Ep20: Agency Growth Myth-busting — with Kristen Porter and Sherrie Storor

Unpack the most common myths on scaling for growth with Sherrie Storor and Kristen Porter. Discover actionable insights on shifting from the grind to growth, building a resilient team, and unlocking new opportunities in your existing client base, as they announce an industry-first masterclass combining strategy from business coaching and legal considerations for agency practice.

Want to hear more? Register for Sherrie and Kristen's upcoming masterclass here: https://www.sherriestoror.com/masterclass

Transcript

Kate: Hi, and welcome to Property Management & Me, a series from PropertyMe bringing quick tips and insights to support your everyday practice. I'm your host, Kate Sunol and today I'm joined by two guests. We've got Kristen Porter, the Director of O*no legal. She's been on the show before, we love her content on all things legal with real estate. And Sherrie Storor a first time guest. she's sales and business coach from the business Real Estate Nation. 

So we're really excited to have you both here. Kristen, do you want to give a little bit of an insight as to what we're going to be chatting around today?

Kristen:

Of course, Kate, thank you so much for having Sherrie and I on today. Sherrie and I, look, it was probably about 18 months ago, we, we went out for dinner and we, of course, we had a couple of cocktails as you do, and we realized that our clients have really similar problems that we're trying to solve. And we also realized that our skill sets on our own probably wouldn't solve those problems.

So we've been talking for, for that whole time about coming together to deliver some solutions to real estate agency Principals that are just missing in the market and It's been an absolute fantastic time working with Sherrie and can't, can't wait to tell you about it today.

Sherrie: I think you said it all well. I think we probably, uh, yes, there was cocktails involved and there was beachside and there was a beautiful, beautiful meal. And I think, you know, in this industry, we just have so many people that love to come together And have a, have a good chat.

And that was essentially what kind of happened. And so it's really nice. We've been working on this project for quite a period of time, actually, for the last 18 months or so. And so we're really excited. We can't wait to talk more about it. So thank you for having us on today to, to talk all things, property management agency.

Kate: It's really exciting this one and I mean, not just because you are both absolute guns in your own fields, by all due respect, but it's not your typical pairing, a sales and business. Coach and a Lawyer, there are wonderful things that happen after you'v collaborated and had a few cocktails together and I love that you've come together from different angles of this problem fo that all around holistic approach. 

And bit of a drum roll moment here. We're going to be talking about agency structure, growth and scale. So from two completely different viewpoints. From a legal and a business operations perspective. 

And then of course from that growth and scaling your team development perspective, we've got it all covered with one solution that Kristen and Sherrie have brought together. So with a single masterclass that, you're going to be bringing to the market very soon.

Sherrie: Yeah, that's right. I think we've been really excited about this. I guess the biggest thing is that when Kristen and I sort of got together and we started talking about this, we recognized that our clients who basically all want the same thing. They all want to massively, you know, grow their business.

They want to have a really great income. They no longer want to be chained to the business. I think that's been a massive pain point for them. You know, they can't, they don't feel like they can necessarily go away on holidays without checking their emails or, you know, they just constantly always on. And so, you know, that was sort of thinking, and so Kristen and I were talking about this and we're sort of talking about that.

You know, my job is to help people sort of scale up and to try and create some freedom and some wealth in their lives. And then to have a look at what that succession and what that exit is. And then of course, Kristen, she's talking with people about who are, you know, either buying a rent roll, selling a rent roll, who are, you know, You know, really kind of trying to make sure that they might have little problems that sort of pop up that Kristen's looking to solve, but also she's dealing with a lot of businesses that want to move forward with systems and, and structures that actually legally protect their business.

So we just worked out, Hey, listen, this is what your clients want. This is what my clients want. Let's really come together and provide an offering. So to us, we think it's the perfect parent, Kate, because it is literally. You know, what we can do to give back to this industry, to help people where it's not like, plug in a little bit of this, plug in a little bit of that.

This is the overall, solution to really cracking the code to the business that you want.

