Strategic insights with managing new business and leasing seamlessly
Feb 05, 2024
Ashleigh Goodchild
What an absolute joy it was to speak to Gabe Hagen, he brings such an authentic energy to the real estate game with such focus on his clients. He has unearthed a zeal for property management that's nothing short of infectious. He shares the trials and triumphs from his starting days, where the market's volatility was a relentless teacher, to stepping into Realmark Urban—a leap he likens to enrolment at the 'University of Real Estate'. His strategic focus on leasing and business development in today's dynamic property landscape is a masterclass for anyone riveted by the industry's ins and outs.
Our banter unfurls the complexities of leasing in property management, where the alchemy of matching tenants with the quintessential property manager unfolds. It's an intricate dance that demands finesse and insight—a confluence of personalities and expertise where directors play a pivotal role.
The spotlight turns to the intricate balancing act of a Business Development Manager in real estate. We stitch together tales of branding, the elegance of time management, and the necessity of being ever-present for clients. The intrigue of hybrid roles, marrying BDM and leasing consultant duties, emerges as a trend that is set to reshape the property management sphere. Gabe’s digital footprints on LinkedIn and Instagram serve as a beacon for the proactive, interconnected pulse of today's real estate mavens.
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www.thegroutguy.com.au
Inspection Express and Paperless Office is the leader in innovative, time saving property Inspection Software.
Business owners are building their rental portfolios faster than ever and Property Managers can’t possibly do it all!
Keep your property managers doing what they love and outsource the things they don’t to a company that thrives on positive feedback and guarantees a premium personalised service
What an absolute joy it was to speak to Gabe Hagen, he brings such an authentic energy to the real estate game with such focus on his clients. He has unearthed a zeal for property management that's nothing short of infectious. He shares the trials and triumphs from his starting days, where the market's volatility was a relentless teacher, to stepping into Realmark Urban—a leap he likens to enrolment at the 'University of Real Estate'. His strategic focus on leasing and business development in today's dynamic property landscape is a masterclass for anyone riveted by the industry's ins and outs.
Our banter unfurls the complexities of leasing in property management, where the alchemy of matching tenants with the quintessential property manager unfolds. It's an intricate dance that demands finesse and insight—a confluence of personalities and expertise where directors play a pivotal role.
The spotlight turns to the intricate balancing act of a Business Development Manager in real estate. We stitch together tales of branding, the elegance of time management, and the necessity of being ever-present for clients. The intrigue of hybrid roles, marrying BDM and leasing consultant duties, emerges as a trend that is set to reshape the property management sphere. Gabe’s digital footprints on LinkedIn and Instagram serve as a beacon for the proactive, interconnected pulse of today's real estate mavens.
The team at The Grout Guy are the leading experts in regrouting, waterproofing, and tiling services nationwide. Property managers find comfort in their 10-year waterproof warranty on all full shower regrouts. Visit thegroutguy.com.au to rejuvenate your properties tiles and grout now!
www.thegroutguy.com.au
Inspection Express and Paperless Office is the leader in innovative, time saving property Inspection Software.
Business owners are building their rental portfolios faster than ever and Property Managers can’t possibly do it all!
Keep your property managers doing what they love and outsource the things they don’t to a company that thrives on positive feedback and guarantees a premium personalised service
So today I am super excited to have a lovely young man join me. His name is Gabe Hagan and he is from Real Market Urban in Leadable in WA. Gabe, welcome.
Speaker 2:
Hey guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
I am excited to have you on for a few reasons Now we have met in person at. You said that Ari Barcat was when we got to. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:
I was at the market, at the pub, and it was like lots of it was a very interesting day right. Lots of breakout rooms and people talking about what they know they're good at, and you were speaking specifically about the leasing role and I knew that I needed to sort of get in your corner and pick your brain.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, and was that the? That was a couple of years ago now. Did you go to last year's one?
