Real estate agents should use the COVID-19 crisis to do an audit of their business and inject renewed energy into their game plan, a top sales director says.
Speaking during a Transform 2020 Leadership Lesson, Thomas McGlynn, from The Agency, told agents the COVID-19 crisis had been a rollercoaster.
“It’s been a really steep learning curve, and as a leader, I always like to say to our people that you’re never growing unless you’re operating outside your comfort zone,” he says.
“What Coronavirus has done is it’s put us out of our comfort zone without us really wanting it or accepting it, we have just had to deal with it.”
Thomas says this has created the perfect chance for agents to examine every inch of their business from the inside out.
“If you come out of this period and you haven’t done a big personal audit on your business, and your life, you’ve missed a massive opportunity,” he says.
“It’s so easy for us to get caught on the hamster wheel and get caught up in the grind and not be able to stick our heads up above the clouds and see what’s going on.
“You might be on a track, but it might not be the right track.”
Thomas says agents should set aside time in their diary every week to work on their business, rather than just in their business.
“What are the things that you’re doing really well in the business, what are the things that you’re not doing well, and how can you make that better?”
Thomas admits COVID-19 has thrown him a curveball and there have been days where it seemed so overwhelming he struggled to get out of bed.
But he says many good things have come from the crisis too, including adopting new ways to communicate with his 300 agents around the country, such as Zoom meetings, webinars and Google Hangouts.
“We thought we communicated really well with our team, but we could have been doing a hell of a lot better,” Thomas says.
Thomas says frequent communication builds trust, calmness and stability with team members and clients.
“Communicating in the way that everyone has learnt to communicate has been an awesome way to make your team feel like they’re being heard,” he says.
Originally an opponent of online auctions, Thomas says COVID-19 has changed his mind on the sale method, with the online auction of a government property teaching him there’s a propensity for people to discredit things they don’t know a lot about.
“I think online auctions are something that has shone a light into a lot of dark corners of what agents aren’t doing in their businesses,” he says.
“A lot of what we’ve learnt about what we should be doing, we should have been doing before, and we definitely should be doing it after this period.”
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