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A leading CEO has said real estate business owners are wasting time on creative tasks that could be spent on managing their operations.
CEO of Harcourts NSW Rob Forde told Real Estate Business that one of the benefits of being part of a larger group was having various tasks, such as marketing, taken care of.
“A lot of business owners are great real estate people but they may not be the best marketers,” he said. “They understand how to market themselves well and know how to market a property well.
“But designing graphics, designing logos for their own business, putting all that creativity into looking at what CRM they’re going to use, how that runs effectively, making sure that all their letters and templates are done at the highest level, you don’t have to think about that if you’re with a group.
“[With a group] you can worry about the productive things - where you are finding your next sales people, where your next listings are coming from, and really concentrating on the important parts of the business.”
Mr Forde said each business would have its own reasons and that there was no 'one size fits all' real estate business.
“If you look at all the different operators within the industry, some are comfortable running a smaller business, some are running a bigger business - so it’s about finding reasons you can work with each of those,” he said.
Mr Forde added that for many Harcourts business owners, a major factor in joining them was being able to focus on their clients and leave other tasks to the head office.
“They know they’re going to get world-class campaigns given to them every quarter that they can market out. They know all the relationships with the suppliers are going to be there, they know that we’ve got the access to real estate services … they’re put in place to enable the business owner to create that strong relationship with the client,” he said.
CEO of LJ Hooker Georg Chmiel said he had noticed a trend of established independent agencies moving across to the franchise model.
In July this year, independent agency Maxwell and Co Real Estate made a successful merger with LJ Hooker Queanbeyan.
Mr Chmiel says: “One of the reasons they joined our group was they saw what the brand and the group could do for them when it comes to positioning them in the market.
“What they obviously bought into was the corporate team, the vision and the fact the service delivery and the service offering of LJ Hooker made a difference.
“It's a clear indication the franchise model is strong. So to me, we are absolutely on the right track with what we are doing. It's been seen in the market, and we are looking ahead to a very rosy future.”
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