Kate: Okay. So there's 18 months of collaboration. Where you two of the sharpest minds in our industry, a huge amount of knowledge and info behind this. We're going to jump straight in and sort of crush some of the misconceptions or myths or frequently asked questions about scaling your agency. 

Okay. So first one to drive the business forward or to grow the business is always the responsibility of the business owner. And you have to be connected. You have to be available and switched on, even when you're on holidays or taking a break, you need to be there. Driving the revenue and accountability. 

Kristen: 

Yeah. Well, absolutely. And, you know, this, this, I thought this as well.  But the truth is you can actually take a break. You can have a holiday where you don't have to check your emails. I last year was so fortunate that I was able to have eight weeks off in Europe without having to do any of those things.

And it all comes down to making sure you've got the right system, the right processes and right people in place, because. It does come down to people and, you know, Sherrie will be talking a lot about your retention and your recruitment strategies and not just finding any person but the right person because I do find that some of this myth about I can't take time off or I can't do this or I can't do that really comes down to the fact that maybe just maybe you don't trust your team and maybe you don't have the right people in the right seats. 

Sherrie: I remember when I was working or when I had my chain of agencies, you know, a lot of the problems that I see today are actually what I personally had. And so I just remember, you know, at three o'clock in the morning, not being able to sleep, being so worried, being so concerned about what was actually happening in my body. In my business and also just worrying about how to juggle and how to kind of pay the bills. And so it was quite a stressful time. And, you know, I see this when I'm coaching clients one-on-one every single day. And so, you know, there's a number of things that we need to put into place kind of moving forward.

And the first one is to make sure that you do have the right structures there in place. And there is no one size fits all, but certainly there are proven, you know, proven to work strategies and you've got to work out which one of those proven to work strategies is going to be the right fit into your business.

And then we've got to tweak it and we've got to personalize it. So this is why in the masterclass that we're going through a number of those strategies because, you know, whilst they are plug and play, they're plug and play at the right time for you in, at that particular time in your business. So these are the things that we kind of really want to go through. 

I think EBU's, you know, it's probably one of the, one of the things that I get asked most often about, about how to actually build effective, but also profitable teams and high performing teams in a business. And the reality is that if you sit one, you know, team beside another,  If they're a high performing team, they are going to increase by, you know, exponentially by working alongside each other, right?

They're going to be competitive, they're going to get excitement, that energy is going to bring other energy. But if you sit at that same team, beside a low performing team, That first team is going to decrease their productivity by 30%. So the thing is, we want to make sure that we've got that right cultural fit, but we've got those right structures and you put those two things, you know, together, and that's what really kind of supercharges growth.

Kate: Absolutely. And I think we've seen that. That time and time again, when you sit next to someone that sharpened you, that inspires. There's you. You can definitely improve your practice quite exponentially. From there.

Putting on a team leader or a business owner’s hat. How do you know when you're walking that line which way it's going to go. So obviously teams, aren't going to be a hundred. Percent on the same level when you're pairing those, is there some sort of tricks. So you can encourage one team to sort of pick up and drive their growth off the other high performing team. 

Sherrie: I do think the best thing that you can do is have the mindset of slowing down in order to speed up. And, you know, we're all busy at the moment.

And so, you know, we've got a whole lot of things that we need to do. But you do have to find the time to implement the systems and structures. Now, once you have got the right structures in place and you're implementing them, they are set and forget. And then over time you do tend to get faster and faster at them.

So the things that we're talking specifically around here, I'm making sure that you do have a template for absolutely everything. I'm talking about emails. Making sure that you do have a structure for, you know, when you bring properties on board for You know, rolling out maintenance. And one of the biggest issues that I personally am seeing in all businesses, but particularly the real estate industry.

And even if I dig down tighter on that, I'm talking about property management, is where we've been so focus orientated on processes that we've actually forgotten about our consumers. We've forgotten about our tenants. We've forgotten about our landlords. So, you know, if they're not having a great experience, they're not going to want to pay the right kind of fees.

