This wasn't meant to be a Property Me podcast! with Simone Fogarty

Are you working in a business where they are not that keen on getting more technology? Simone Fogarty is an award winning Director and Senior Property Manager at One Agency, Orange. Recently awarded Property Manager of the Year at the REI Awards, Simone shares her remarkable 17-year journey from receptionist to esteemed business owner. 

This episode was meant to be about creating efficiencies and processes within your office when you are not able to advance with technology. How can you make the most out of your trust software?? Turned out to be a discussion on how you can maximise your Property Me Subscription, which is totally fine!

Learn about the integration of essential tools like PropertyMe, AgentBox, and TAPI, which streamline everything from maintenance tracking to communication. Whether you’re part of an agency with advanced tech or one that’s still catching up, Simone offers practical tips to maintain efficiency and effectively manage tasks. She also emphasizes the importance of having a well-structured team, including trainees and virtual assistants, to tackle backend tasks and social media.

Simone provides actionable insights that can simplify your day-to-day operations. By leveraging email tracking, centralized inboxes, and task management within PropertyMe, you’ll gain valuable advice on reducing stress and improving overall efficiency in property management. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Welcome to today's episode and I'm really, really excited to introduce Simone Fogarty, who is the Director and Senior Property Manager at One Agency, orange. Simone, welcome.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Thank you so much, Ashley, for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Now I am having a quick little look at your email signature as we speak and there are a lot of awards at the very bottom. So first up, congratulations. But congratulations for the most recent one that you did win at the REI Awards. Was that Property Manager of the Year? Yes, it was. Congratulations, that's wonderful.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Oh, thank you, that was a big shock, that one. I mean, always when you put in for these things, there's just such was a big shock, that one. I mean. You know, always when you put in for these things, there's just such an amazing amount of talent that you're going up against. So to take that one out is definitely probably a highlight to my career so far. So, and it's, I think it's good doing those sorts of things because it gets you to reflect on what you've done, where you've been, what you've implemented, and then sort of helps you to plan future movement as well, so that you can keep growing in your career.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Yeah, I did a podcast with Tamika Smith a few weeks ago and we were talking about the awards and she said the exact same thing. She said it's a really good opportunity to reflect on what you've been doing in the business. And I think that if you are not someone that naturally applies for awards, if you were to actually have a look at the criteria and the questions they ask, it is a very good opportunity and I'm not someone who applies for awards, but I did last year. But it's funny how it's changed my mind now that I know what those questions are. And then, when I'm in my day-to-day work you know work life I'm actually thinking about oh, that would be something that would be beneficial, you know, on the application, and it actually gets me thinking a little bit more. So I think that I'll do more. But yeah, you've done very, very well, so you should be very, very proud.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Thank you very well, so you should be very, very proud. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it wasn't until, yeah, probably two years ago that I did, because I had never thought that I was anything different. I guess you could say so it's, yeah, it's, it's a nice moment, nice feeling.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Yeah, excellent, that's great. Now for those that don't know you, can you just shed or give us a little bit more information sort of about where you are now where you were before in business, and just a little bit more information sort of about where you are now where you were before in business and just a little bit more about yourself.

Speaker 2: 2:49

Yeah, sure. So I started in real estate coming under 17 years ago, which is seems crazy that I've been doing it for that long. I started because I wanted a nine to five job, which again I look back and think well, I had no idea what I was getting into. But I was very fortunate with where I started working. My boss was just super helpful and taught me everything that she knew. So I started out at reception and worked my way up to property officer, property manager.

Speaker 2: 3:20

So I'd worked for some variety of different companies, whether that be sort of small family businesses, and then worked at an office where it was sort of more of a hybrid role, where we used more technology and didn't actually focus on being in the office. And then, when it came time, when I thought enough, you know, I'm wanting to start my own business, I could sort of draw on that experience and go. You know, to start with I don't have to have, you know, the office. I can be a bit more hybrid because as agents we're always out of the office doing appointments. Anyway, that's most of our day spent in our car.

Speaker 2: 3:54

So I was originally from Sydney. We moved up to Orange about seven years ago and I brought my business with me. It was Unique Property Group and then around three years ago I was approached by Ash Brown to join forces and join and like merge with one agency and, yeah, since then it's sort of been a whirlwind. Everything's just sort of taken off and I've felt that I've had more confidence and really wanting to try and make a change in the industry and help the next lot of property managers coming through, because I think there's a lot more stuff around sales when you're trying to develop your skills and not quite as much with property management. There's definitely more happening in the last couple of years so I'm just really excited to see where all that goes and try to get involved with the industry as much as I can to help the next people grow, and that sort of helps push me as well.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Okay, so at the moment, do you have sales as well in your business, or just property management?

