Downturn? What Downturn?

It can be hard to ignore the endless headlines of doom and gloom, but I refuse to participate. Realmark is not participating in the recession.

I am not denying that things have certainly changed, but this is nothing new, this is what happens in this industry and I have seen it many a time before. Panic is not going to see you these times, being prepared and having a clear head will.

If you manage to look past all the bad news you will see a range of rare opportunities that don’t come about very often. The words recession and opportunity might not seem to fit together, but the way I see it, recession is a time full of opportunity for my business.

So exactly what opportunities am I talking about? Firstly the demand for agents has decreased significantly so recruiting quality people is much easier. Realmark has just employed seven new team members, something that was almost impossible during the boom. We are using the downturn to build our ‘dream team’. We launched an online careers website and to help us attract the right people and we have hired a full time human resources manager to help us retain the right people.

Now is also a time to stand out from your competitors. It was easy to be successful during the boom, being successful now takes skill because business doesn’t simply walk in the door. People will notice if you’re thriving now and it will build a premium and trust into your brand that is almost impossible to achieve during the good times.

Then there is the fact that now is a good time for growth into new markets, some competitors are going to scale back and opportunities will open up and we stand ready to take advantage of them.

So you can dwell on the bad news, but really what is that going to achieve? Open your eyes and look for the good news.

When you escape your comfort zone, good things happen

I attended the Elite Property Management workshop in Brisbane with John a few weeks ago and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts.

 

The workshop brought together a select group of property management professionals from around Australia and it was a very valuable opportunity to hear from our peers. Each one of us shared the same aim – to push the Australian property management industry to the next level.

 

It was also a great opportunity for us to step back and really look at what we are doing. Because getting away from your desk, your staff, your routine helps you stand back and look at what is really going on. What is working and what may not be the best.

 

Yes we found things about our property management services that need work, but most importantly it was a great feeling to know that a majority of what we are doing is definitely best practice in this country. We are not behind the eastern states, but in many ways we are different. The workshop attendees were blown away by our marketing materials and that was a reassuring endorsement of the way we do things at Realmark.

 

Overall it was serious motivation to keep getting better and we have returned full of ideas and ready to push our property management services to that next level. Which is very good news for Realmark’s property management clients.