Speaker 1:
I didn't go to last year's one, that was, I believe, the previous one, and that was when I was also working in that Southern growth corridor region with a different agency and yeah, and it's coming back to me now because I remember you were so fresh a couple of years ago and, yeah, and I think you came up and introduced yourself to me, which was, which was really lovely. So I do remember that and I subsequently thought that you'd already been on a podcast, which you hadn't, but I think it's probably because I see you quite a bit on socials. You're really good at that and making good impact there. So I am excited to find out a little bit more about what you up to. So can you just share with everyone your just where you were before getting into real estate, how long you've been in real estate and sort of what you've been up to in your current position?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so, bigger picture wise, I moved to Perth in 2015 and I had moved here from the UK with my family and my dad was positioned out here, so we sort of packed up shop and arrived here and it all felt very refreshing, new to me, and I had actually previously lived here when I was younger, in primary school, and in those 10 years between being here and coming back I had sort of seen how much the city has changed and I really felt, like you know, perth as a growth aspect in terms of just living, housing, quality of life. It's definitely going to be one of the places to be over my lifetime looking forward. So those were always the inklings of something that I enjoyed seeing. And then it was sort of finding something that aligned with that to step into professionally. And after high school I went to university in UWA in Crawley and I did a very broad commerce degree and I was never good at crunching numbers I could never do the accounting or the finance, but I love the soft skills, I love the people, the management, the engaging with stakeholders and those broad ideas sort of pushed me into having a keen interest in real estate. And then that also coincided with COVID and I think those timings and then seeing the market changing drastically underneath me, it sort of propelled me into this real estate mindset. And you know, there's always that two sides of the coin between sales and property management and I just found that my interest laid and my passion was there in property management. And you know, from there I stepped into a Ray White careers night without any clue of what to do and Mark Whiteman was there and Vivian Yap was the guest speaker and that sort of propelled me into what opportunities were in front of me.
Speaker 2:
And throughout that entire sort of landscape and timeline there was always the need for property managers and you know people who wanted to get a job done and work hard and have sort of a keen focus on our rental properties in general. And that sort of took me to starting at Ray White and I think there I did sort of apprenticeship of real estate. I really did see the whole facet of the real estate ecosystem, as I call it, because everyone's so interconnected, everything's so cyclical. Your clients from 10 years ago might want to lease out their property now, and if you can keep it within the same family and I know that's something your agency does really well then, you know, you have that extreme pipeline and strong business and that sort of led me into there and I had 18 months of really fast moving market dynamics under my belt and this was sort of post COVID, when rents had started to reach their peak again.
Speaker 2:
There was so much uncertainty, there was such low supply and then there were so many tenants coming to me asking for solutions and I was in a role where I could perhaps present opportunities. And that's where I had been for the past 18 months and really working alongside a strong BDM who was sort of a longstanding professional in the industry, and then also having an amazing team of really strong women who are property managers around me. That was sort of my trial by fire, because they were so good at what they did, they were so compliant, they had such good processes that it sort of made me step my game up and be in line with them and making sure that we're doing things right. And then from there, within the last it was six months ago actually I had joined RealMark Urban and we were in Lederville, and that was just out of what John Pergodoni, the founder of RealMark, said to me in my interview was that you're sort of graduating from your apprenticeship and you're stepping into the University of Real Estate and that sounds all good.
Speaker 2:
But it is definitely more broad understanding of what Perth has to offer and that sort of aligned with when I moved back here that desire to just wanting to know what's going on in our city, how are people living, what's the opportunities available. And now I'm sort of a leasing manager in business development and we're outing new business, as I'm sure you are, and yeah, the market doesn't seem to be slowing down. So that's me.
Speaker 1:
Wow. So it's super refreshing to hear someone who has actually chosen property management as a career path, because I don't think that anyone on my podcast has come on saying that that was their intention. It's always, you know, by accident. I fell into it. All of that that is super refreshing. But also your intellect in regards to, and love for, the actual like, the industry and how and the and that's really coming from your uni days, I think. But the whole cycle of real estate and the economy and all of that is actually really, really cool and a really cool interest, and that's going to take you very far with a lot of options in the real estate industry as well, moving forward. So I mean I can actually, if I was going to have a crystal ball, I'm going to tell you that at some stage you're going to be back at uni and I reckon you'll be back doing a valuation course.