Speaker 2: 4:54

We do, yes, so I do. I dabble in a bit of sales as well, mainly when rentals become up for sale, just because I've got that rapport with the tenants and the owners and I like to mix things up a little bit and I like to keep busy.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Do you think that you'll one day go into sales like 100%, or not really?

Speaker 2: 5:13

No, I don't think so. I like just having it there as like a bit of a sideline. Property management is my love and my passion, but I love the constant challenges, even though some days can be stretched to the brink, as I'm sure you could understand but I just like the more interaction and the longer term relationship. Sales is very turn over and like a faster transaction. You're only dealing with that person from listing to selling, whereas the property management side, like you know, you know you can look after clients for years and years and you get to know them personally and you know we've had tenants that have been in one property. We move on to another. So I find those long lasting relationships is really rewarding, yeah fantastic.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So your office at the moment to give us an idea like how many are in your team?

Speaker 2: 6:04

So we've got three in the property management team. So I've got myself, I've got my trainee, amy, that started in December, who is doing amazing, and I've also got a VA who helps with sort of back end and paperwork side of things.

Speaker 1: 6:18

Yeah, great, and so I know I'm asking lots of questions, but I'm asking them because people that of liked, people that are in the same position as you, will really resonate with it. So, did you have you always had the VA, or have you like, is it the chicken or the egg? Did the VA come first or did the trainee come?

Speaker 2: 6:38

first. No, so I've always had someone sort of underneath me physically in the office, the VA. We put her on about probably 18 months ago because we were just needing some help with that sort of mundane stuff behind the scenes, um, just to help out a little bit, just because we grew the portfolio, um like quite a lot over like a 12 month period. So, um, it was just to sort of help free me up a little bit and just help out around with a few tasks and social media posting and that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Yeah, excellent. And then, if we can talk about the technology that you currently use and the software that you use, you are on PropertyMe, yes yeah, the software that you use.

Speaker 2: 7:25

You are on PropertyMe. Yes, yeah, so we use PropertyMe for all our listings and CRM. We're using AgentBox Applications we use to apply. We also have Tarpi in place and flick it over for all of our leases and agreements and other tenancy notices yeah, if you had a favourite, which one would you pick?

Speaker 2: 7:46

Oh, that's hard, depending on the day. I really love TAPI just because repairs is one of those things that really can be quite hard to track. So prior to that we were using just everything through PropertyMate and I've just found that you know, we were having to copy across, you know, communication from owner, from the tenant, and log all of that against the job With Tafi, because we can, you know, owners and tenants can message direct. It just tracks it all and it's nice and beautifully logged and then if there's any issues, you've always got that to fall back on rather than having to go through you know, find separate emails or who sent that or which owner was it, especially if there's different parties involved. So I just find it's yeah, it's really nice and easy to keep track and actually makes repairs kind of fun again, because it's sort of one of those things that can get snowball out of control if it's not kept up to date and things are actioned within reasonable time frames to keep in line with legislation yeah, excellent, yeah, I would say.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I mean and this to everyone, listening is not a tappy episode. I'm just going to bring it up again, though, because we're going to go into what to do if you don't have these technologies. But, um, I would say that, yeah, for us it definitely makes maintenance fun again. But I have definitely found using TAPI that it's reduced the back and forth, so the owners and tenants like. Tenants feel like they're heard straight away. Owners feel like they're getting a thorough information log of what's going on, so they're very quick to make decisions. I love that you can plan jobs later. If you've got a tenant, that's like just bombarding you with maintenance and it's like this doesn't need to be done straight away. We're going to leave that for a couple of months. I love how you can plan for that later without losing that in the system. So it's definitely a time saver.

