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We recently caught up with long time client, Matt Carpenter, Director at Starr Partners Merrylands to talk about his experience in the industry and how he uses ReNet to build strong relationships with his clients.
Matt has seen ReNet evolve over the past 10 years and shares a multitude of knowledge. We’ve pulled together the top 3 findings from our discussion. Keep reading or watch the full interview on Facebook or Linkedin.
Matt’s Background
With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Matt accidentally fell into real estate by chance. Since then, Matt has since been with Starr Partners Merrylands for the past 23 years and is now one of the business owners today.
He shares,
“I had been working in a chemist as a young kid and John Starr's daughter (who actually works still at that chemist many, many years on) just happened to introduce me by passing to her Dad, John Starr, the founder of Star Partners. After an interview, I ended up starting in our strata management department and was there for five years. And then in 2003 came across to our sales department. Now I'm one of the owners of the business today.”
When asked what attracted Matt into the real estate industry and what he loves about it, he explains,
“To be honest with you, I was studying - I was going to study to do pharmacy. I think I just got to a point where I've been working in a chemist for so many years that I was like, I don't know if that's the career path I was going to take and literally fell into real estate. My first job was in the strata management division. To be honest with you, I didn't even know it was about.
Five years later I became a licensed strata manager and then the progression of real estate into sales. I think I've found what I want to do now...that's definitely after, you know, 13 or 16 years in sales. This is what I love doing.
I love getting people in and out of homes and connecting the dots. I think real estate is all about relationship building and that's what I love. I just love having relationships with good clients these days. It's just a matter of calling and saying, ‘hi, it's Matt.’ You feel like one of the family. You know, now I'm selling properties to the kids of people that I sold properties to 16 years ago. I think that's a real compliment in the process of the real estate industry. But I think it's the relationship building that I love the most.”
Takeaway #1: Consistent communication builds strong relationships
It goes without saying that CRMs are built to establish and manage strong customer relationships. Matt is all too familiar with this and shares what it actually takes to come full circle and sell to future generations. He says that real estate is a ‘trust industry’.
“I think if people are going to trust you in dealing with their kids, you did something right with the sale to them and also the relationship that you've been building all the way along. I'm a really big believer that you need to be communicating with people about things that matter to them.”
Matt’s Relationship Building Tip: Send Birthday Messages
“I actually collect the birth dates of clients that I list the property for, or that I sell a property to. Every single day, one of the first things I do when I come into the office is send a birthday message off to anyone that's in my ReNet birthdays list every single day to make sure that I've touched base with them every year on their birthday. And these could be people that have actually sold properties for 10 years ago that have moved out of the area and they still get their birthday messages. And I still get a response. I think little things like that, little touchpoints that are personable is what gets results.
He continues,
“If you're still saying happy birthday to someone that's actually sold through you 10 years ago and moved out of the area, you’re keeping that relationship alive because of their sphere of influence. They still know people in the area they're still going to be, you'll be an advocate for referrals. I think that's really important.”
Takeaway #2: Invest in software that transforms ‘normal’ data into useable, smart data.
Before using ReNet, Matt used to record all of his data into an Excel program before being introduced to the power of transforming ‘dumb data’ into active, working data. He admits that it took him a little while to fully understand the purpose of smart data but with a lot of persuasion, Matt eventually converted to ReNet.
“I converted all my Excel data into ReNet and I've never looked back. ReNet is a very sophisticated program that’s very simple, to be honest with you. It allows you to communicate with mass numbers of people while you're sleeping, basically, as it's doing the work in the background.
Excel worked for many years but it was more finding a person, phoning a person, finding another person, phoning a person, and that's great, but it's not good for mass numbers. So it's not allowing the data to do multiple things, so to speak.
As soon as we moved the data into ReNet, what I found was that when a property sold thousand people got an email and it was automated - everything became automated. When a property was listed, a thousand people got notified of a property being listed rather than going...search, find a certain street and trying to find the people that live in the street and then merge an email or letter to them.
ReNet’s prospecting tool is great. It allows you to send massive SMSs out to people that are personalised really customised for the individual person and a one size fits all program. You've got email, you've got SMS, you've got print, everything's covered through the one program. We have those provided to our salespeople so that they're building the connections with people.”
When asked what Matt’s favourite ReNet feature is, he quickly responded…
“Tasks. There's no buts about it...tasks.”
He shares,
“I actually was asleep one night and I woke up in the morning going...I've got this thing that I need to log, but I don't have a pen and paper next to me.
I actually sent an email through to Chris and asked if there was a simple “add task” program that we can use where you can just go in and add a task or have it ready for you the next day. The next day Chris came back and had added an “add task” feature in ReNet. I use that every single day, every day. You keep on top of everything. I think call logging to tasking notes, it's stuff that we use every single day.”
Matt also explained how ReNet adds to his daily process, especially when it comes to prospecting and listing more properties.
“I think it just adds to the process, like obviously in real estate, nothing works unless you're doing it. Nothing works unless you're picking up the telephone and communicating with multiple people. ReNet adds to the process, but allows you to keep control.
I've had four properties go live this morning and I've been able to go into the prospecting tool of one of them that I've listed today in Pemulwuy. I've got 19 clients that live in the street and with a couple clicks of a button, I can go in, find those 19 people, send them all a text message and say, ‘we've just listed a property in the street. If you need any other information, give me a call’.
You know, and that, without a doubt it’s the one big win in building more listings coming on. When that property sells, I'll actually send another text message out to those 19 people to let them know what's been sold. So I become their real estate advisor after a while.
I think that's a really cool feature to be able to identify all the people that own or live in that street and just let them know real time that something's happening in their street. People love information if it's relevant to them.
Matt’s top tip when it comes to your database: Keep it updated and clean
“Every single person that calls me or I call, my whole concept of that phone call is to make sure their profile is set up perfectly in our [ReNet] system. Any property that they own, wherever it be in Australia eventually makes it in, attached to their profile in the property section.
You have to make sure it's set up from the beginning, like anything in time is of the essence. So whilst you're on the phone with the client, whether you're in the car parked on the side of the road, sitting in front of the computer, you've just gotta make sure you're continuously cleaning the data as are people calling. You've lots of great little systems to follow up with, lots of great little systems to follow up sellers, whether they be hot buyers or hot sellers or they're warm or cold, they're brilliant, brilliant facilities in the system to follow them up.
You've always got to be cleaning the data.”
Takeaway #3: Consistency and hard work pays off
We asked Matt what his advice would be to fellow agents, particularly new agents coming into the industry.
He said,
“It's all a matter of hard work. It does get easier as you get further on in your time in the industry and you build more relationships, but it's just a whole bunch of hard work. That's the bottom line. It's a lot of hard work. There are a lot of different tools out there. There's a lot of different CRM systems. We love ReNet. That's the program we use, my whole team uses it. But no matter what system you use or what process you run, it's just a lot of hard work and grinding every single day.
Wrapping up, Matt shared a recent example of how persistence and constant communication pays off.
“I just had a call from a lady that I valued her property six months ago and I've kept in contact with her just subtly through the system, through ReNet through that is, and she just called me this morning and said she's ready to go. And we booked in tomorrow night to list the property.
You've got to realize what you put in today, you may not get a return on for six months or 12 months. I guess at the end of the day, you've just got to keep going and keep calling and keep communicating with people with relevant data and it will return in your favor as the years go on.”
To learn more about ReNet, click here to speak with our team.
To watch the full interview with Matt, click here to watch on Facebook or Linkedin.