Speaker 1:
That's where I see it going because that's you know, that's where all those stats and come in, come in. So that would be a very interesting field for you to get into one day. Now the talk to me about the BDM. To Lisa. I'm going to ask you a couple of hard questions, but I reckon that they're good to help other people in the same position answer. So my first question is because you haven't actually worked as a property manager, how do you find that that affects your role? Just what are the advantages of not having that property management experience and being a leasing consultant and BDM? Question?
Speaker 2:
And I think one just to heart. Back on one point you said you know, coming from the uni days and that cyclical thing, I think it also comes from Perth specifically, sort of. We have this strong knowledge sharing basis that extends beyond the agency walls and it was like when I came into our bar camp and you were sharing all of your secrets and it's not as if you were holding them for yourself and there wasn't enough business to go around it. It really is, you know, everyone's sort of engaging. I'm not sure if that's a Perth's thing or if it's just you know the community we have locally, but that was something that I had noted.
Speaker 2:
But yes, in terms of the leasing, I like to say to our investors and this is something I believe, when I'm sort of engaging a new client and speaking about the spectrum of our service, I like to say that we have sort of a tailored service and we have experts in each sort of corner of the full spectrum service and throughout the entire process of your sort of property management timeline, you're going to have an expert in your corner the entire way through and often we're working together and I like to sort of personify the fact that you know I have the leasing expertise and the preparation of the property, taking it to market, and that coincides with securing a good tenant, which then allows the property manager, who's even more so an expert in terms of their experience, their knowledge, their understanding how they deal with their clients, and then that will translate into a smooth transition into their high-level service. And then, on top of that, we have our directors and our business owners as well, who are sort of overseeing that entire ecosystem. And I like to tell people, you know, you could have one person that does everything, or you can have three people with 300% more experience, hands-on approach and, you know, just the ability to be communicative and be in their pocket if they ever need a call or a text. And that's what I like to say to them as well. And I did start an assistant property management role, so I've got about 50 to 100 PCRs under my belt, so I definitely have a bit of expertise in terms of you know, I am aligned with them in their understanding of the service.
Speaker 2:
But realistically, at the end of the day, I think the most important thing is when I'm engaging a client or I'm speaking about how well we can do for them. It's the fact that I know the service that I'm explaining is one in which we can actually follow through and provide, and, I think, without having those people who I know to be experts and who actually teach me things on a daily basis, it wouldn't allow me to, you know, say the things I'm saying and believe them. And I think that is the critical factor and you know, that's just come from the last six months of them holding me accountable, them keeping me in line with their sort of practices and processes, and for them to, you know, constantly tell me if I'm doing something wrong on the bad way, but I just tell them, you know, constantly give me the feedback. We're learning, we're aligning our processes and you guys are the experts. So whatever you say goes and we can, you know, work together for the better, and I hope that makes sense, but I think that's what I believe definitely.
Speaker 1:
The answer that you gave, that you'd give to a client, is perfect and I would sign up there and there. I think that that's a really good script for people to use if they need to and if you're in that same position. So I that brings us to the situation which I briefly mentioned to you before, where we talk about and it's not. It's not that I think there's hierarchies in property management, but I think that some people, probably maybe the older generation, would think that you start off in real estate, in leasing, and then you go to property management and then you go to BDM and then I don't know what you do after BDM. You probably go to partner manager or something like that, and we've got all these layers of how to progress in the career. But I, with how you actually scripted what you just said, it actually really brings into what I call horizontal management of a property. There's no vertical management. So really, like you said, there's just experts in the field and the.