Speaker 1: 9:37

But in my discussions that I have with property managers when I have our coffee conversations, is that there are some business owners where they don't provide enough technology and they are not advancing in that space, and so sometimes it's to do with cost. Sometimes it's just to do with the business owner having lack of education or not feeling the need to implement everything. I see, and while I totally accept that we do have a little bit of prop tech fatigue, there are still some very selective good ones that are very beneficial in the business, and I think that when I'm making decisions on tech in the business, I am making sure that not only is it improving the property manager's workload, but it's actually a benefit to the client as well. So for me, it's sort of got to hit both, and Tappy is a classic example of one that is better for the client, better for the property manager. So what I wanted to chat with you today and we haven't actually even spoken about it, so this is going to be just really a general conversation and brainstorming session that I have property managers that come up to me and say, like Ash, my business owner won't pay for that or we can't get that in our office, and so I want to talk about what those property managers could do if they are in a business which lacks technology but and also has a business owner that is not willing to advance in that there has to be something where that a property manager can take responsibility.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Um of now, I know people listening going to say we'll just move agency. So absolutely, that's, you know, an option. But there's some people that are really, um, you know, really happy, so let's, let's talk about that space for a little minute. So we all have um like a trust software. So, whether it's property me, property tree or console cloud probably are the three main ones um, you and I know property me, so we're going to probably talk about that a little bit more. Yeah, talk to me. Like, what are your thoughts on it? Like, what do you find with other property managers who don't have access to this technology but have got PropertyMe? What techniques could they implement that are going to help them still stay efficient and create better processes?

Speaker 2: 12:28

Yeah, sure, see, I was using PropertyMe for a long time without having the other bolt-on services. So, um, when, even now we're using Inspection Express, so prior to like, rewind the clock, um, we were using PropertyMe for absolutely everything. So, for you know, all of our inspections, all of our repairs. So I think you just need to be utilising the systems that you have in place for as long as you can, because a lot of people, I don't think, utilise property as much as you can or as beneficial as you can. So, even if we were doing jobs, for example, rather than just filing those information or owner, owner approval, we would file them under the job itself. So then that way, if you ever had to go back through and find it, you could just look up that job rather than going into the. You know, save it under the, the owner, for example, and you've got all of that other information, the statements, statements, every other communication. Trying to find that particular correspondence could be really difficult. So I think, trying to really, you know, maximize what you have to start with and then, so that you've got all of that sort of behind and also look into, maybe you know how much time certain things is taking you. So if you're spending X amount of time on repairs and it's being a bit clunky, if you can go to your you know the director or your boss and say, well, look, I'm spending X amount of time on our you know just our repairs, you know, could we maybe look at implementing you know systems such as TAPI it does da-da-da-da-da-da and actually have more information, rather than just going to them and saying, oh hey, can we get this? You know, I think you need to really give a bit of substance behind it, especially if you know a lot of directors that are out there are more self-focused and don't have as much understanding in regards to property management and you know how time you know time consuming some things can be and give examples of oh hey, I was chatting with this property manager. They've just implemented TAPI. They think it's saving around X amount of hours per week, or they stopped a situation getting out of hand or where an owner or tenant could have been liable for something because it was all documented so well.

Speaker 2: 14:54

So I think it's more around, like you say, re-education. It's good, and there are lots of other technologies out there that even I'm probably not aware of, but I'm always trying to sort of keep my finger out there and look into ways of you know, firstly, is it going to benefit me and save me time? And secondly, like you said, is it going to benefit our clients? Because, at the end of the day, that's who we work for our tenants and owners. We're the meat in the sandwich, we're the lucky ones and it has to benefit them.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Because if you're looking at changing or adding a process, if that's going to overcomplicate things or make it more difficult for them to do something they're already doing, then I think you need to really look at that and go well, is this really the best system to put in place? Because anything you look at changing, I think the good saying is you know, if it's not broken, don't fix it. It has to have a benefit and people need to see that benefit quite easily for them to implement it as well and to take it up.

Speaker 1: 15:58

Yeah, well, let's stay on the maintenance, because I like that idea that you said about, yeah, if you have got emails of approvals or whatever it is from the owner or instructions. So what Simone was saying is that you would just go to the actual job for the property and under the comments, like on the right, and actually just log that information. So it's all logged with the job, which is a great idea, because I don't think I was doing that before Tappy, so that's an excellent tip. The other thing I was just going to mention, with what you said about documenting your time, is having a look, as you said, at what's taking up the most time, and maintenance is definitely one of those things that takes up quite a big chunk.

Speaker 1: 16:41

We had an agency that had 1,000 properties. They had a full-time, actually manager. Oh, do you know what? Maybe they had 2 000 properties. I probably should say 2 000, 2 000 properties, but I had a full-time maintenance person, so 40 hours a week doing 2 000. And then let me get my calculator because they, when they implemented tappy, they were able to get rid of not when I said get rid of, they just moved the lady. Yeah, another position, I'm into property manager but, um, they actually no longer needed a full-time maintenance person. So if we look at that 2,000 properties, for example, and divide it by 40, divide it by 40, that's 50 hours. I think what I've done with my calculations is when I've broken that down into, like whether you have. So if you've got 2,000 properties, so I should have written this down 2,000 properties with a full-time maintenance, so 40 hours worth of maintenance, which means that 1,000 properties would be about 20 hours of maintenance, which would mean 500 properties would be about 10 hours of maintenance a week. So if you no longer need, based on 500 properties and you're currently doing 10 hours of maintenance per week and you can implement something like TAPI, you can bring that down to maybe a couple of hours and actually have a very big saving. You potentially save 8 to 10 hours in maintenance every week on a portfolio of 500 just by implementing something like that.

