 per cent properly completed. 

Don’t leave it to this stage and then feel as though it’s going to be perfect time to sell, hand it over, and then next minute find out that there’s all these problems that you could have actually fixed a lot earlier on, and saved yourself a lot of hassle and a lot of drama. 

I do hope that you have a gun personality type, and someone as crazy as myself in your business as the BDM. So harness that energy, make sure they’re a person that you pay attention to, have a really good checklist for them to follow, don’t pay them their incentives until you know that all that paperwork is completed 100 per cent and I can assure you that you’ll have a fantastic time and enjoy your rent roll growth experience. 

And when it comes to the stage of the sale, you’ll be able to sit back, the handover process will be nice and smooth, and you’ll be able to really enjoy the experience, and then walk away knowing that you had a wonderful time working in this amazing industry.