Summer Hopkins is a Registered Realtor from Mississauga Toronto.
She was asked to write an article for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce after addressing the needs of fellow Realtors online.
This article was consequently published on subscription Newswire.
“If we do what we always done, were going to get what we always got”
That was the opening conclusion in a pretty damming report of MY business !
I was in tears and angry for 2 days and two nights.
We firstly identified 5 problems in the business using a smart consultancy service registered with the certified management of consultants (CMC)
My mindset had to change and it started when I sacked my marketing manager.
He simply refused to change our quite expensive strategy.
That was really tough, he had worked for me for 8 years.
Problems identified by the certified management consultancy.
Intermittent inventory levels.
Online competition.
Not addressing the needs of a Smartphone user.
High marketing budgets.
Poor database management.
My Realtor brokerage was strangled by my Agents.
The changes are very much work in progress, to be honest it was a struggle to transform old practices in our office alongside communications.
The first task was going paperless. Removing the printer was a massive change.
It’s as if a cooker had been wrenched out of our kitchen!
The next big change was putting our entire database into a CRM.
That took a long time to literally handball all history, names, telephone numbers, emails and addresses into one cloud system and then joining to an accountancy package.
We opted for Xero.
The training for Agents to use the CRM resulted in a couple more casualties I’m afraid.
But we are getting there, the changes are being managed by younger team members who have rapidly risen through the ranks.
The speed they get stuff done is mesmerising, its as if all the time they spend on social media is just an extension of what they achieve at work!
Very impressive.
Our inventory levels have grown by 16% in 8 months and the marketing budget has dropped significantly.
Our attention to detail with client Smartphone communications pays dividends through natural online marketing.
I’m pleased and happy to share.
The next phase is quite revolutionary, we are copying trends from other markets.
Listen out for an update in a few months time.
Summer Hopkins is a registered realtor, business woman and writer.