Speaker 1:
I still strongly believe that a leasing consultant is actually probably the most important role Because you have a good tenant in your property. It's actually really easy for a property manager to look good, like you're really making their job look a lot easier and making them stand out to the client. Put a you know a crap person in will, then the property manager is really going to have to show how great they are by handling the situation. One thing that it's curious for me, and it's only because I don't have a leasing consultant. However, down the track I think it's something that I would like to do, but the reason why we don't is because the property managers are a bit controlling with who they put into the property. So can you talk to me about what it actually looks like, what the client experience looks like when they come through you? So like it just when it comes to new management advertising, you know home opens applications. Can you just go through that pipeline for me?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. Essentially, we'll engage them, perhaps it's through a referral or something of that nature, and then we will give them sort of our preliminary information, of course, and then from the time the management authority is signed and then to the point where perhaps the property settles, or at least we're doing our sort of pre leasing compliance check, making sure that all the things we can do to reduce those days vacant are, you know, maximized. And then I like to say, from there it's you know you have me in your corner from the inception of the management agreement until the lease is signed and beyond that. But I'm working on, you know, maximizing your returns in that period. And then I personally, it's been a teething process, not in a bad way, but it's more.
Speaker 2:
Just over the last six months I've really been focusing on learning the personality traits of my personal property managers, because you know, once you know who a person is, you know what makes them steam out of their ears, you know what makes them smile, it's so easy to put people that are aligned with them. And I think as well that the market, with the volume of applicants we're getting it, actually permits to have that choice and to have that mindfulness, as opposed to. You know, if you're only getting one or two applications, you obviously have to do what you've got to do. But now, since the market permits, it really has been over the last six months sort of aligning my personal traits with those people and then making sure that the information that translates on the paper is aligned with them, and then having those conversations where there's only so much information you can put on a piece of paper in an application. There's so much more in terms of that personal engagement at the home open. That is of paramount importance and I think one of the most important tasks I've focused on as well in my leasing is introducing that human touch back into the market, because there is no element of personalization in the leasing right now.
Speaker 2:
Everything's done online. You can view, you can apply for a home. You don't even need to speak to an agent. You literally click a button and it puts the information in front of them. No one gets their time to have their questions answered and all they need to do is just get the right information once and then, I think, supporting the applicant and then aligning it with the property manager. That's just going to push forward, like you said, into making the property manager look smooth into having the easiest deal moving forward.
Speaker 2:
And then I found as well you know I am an empathetic person, I'm extremely a people pleasing person and that just comes from a client facing role and setting realistic expectations with the owner as well as the applicant just being like this is how the property will come to you. This is when you can move in. These are the dates we can't negotiate on. Once you align the non negotiables, you have those sort of personal traits, you have that human aspect and realistically, there's no reason that you should be perhaps putting a tendon in there that isn't fully vetted and you have that sort of relationship from the get go and you know from a client perspective that looks like.
Speaker 2:
I like to say that I can lease your property within seven to 14 days generally and I'll do my inspections within the first seven days. Then we'll do our application process as well as our compliance for the home. We want to just make sure people can step into the home, the powers on, it's clean, it's beautiful, it feels like home and I think having that as well from a tenant satisfaction perspective, if they go into the home and they're happy, they're not going to be buzzing you for random things that might be unnecessary or non urgent in a property manager sense, and I think all of those human aspects, aligning those and then translate into Mr and Mrs, dear owner, being like, wow, thank you for achieving these results in the timeline you've achieved. It all looks very sort of set out on paper but there's so much human aspect behind the scenes and I think that's where we're going. That's the majority of my role in terms of the leasing and, yeah, that was sort of a very broad picture.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and so you're advertising the property, you're doing any viewings, home opens, application processing, contacting the owner with the choice of applications, getting that approval, I'm assuming setting it up and then getting their lease signed, getting all of that done.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. The property managers like to do their leases and that's simply an administrative duty and that's something we've sort of worked out in our flow chart of how everything looks. But you're absolutely right, I'm going to field their application, I'm the one summarizing it and then I'm the one calling their references as well, so everything is really in my hands. And then it sort of has that streamlined correspondence to the property manager, like here's all the information. It was returned positively.