And so we've been in this kind of race to the bottom almost in terms of fees. Whereas I think if we kind of getting back to those right structures that have, you know, our clients in mind, that's what's going to make a huge difference. So we want to implement these right systems and processes. We want to, as Kristen said, we want to make sure that we've got the right people in place, but it's also about having the strategy.

We've got to have that vision. We've then got to break it down into goals. We've then got to communicate that to our team and we've got to implement it and we've got to record and track that along the way. Because there's no point having this great big plan if you're, you know, a selling principal or a CEO of a business, but no one else knows about your plan.

So it's about making sure, okay, what is that right plan? Once we've got that very clear, how do we move forward with the rest of the team and how do we break it up into manageable pieces?

 And then it's just about realigning the teams to those calls when they start to divert a little bit

Absolutely, I think that's critical and that's really should be something that's done on a weekly basis and then having a look at, you know, monthly, quarterly and yearly. So, I couldn't agree more, Kate. 

Kate: So the next myth that we're going to jump into, I should only focus on sales or property management if I'm going to be truly successful.

So I think this one comes out of that, you know, sage old advice, do one thing and do it really, really well. A lot of people can be a bit unsure if they want to step out into another lane and pick up another stream of income or another service for their customers.  

Kristen, your thoughts on that one? 

Kristen: Look, it's all about having the right structures in place.

And again, the right people in the right seats. I read a really good book recently, who not how, and I think I really do live my life by that. So if you're trying to do sales and PM yourself, I think you will run into some problems. You'll get, you know, distracted. One thing will pull you into the other and the other will drop.

But whereas if you've got proper structures set up, proper EBUs,  and they differentiate. You know, whose role is what within the business, you've got the right people running sales, the right running PM, then you really can have the best of both worlds and they can also help to feed each other. Now, Sherrie, you've set up quite a few of these structures.

What do you see? What is the truth there for that myth? 

Sherrie: Hmm. It's interesting because a lot of people who I start working with, they might either only have a property management division, or they might be in sales and they sort of, or people, as you say, you know, might be in there and they're trying to do everything themselves.

And often, and I, I can't give blanket advice, but often the conversation is, Hey, listen, let's sell the rent roll and let's sort of start from. Start from a position of scratch and move forward. Now that's not the advice that I give everyone.  Most often I'm encouraging people to start to start a rent role or to buy a rent role, because that is the one thing that's going to give you long term freedom because you've got income coming in every single month.

But then you've also got an asset that you can either sell that you can borrow against and so forth. I think, you know, the, the biggest thing that we want to do is we want to make sure that we are moving forward. The biggest problem that I see in this industry is that the Principals typically have the same business that is doing the same kind of numbers year on year out.

And whether that be in property management or in sales or over new overall revenue, you know, that's something that really needs to change. So, you know, we've got so many more sort of technologies and tech stacks available to us now that we should be making sure that we are sort of moving the needle forward. 

So we need to make sure, okay, well, listen, if we do want to, in fact, grow our business, and I understand not everyone wants to do that. But it does make sense that as the cost of living is going up and your business costs are going up, that your revenue should also be going up. So it makes sense that we would actually work out, well, how are we going to do that?

You know, how are we going to grow in terms of our, our numbers on the board in terms of properties under management? You know, I've got some businesses where they might have a hundred properties under management. I've got some others that are sort of 8,000, 10,000. We've got to work out what's the right structure for you in terms of getting to those goals and what those numbers are.

The biggest thing that I would say is that when it comes to property management, if you have got a rent roll that's around a hundred, you are doing a lot of work and you're not getting a lot of profit. So it makes sense. We want to get scale as quickly as possible to at least a thousand fifteen hundred.

That are then going to be making sure that you are in a more profitable position that you can either start taking money out of the business or you can reinvest into it into different ways. Now, if you are listening to this and you're going, Oh my goodness, I don't know how to spend the time doing that because I'm a selling principal.