Speaker 1: 18:20

So when you said about going to your boss with some more substance, a classic example would be, if you are noticing that your maintenance is taking up a lot of time, going to your boss and saying, listen, I've looked at TAPI, I think this will be helpful. It comes with, you know, good recommendations and if I had that in our portfolio, I think I would actually be able to handle another 20 properties or 10 properties. So you're asking for something but you're giving something in return. So you're saying you can increase your portfolio. Because, as a business owner, that's one of the problems that business owners will feel.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Now, if you're an employee and you're listening to this, they might not say it to you, but the truth is is that every piece of tech comes with an expense, so they need to make sure that it's financially viable, because we all know what it's like to have personal subscriptions build up and, before you know it, you've got.

Speaker 1: 19:15

You know what it's like to have personal subscriptions build up and, before you know it, you've got you know $200 a week coming out of your account, but you don't know what for. So your business owner really should be making sure that, if they're bringing technology, that it's increasing the capacity of that portfolio. So have that conversation and go to them with that offer of being able to manage, you know, 10 properties or 20 properties more in replacement for a good tech piece. So that's a very good idea and in the meantime, if you can't get that, do exactly what Simone suggests with making sure those notes are in the Property Me comment side, me comment side. Let's go into what we can do with lease renewals. If we don't have any tech in place Now, there's probably not a lot of tech for lease renewals anyway, is there?

Speaker 2: 20:11

So there is through Flickr over. So it does have a feature that brings up when a lease renewal is due, so we can send out a text to the tenant around 90 days before the lease expires and that gives them the option of saying, yes, they want to renew, no, they don't, or if they're unsure. So that's, you know, is there available to do. But if people don't have that you know system in place, um, again, we I use property me for when I've got the like the rent review reminders coming up, so you could always have a like a template in whatever system that you use, to send out to your tenants and owners. And we still use property made for like the rent reviews and touching base with the tenants and then just do the like lease renewals through ClickItOver. So I think, yeah, utilising and making sure you're putting dates in for like when the lease expiry is or the rent review is, so that you can run the report and so that it comes up on your dashboard and it says you know X amount of you know rent reviews or lease renewals to do If those dates aren't in there. Basically, propertyme is only as good as the information that you put into it. So if you're not putting absolutely everything in, then you're not utilizing it to its fullest potential. And you know, before looking at exploring down any other options of increasing subscriptions, if you're not utilizing PropertyMe, you could be spending a lot more time doing things that you don't need to be.

Speaker 2: 21:44

So I've always, because I started my rent roll from scratch. You always think about the costs and the dollars and what subscription you need. So I survived for quite some time with just property me and just having as much information in there as possible so that you can monitor it all and then it's all in one place. Or you know, when we've looked at getting like bolt-on systems, like ClickItOver or Inspection Express, that they actually talk to the system so that it's still all relatable and so that you can still all have that information in one place. Because you know last thing you want is to, you know, put another system in place and then to be able to look at any of that information or data you've got to go to a whole other platform. And you know owners with their owner portals, they want to be able to see everything in one place. So again, really making sure that you know anything you add in is going to make it easier in the long run.

Speaker 1: 22:43

Yeah, excellent. So I don't use Flickr over, but I've seen good stuff with it so I wouldn't mind. You know I'm doing some more investigation into it, but using just propertyMe or the software that you use. My tips would be make sure that you are contacting the tenants at least 60 days, maybe even 90 days in advance, so that you've got that time and that you're not rushing it. That's going to make life a little bit easier for you. And, like you said, having templates, so having all different types of templates ready in property me um, so that it's very easy just to do it, um. My tips would also be making sure you utilize the rei forms um section of property me, so where you actually put in the form um, like you know, you put in in the sort of not the search bar, but it's like the REI form section, and it takes you straight to your REI system so that the lease has pre-populated some of the information over, because that then saves in the right-hand column, which is really great.

