In terms of business, the Melbourne-based agent said that COVID-19 ultimately affected him on several fronts.

For one, buyer behaviour and consumer sentiment took a dramatic turn, particularly in terms of needs and wants, as well as criteria and demand.

Further, he also had to adjust to full-electronic communications across his team and with his clients – all without compromising quality service.

“These are probably the two aspects that have really changed for me and really evolved our business. We’re getting back to some normality now, but there’s some things through COVID that we really picked up and adopted and continued to follow through on,” Mr Di Giulio said.

Keeping structure

While COVID did push him and his team to work exclusively from home for a period of time, Mr Di Giulio said that they managed to maintain the same level of dedication in terms of providing service to their clients.

Ultimately, for him, it was about “pushing the metal to the pedal” and adjusting to the new normal in order to stay ahead of the curve.

“I tried to keep a routine. I didn’t want to be walking around the house in my pajamas at one 1:00 in the afternoon on a Monday or a Tuesday, right?” he told host Grace Ormsby.

“For me, it was all about routine. I would still wake up, I’d go in my garage, do some boxing, do gym with some weights. And then, I’d try to structure myself in a way that it was like a normal work day for me.”

At times, the Melbourne-based director even said his car became his office.

Conceding “it’s a little bit difficult with kids at home”, Mr Di Giulio said he would tell his wife he was going to sit in his car, in the garage, and not go anywhere.

“And that’s pretty much what I’ve done… I would stay in the car from nine until 12, make my calls, go in to eat some lunch, play with the kids, then at 1:30, I’d hit the phones until probably about 4:00 or 5:00,” Mr Di Giulio highlighted.

“I’d segregate or try to have vendor communication in the morning, potential chase in the afternoon, then I’d try to structure it over a four or five-day week.

“Structure was really the key.”

Maintaining accountability

Despite being forced to work from home, Mr Di Giulio also highlighted how his team remained accountable.

As well as client meetings, he used Zoom to meet his team up to twice per day during the second stage of lockdowns.

“We’d have a Zoom meeting in the morning with my 25 sales staff. And then we’d have one in the afternoon to recap what were the wins for the day? What were the challenges for the day? Are we progressing any sales further?” he said.

“I really think it unified and really forged our team. Our team culture and confidence around that is just massive.”

Selling in a shutdown

During the 112-day lockdown in Melbourne, Mr Di Giulio said he and his team made 47 sales – or about “one and a half sales a day”.

According to the agent, a lot of people were scrambling to sell their properties before the stage four lockdowns did occur, and due to this, a lot of them were also keen to buy more quickly than before.

“I had a lot of people that had auctioned their property, sold their property, and they’ve got 90- or 60-day settlements coming up. So, technically, they were without the basic necessity of shelter… You couldn’t inspect rental properties and homes for sale, so I’ve got a lot of these people that were happy to buy a property without a physical inspection,” he explained.

As a matter of fact, some were even happy to go unconditional.

In order to provide quality service, Mr Giulio outlined that the team employed strategies they would normally use when selling off-the-plan properties, since both agents and buyers couldn’t physically attend inspections.

“The dialogue I was having with my team was really around trying to get the agents to pretend like they’re selling off the plan. That’s our mindset. Because if you think about it, the strategy of selling off a plan is probably no different than selling during COVID because the buyer can’t touch it, they can’t see it, they can’t smell it,” he said.

According to Mr Di Giulio, agents who had previous experience with apartments and off-the-plan townhouses especially excelled during the lockdown period because they understood how to communicate effectively with the buyer and upsell even without physically being there..

Remembering real estate is human

Moving forward – and beyond the restrictions – the director believes that maintaining the “human element” in transactions, even where agents have to communicate electronically is a skill worth honing as the world adjusts to a new normal.

“That comes back to the human element of what we do… Making sure that we’re qualifying more than ever and making sure that we’re not wasting the vendor’s time, or the buyer’s time for that matter,” he emphasised.

“I really love the COVID market because it gets back to relationships by selling – making sure that buyers like you, they trust you, and above all, you’re a good human being who aims to build good relationships. It’s all one-on-one sales now.”

With inspections allowed once again, he said he still reminds his team of the importance of human connection.

“Yes, we sell properties, but we also sell feelings. And if you can connect with the buyer and understand their needs and wants, a good agent can sell that feeling back and upsell. And I think during COVID, we’d done that more effectively,” Mr Di Giulio said of the period.

Tune in to Mark di Giulio’s episode on The Secrets of the Top 100 Agents podcast to know more about staying ahead of the curve amid a COVID-induced shift in the property market.