The best thing that you can do, or a thing that you can do is to actually have a look at joint ventures and to, you know, really bring on business partners or promote from within your business, you know, look at various different, you know, share environments where you're really sharing the workload, but also investing into, you know, helping to push others up, which in turn is going to help push your business up.

Kate: And that would be working both ways. I'd imagine if you are an established property management business that is referring managements to sales and thinking that you want to get into that, it essentially works in reverse as well as partnering with someone to take on that sales side as well for that growth. 

Sherrie: Absolutely. I mean, so much revenue goes out the door with those referrals. Now, it makes sense for a period of time that if you don't have the capacity to be able to necessarily, you know, bring that on board. Absolutely. But if you, if you are listening and you're kind of saying, that's me, I'm referring all of this business to down the road.

If you actually worked out how much that business is worth, You might look at your business a little bit differently. 

Kate: Yep. So figuring out the best areas of growth for your business or what business you're giving away and finding the right people to really fill that gap and help you grow faster.

Jumping into our next myth-busting question. Often when we look at how agencies are established, it's a really high performer in the marketplace that then establishes their own agency. So they might be leading in sales and then start growing their rent roll organically or purchase a rent roll. And then they sort of get stuck on this hamster wheel of being responsible for that recurring revenue of sales for the business. Is it possible for someone from that scenario to take a step back and move into a management position for the business, or should they stay as the high income earner and put someone else on to manage their business? 

Sherrie: Well, I think there's a number of things here. So number one, you could be a sales agent who becomes a selling principal, or you could be a property manager who ends up becoming a principal.

So we see the two of these things that are both aligned, but there's a point where you're sort of on the tools and often it's you who's driving the revenue. That you're bringing into the business that's then paying for everything else. So there comes a point where you say, Hey, listen, is this really making sense?

Because I'm doing all of this work and I'm doing it for the, you know, for the vision and for the future of the light at the end of the tunnel. But the reality is you could be staying working for somebody else. If you don't have a bigger vision and you don't have the right strategy in place to really get off the tools.

So. What does make sense is that you do need to have a team of people around you. So in terms of scaling up, you know, you do want to have different divisions within your business. So whether they be property management, whether they be sales, whether it be cleaning businesses, whether it literally be, you know, property maintenance businesses, you know, these are businesses that I literally have when I have my own role underneath my, my agencies, it could be strata.

There's so many different avenues that you can, Put into place, buyers agencies, project marketing, commercial divisions. There's lots of different things that you can do. So it's not like we just have to be, you know, tunnel-focused in this. So how I have built out a lot of, you know, my coaching clients businesses, exactly what worked for me.

And it's obviously worked for them because that's now how they've been able to go and have those, you know, overseas holidays, how they're able to work, you know, Three days a week or 20 hours per week. I've got one client who has got the number one office in their franchise. They work five hours per week and they've done that because they've been able to put all that into place.

They then have hired the right people into the executive leadership team. They then have got the right sort of accountability and consequences for those, you know, leaders into the CEO and into the business owner. 

Kristen: Yeah. And the, the principles I talk to, they honestly believe that the only way that they can be profitable if they're a selling principle is if they're selling.

And I just, like Sherrie just said, there are so many other ways to do it. Not having to be so chained to the business and whilst yes, if you're selling it on the tools, your revenue might be higher, at least for a little while, the truth is it actually really negatively impacts the value of your agency. If you're the main GCI writer,  but I suppose what we're trying to say is there is another way there is a way to get off the tools, having the right structure and processes in place.

And of course, having those right people in those right seats. 

Kate: So I'm going to throw a question out there. It might be, it might ruffle a few feathers and I haven't prepped you for this. So I apologize in advance. Is starting a business or running your own business the answer for everyone or are some people better off  high performing under someone else's business? 

Kristen: That's such a good question, Kate. And  it's, it's not a one size fits all. It is.  Not for everyone. One thing that does come to mind is, I mean, a lot of us business owners just assume everyone wants to be a business owner and that's just not the truth. Everyone's got different priorities. And something that I do with my team is we work out what are our non negotiables in life end up work. 