Speaker 2:
Hopefully this translates into XYZ and then from there, once they're in the property, the lease is signed, the payments receded. That's when they've already had the correspondence with their property manager. But then they have their entire sort of new tenancy handbook and problem troubleshooting, for example, and who to call in certain instances. And then I also like that even after they move in and they have full correspondence with their property manager, they still have my number in their phone and if they don't have correspondence from the property manager, they can just flip me a text and maybe I can just put something across their desk or I can have another call in the conversation. And again, it's just twice as much support for tenants as well as the owners.
Speaker 1:
Oh, totally, because if there's a one thing that I've really noticed is that if there's ever a problem in property management, whether as owners or tenants, if when they let's just say they're upset about something and they can't get hold of anyone as long as they can get hold of a second person, then you can like, nine times out of ten you can sort it out. It's when they can't get hold of anybody that start escalating and and is a problem. So I find that it's not generally the problem. That's a problem, it's how quickly they you can have it solved. It's someone, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. Yeah, no, I'm sure you have lots of experience with that, but we try to, you know, put as much resources and information where they can be self sustaining and I'm not sure what sort of like maintenance app you're using or something but there's a lot of power in their phone to lodge their requests and sort of follow steps in their own hands, and that sort of takes a lot of correspondence out of the property manager.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, we're using TAPI for our maintenance. I don't know if you guys are using that or not.
Speaker 2:
No, we're, we're using. We use property, tree and bricks and agent and I think they came and did a rollout throughout Perth over the last 18 months. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, TAPI did yeah. So it's the tenants feel like they get heard straight away, so that sort of works quite good. But for me it's all about management reports to make sure that I can oversee things quite easily Like this week I've got someone off on leave so I can easily check her maintenance and see that it's all up to date and it's not a problem. So it's yeah, it's a good system. See, In regards to the BDM versus the leasing role, do you find it hard to be strict, or are you even strict with your time and how to divide that time, Because I can imagine the leasing side is going to be really overwhelming at the moment. So I'd be interested to see how you separate that. But also, is there I think you've got other BDMs in your office as well?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so, you know our Associate Director Emma.
Speaker 1:
Emma, yes, I thought that was her, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So she's our full-time business.
Speaker 2:
She's the Associate Director of Property Management and she's fully focused on business development management as well, and so I would essentially be her Associate and I work alongside her to capture those new management.
Speaker 2:
But she is fully dedicated to capturing those alongside whatever sort of organic business I bring in as well. And this role specifically is something that sort of was born out of this fast-paced moving market within the last six months and the previous role with the previous leasing agent. He was solely focused on just leasing the properties and sort of engaging with the tenants, and now out of my own sort of desire to engage new business as well, as I think the necessity is there because there's so many leads and inquiries coming in it's just being able to respond timely and capture the business and respond with something that's actually of value to these people. And so, yeah, we do have Emma. Of course and that was perhaps one of the biggest reasons I joined Real Mark Urban was to work underneath her, because I'm just hungry for knowledge and as much food I can take off her plate is gold to me. So very lucky to be in the position I am.
Speaker 1:
And you might also then have the opportunity to be on the back of a bus, like Emma.
Speaker 2:
There you go exactly. No, maybe a bus bench. In the interim I need to work up to a 20-seater bus like that.
Speaker 1:
But then we got Emma. If you're listening, we want a bus seat for Gabe.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, I'm talking about her getting me at a Wembley golf course because I'm over there, but on the driving range.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, there you go. That's a great idea. I'm actually. I go there as well to the driving range, and there is Real Mark signs there. But is that your office or another office?
Speaker 2:
Yes, that's our office and they actually did some rebandering over Christmas and you can actually hit your golf ball into Emma's face at the 100 meter mark Exactly. Yeah, it's good, it's good for me. I can go there after hard days at work and just smash some. But no, we're lucky to have really good branding and, yeah, you can't miss Emma, which is it's one of the most important things right, Sort of getting your foot in the door and then it's sort of how good you are at what you do. That would capture the business. But yeah, I'll work on that. Thanks for that.