And for me, one of those things is actually be the master of my own destiny. So me working for someone else doesn't kind of fit  my non negotiables. And. A lot of people, like you said, Kate, they do kind of want to be the master of their own destiny, but they also don't want to have to deal with the branding and the marketing and the backend and all these things.

They just want to list and sell or be property managers. And  You've got to go with what works for you. And that's why all of these other different styles of networks, not just franchise groups are popping up, I think, to meet that need. Is that what you're seeing, Sherrie?  

Sherrie: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point meeting, meeting that need. 

I think when we have a look at, you know, that is the way that we have positioned in this industry. That is been kind of the room for growth or the direction for growth.  But I think what hasn't really been outlined is that if you are going to be a business owner, that you need to change your skill set.

And what got you here is not going to get you there. So, you know, if you're going to be a business owner, you need to get super skilled up on leadership skills. Because, you know, how you operated as a leader, agent, or certainly, you know, even running a, your own rep role, suddenly now you're dealing with a whole lot of personalities with different motivations.

And you know, you've got to understand that how you want to be managed is not necessarily the way that they want to be managed. Your job, you know, then needs to be to be. You have to be the visionary of the business. And so otherwise people are not going to want to come and join you. You know, they're going to feel very flat and people want to be surrounded by, you know, others that are sort of striving for something together.

We as humans, we love to kind of come at it together. I do think we also need to understand that they, we are running a business and it is for profit. It's not non for profit. So we do need to understand how to, you know, how to read a profit and loss statement. We do actually need to be skilled up on those things.

We need to be skilled up on operations. We need to be skilled up on legals. We need to be skilled up on all of these things. And so the best way to do that is to surround yourself with people who are better at this than yourself and to put them all together. So, but it does, it is a journey in terms of getting there.

And I mean, I still consider myself a student. I'm doing everything I possibly can to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, because you know, that is my job. It's to impart my knowledge. To everyone else for them to get as much as they possibly can off me and to move and to move on. But, you know, I think that's incredibly important.

Just like Kristen was talking about her non-negotiable, my values are wealth and freedom. So, you know, and not necessarily in that order. Freedom is very important to me. I want to have the choice to be able to say no to business, to business that I don't necessarily want. I want a by-product of that to be wealth.

I'm now a woman who's 46.  And so, you know, I'm really starting to think about the future and what those things really look like for me. So I want to make sure that, you know, I do have choices at different timelines in my life, and that needs to be powered by the wealth that I'm making today and making sure that the money that I make today is actually working for me.

It's not just necessarily money that's being put into the bank and that's it. 

Kate: A lot to think about there. And I think those questions. Whatever stage of the journey you're at, you can bring them to the masterclass and really unpack what does this look like for you? What are your skill sets? What do you need to learn and what do you need to hire for if you're not quite there? And how to identify the right track to fit you best. 

Our last question before we wrap up today I think it's, you know very well known that we can often get caught up in the day-to-day of putting out fires and just keeping the wheels turning off business, what are some of the areas that you both see that most business owners have blind spots in when it comes to growing their business? 

Sherrie: I think for me, the biggest one is just finding the opportunities in the current business. So the reality is that you already have a lot of people that you're doing business with. How can we exponentially increase that? So let's say we're looking at a rent roll. Let's have a look at those current landlords and seeing what other properties that they own and try and bring them in house.

If it's you know, viable in terms of location and geographics,  but then it's also about asking for repeat and referral business to really kind of moving out the networks and, and moving on from there. So I would think that that's, that's point number one, find those current opportunities in your business. 

So when it comes to finding the opportunities in your business, I think this is, you know, an untapped goldmine and one of the things that, you know, we, we very rarely ever do. So I think the first one is, you know, let's say that you, the market has changed and I had this exact example happen actually earlier this year with a business that I work with in WA and all of a sudden they just, there was no properties on the market in terms of sales.

Their rent roll was going crackerjack, but also, you know, the, the rental market was incredibly tight. So what we did was we had a look at, you know, at landlords and we were saying, okay, let's dig into your portfolio. So we were kind of going through and, you know, going, going and having a look at the landlord's properties.

We were saying, okay, well, what other properties do you have? Could we bring them on board with us? We were also saying, okay, well, who are you using at the moment in terms of referrals, in terms of insurance and connections and all of those other things. And we were also bringing that on board and getting a referral fee for that.

But we were also understanding what their property goals were and having a look at that bigger picture in terms of their wealth creation piece. And then, you know, if they had a lot of equity in the property, we were then going and talking to developers and getting that developer stock in terms of purchasing off the plan.

And it wasn't just necessarily in WA, I'm talking all over Australia, sexy spots like the Gold Coast and places where people want to purchase, that they can claim tax benefits to come and visit. And so it was selling and referring, you know, properties in other areas, and we're getting a commission for that.

So, I mean, that was extremely advent advantageous in terms of growing out there, their business and looking for opportunities, you know, just purely in that. So, you know, these are the things that are really moving the needle forward. When we're looking at what we can do to grow a business, it's not always about going and finding that new lead.

Sometimes it's about digging into what we currently have and also servicing those people, having those conversations with them, making them feel like they're important and that you care about what their needs are and what their longterm focus is.  

Kate: Yeah, and that example there is just really highlights the, the advantages and the difference of being that advisor versus someone who's property manager just taking a clip of the fees that come in because I would imagine that that's not something that happens quite often.

And so that customer experience and that growth creation journey with the client, not only is it. All that more rewarding and growing your business at the same time. And it's actually adding that real value to their lives as well. So if you can think about where can I add value to my customers lives or to, you know, my market, then that's a great place to start. 

Sherrie: And I think these are the things that were super important to Kristen and I, when we were looking at putting this masterclass together and  you know, it's. We've never seen it sort of done before. We think it's, we believe it's an industry first, where we're going to be coming together in this 90 minutes, literally breaking it kind of all down in terms of, you know, providing the solution for what growth is going to look like to expand, you know, to the expansion that's right for you in the right timing, but to make sure that it's really fast. 

Kristen: I totally agree because what generally happens is, and I am so guilty of this, when we think of growth, we think we need to find the next shiny thing. We go chasing shiny objects, instead of just getting back to those basics of, What is in my database? Can I sell more things to the same people or do I, yeah, do I need to diversify things like that?

Like really looking inside the business, you've got leads coming in. Is it you actually look at your conversion rates and really focus on that instead of just filling up the funnel more?  So I really do encourage and I'm kind of talking to myself at the same time, reminding myself of this is you don't necessarily have to go chasing the shiny new thing or finding, you know, the next quick win it is having that plan in place.

It's following the processes that you know, work and it's really just looking in the business going, what can I actually optimize because you'd be amazed at being able to just kind of optimize. With not actually having to do more work to become more profitable. 

Kate: I love it. It is very exciting. You have a masterclass on this coming up on the 4th of December. So that one's going to be online and it's going to cover agency structure, growth, and scale. And it is. It's free for everyone to join. 

Sherrie: Yeah, it's, it's free principles training. So, you know, we very rarely ever see this. It is a limited sort of space. So, listen, come and see us because we are super excited about this.

We've been working on it for the longest period of time. We're so excited that it's finally here. And, you know, it's going to be at 11 o'clock this afternoon. Queensland time, which you know, obviously is all over the place when it comes to different states and daylight savings now. So, check all the details, but we would really love to see you if you're ready to do something different in 2025.

If you know some of the, these things that we're talking about, make sense to you with your. Yeah. So frustrated with being chained to the business. If you're waking up in the middle of the night, sort of stressed, if you're thinking, Hey, listen, there must be a better way there absolutely is. And Kristen and I, uh, you know, certainly examples of that in our own businesses and also our, our coaching clients and, and Kristen's legal clients.

So we would love to see you there. 

Kate: Great. Thank you so much for joining us here today. And we really look forward to seeing some of the exciting things that come out of the new initiative.