Speaker 1:
So okay. So with the duties in for BDM, are you disciplined with like what you do each week to work towards that BDM? Is that how you're managing it?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. It was quite an arduous process finding that balance between I'm going to use return on investment, but it's not specifically monetary, it's time, effort, processes and the leasing. I would say it takes up 80 to 90% of your time, but the return on investment is perhaps half or a quarter of what engaging a new client would be. So I found you know the phone is going to ring and tenants are going to be calling you inquiring about properties nonstop, all day. And with the direction of Emma because she said she had gone through this same thing when she first started she's like you need to find time to dedicate to specific tasks and give yourself the ability to miss a phone call in the mindfulness that you will call them back in another specific time. And then I could really start to allocate my leasing tasks and my BDM tasks, because I'm of paramount importance to me as the leasing tasks because I have a team of 10 property managers behind me that require me to do my job in a timely manner, and for me, not letting them down is perhaps the biggest role. And then from there, I'm also lucky that I get time to work from home on Monday, and this was born out of that structure. So essentially I'll show my homes the majority of the weekend and then I'll do my application reviews solely on Monday. And these are the days when I can afford to miss a phone call, as long as I have the information in the property manager's hands at the start of the week and that allows them to do their business throughout the course of the week and then perhaps gives me more time at the tail end of the week to capture new business.
Speaker 2:
But on a daily basis I come in, I allocate two hours to application review, first thing in the morning before the phone start ringing and people start inquiring, and then from there I'm sort of following up any pre leasing steps with new owners in the lead up until lunchtime and then from there I'm sending out appraisals for our referral partners, I'm setting up meetings to engage clients for new business, and then I will schedule those all on a day accordingly.
Speaker 2:
And you know, realistically I'm scheduled to work 830 to five, but I feel like I extend my reach beyond those times. And I know you do the same. You always talk about how you're driving your kids to adventure world, but you got your client on the phone, for example, and that's one of the things of BDM, so scheduling meetings in the evening, and from there I like to just have all of our referral partners, our agents, knowing that we're sort of in touch with their clients and no leads are being left unturned. And then that sort of translates into my afternoons where I'm doing external appointments, maybe meeting owners are showing properties and things of that nature, and then there's 100 other tasks that sort of slot themselves in between there. But in terms of my structure and allowing myself specific time, that's what it looks like to me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well, it sounds very well organized. I mean, I will share a secret I'm not that organized in my role and it's good. I mean, like, while you've got that leasing role and then the new management mine you know it might be the new management and then the actual looking after the staff, for example. So I find that that's something that does need to be tweaked a lot. But for me, my best organ, like what makes me feel more organized, is when my social media is up to date, which I know is not a priority for a lot of people, but it's a pro. I feel uneasy if I have not got that. Yeah, that's something scheduled. So for me I just make sure I do it first thing in the morning and I do have some scheduling in as well on the off chance that I forget. But a lot of my stuff's actually more ad hoc. But what I was saying, I was actually saying to my partner the other day that what I think people get wrong this is not property management, this is just in life in general is that? And I say this because I've got teenage children so I can see how they're going to grow up? But it's like you need to sometimes do hard things now, and when I say hard, I mean, you know, work your ass off now so that you can have an easier life and easier career, which is sort of what you're doing prepping yourself to, you know, to be successful in that area. But a lot of people are taking the easy road now and that's going to make their future harder. And so that's what it came.
Speaker 1:
Because I was on Saturday, it was four o'clock and I was out at a random hotel in North Bridge in the foyer meeting a bias agent that had come over from Sydney for 24 hours. Now in my mind I was like really, really do not feel like being here, like I've got so many other things I could be doing. My kids were at home, like that was just not an idea of a fun activity for the weekend. But a lot of people would say absolutely not, I don't make appointments on the weekend or I don't do this, don't do that.
Speaker 1:
But the thing is, is that, by me, doing that appointment actually turned out to be a very, very good appointment, with a lot of contacts and he's connected with a lot of people. That's actually going to pay off for me. But I had to, you know, do something that I didn't really want to do to you know, for a future. So I guess my point is that you know we, there's a lot of people that don't have that same mentality, and I it's. I love, love hearing you talk because you're younger but you still have that real hard work mentality which I feel like it's dying a little bit, like I don't know about your mates, what they're like, or whether you're all just the same and you're, you know, surround yourself with, you know the same mentality.
Speaker 1:
But, I don't know. There's people out there that are just like trying to cruise through life and it's like no, don't cruise through life because your pitch is going to be too hard.
Speaker 2:
No, I completely understand that. That's exactly no. Thank you for that as well, and it's definitely one. I think I have good mates around me. I'm lucky. I've I've realized that over the weekend we had sort of 30 guys all playing in a golf tournament together and I was just looking at all of them.
Speaker 2:
I'm like no, no all of you have your head screwed on straight. You've got a good job Like you have sort of some mindfulness to look forward in your life, and that's you know. To hear you say that as well, it's a nice reaffirmation of that. But I think that specific idea pertains to that thought of people sort of downgrading, leasing and BDM as well, because they don't see the long term picture. They don't see the fact that you know I'm engaging with 10 X clients that a sales rep would engage with right now. I have 10 X the stakeholders in front of me, 100 times the information, and I'm leasing from Mindari to Baldaivis, so I'm seeing the full spectrum of our real estate. And those are the things that were very sort of essential to me in this role.
Speaker 2:
But exactly, I think having the mindfulness and the biggest issue right now, I think everyone just wants to make money and not put the work in, and that's perhaps is like the overall employment market right now Everyone's like I'm going to have a go at what I'm passionate about. If that falls through, I'll go to the mines and I'll make a hundred thousand dollars sort of forgoing half of my life, on a yearly basis. And you know, I think people again that return on investment. Like I know I could make more money doing XYZ. But the investment in the non tangible assets are what I have told myself, that exact sentence over the last three years, to justify the fact that you know the money will come.
Speaker 2:
The experience is invaluable. How much can I receive that doesn't have a monetary value but has extreme value to me? Outside of that and that's exactly what I said when I first started the industry in property management when you're getting an assistant property managers role between 45 and $55,000 for a year and you know to rough it out, to be in those situations where you're a problem solver on a daily basis and perhaps you're not getting that bonus in your pocket that Mr Agent over there is getting, you really have to have those sort of intangible assets that can justify what you're doing. Because, yeah, it's not easy to be a property manager and I think a lot of people. Yeah, like I said, it's just that work versus the financial reward.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I like what you said about the 10 times like impact on people's and that's like I guess from a BDM point of view, the plan is to make an impact on as many people as possible for future. You know business and, to be honest, like like you said, you're having an impact on so many more people being in the leasing role that that absolutely is going to have a role and effect with all those people having such a great experience with you. And then when they've got friends or talking about at a party, it's like, oh, listen, why you keep capable, so helpful, when leasing out, because that is what all landlords want is someone who's going to lease their property well. So it's like the perfect combo but we just don't see it enough in person I assume over East as well that combo of BDM and leasing. So I want everyone to I hope everyone enjoyed this listen and take that away that if you maybe don't have a BDM or maybe you don't even have a leasing consultant having a little bit of a hybrid role in there, it's like it's a little bit of the role to help the property managers, a little bit of the role to help their business. It might be a really good combination to watch out for, and I think we're going to see more of those combos moving forward as well.
Speaker 1:
Dave, you're an absolute pleasure to talk to. It's so lovely to connect with you and I really I'm sure at some stage in your career we will be in touch again and I will have you involved with PM Collective somehow at an event. I can already sort of picture it, because I think it's a wonderful, wonderful future and and a really wonderful mindset in regards to real estate and property management itself. So thank you for joining me and and thank you for sharing your experience, and if anyone wants to connect with Gabe, he is over LinkedIn. Sorry, instagram is probably your favorite, isn't it?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm trying to work on both, but you can find me, Gabe Hagan Perth property search it in LinkedIn or Instagram and you'll see me there. And yeah, I just want to say thank you, Ash. Thanks for giving, you know, our industry a platform. We definitely need more people like you, although it's highly unlikely, but you know, keep doing what you're doing and we appreciate you, Thank you, thank you, thank you.