Speaker 1: 23:52

But there's a thing that and I'm so embarrassed to say this, and I'm sure people have been using it for a long time, but I only really discovered it about 12 months ago, but there's some triggers that you can do when forms are created.

Speaker 1: 24:03

So if you create a template, it can be triggered when a form is created. For example, when you do a lease renewal or do a new lease, when that form is created in PropertyMe it will automatically have an email that's sent to the owner to say just letting you know the lease renewal's been sent out or whatever you might want to do. So those triggers are actually very helpful to whether they're getting created and you hold them before sending, or whether you're creating them and they are sent automatically. So you don't even have to think about that letter. That would be my tip. And another thing easy to remember title, so that you might actually want, when you go to do renewals, you might be able to just bring up the last lease on REI forms and duplicate it and change the dates, so everything's already in there. You're not creating the whole form again. That would probably be helpful to save some time, I think.

Speaker 2: 25:20

Yeah, absolutely. And even with one thing that we've started using within the last couple of months is using more of the labels in PropertyMate. So, whether that be under the tenant, owner or property and I wasn't utilising that, and you know I'm always trying to think how can I simplify everything with the information that we need so you can just find it easily. So you know, adding if there's, you know, any pets approved at the property, um, that is under the tenant. So when you go to do an inspection you can look at that tenant and go, well, they're supposed to have, you know, one dog. If you go there and there's two dogs, you're like, well, that's not right, we better look into that.

Speaker 2: 25:57

So I think just having all the information as clearly and easy to find is key, because if you've got to dig through and find a lease and go, oh, I think they had pets and the more properties you look after, you just simply can't remember everything. So having that information and those labels there has been really, really helpful. And then you know if you're looking at expanding the team or some growing, you've got all of that in the system. So you don't have to try and you know, remember or go through, or for them to go through all that documentation to check. So having everything as easy and accessible helps save time, helps, you know, deal with the stresses, because the job can be stressful enough. You need to try and simplify things as much as possible.

Speaker 1: 26:42

I like that because I'm not using labels as much as I probably should. So were you saying that there's a label like you've created a label for you know pets okay or no pets?

Speaker 2: 26:53

Yeah. So labels under tenants we've got you know if there's one dog, one cat, two dogs, one cat, anything else that we need specific about the property. Under the property itself, we've got you know whether it's approved for the annual smoke alarm, what we pay for owners. So whether we do the insurance council water, if we've got the TAPI code there, whether it's water efficient compliant, if we've got one of the because we've just started doing property information reports if we've got one of those for the property and I've just found that's been really helpful because then you can run reports on that, see where everything's up to and you know, just make sure everything's as easy to find as possible. So then you don't have to think, oh, this owner's just sent a water bill, do I have to only invoice the tenant or do I have to pay it and invoice it. So that way it just makes it really easy. We just go, oh, we've got it. Oh, yep, we pay that one. Or oh, no, the owner pays it, so we just have to invoice the tenant.

Speaker 2: 27:57

So I try and think of as much ways, because obviously things come up when we're doing day to day and if you know, something comes up and I think, oh, that's a bit of a pain. And then it comes up again Like, well, how can I try and minimize that from happening again? And that was when I started using the labels and I'm like, oh, why wasn't I using this before? And you can create whatever label you want or what you need, so it's completely customisable. So that in itself has really helped, you know, streamline our processes.

Speaker 1: 28:23

Yeah, I like it, I don't use it enough. And again, I'm going through my head right now thinking why have I not used it more? Because it makes total sense. Yeah, I'm showing my flaws because I only discovered this one as well, not soon enough. It was probably a couple of years ago now.

Speaker 1: 28:43

But our routine inspections, we were like creating the form, then we were scanning and emailing it in, like we were signing it, hand-signing it and then scanning it in as a PDF and then we were physically attaching a PDF. And then we're physically attaching it to our inspection letters that were going out. And we've done that's what we've been doing for 20 years and I don't know what happened, but somehow I discovered this whole forms triggered letter system in PropertyMe. I was so embarrassed when I found it. I was like I must be the only person in the world that is not using it, so I share it in case there are other people in the world that are listening that didn't know either and I'm maybe I'm the only one that didn't. But, um, it was with the um. We started doing the routine inspection notices, like I said, through property me, through the REI form, and then it just triggered the letter automatically sent it to the tenant and when I showed the girls they were like, have you been baked from us? Like it was the biggest game changer. But it's those types of things that I love having conversations around and even like now with those labels, I'm like, yes, I should be using labels a lot more and I love chatting about it, because there are going to be people out there listening that are feeling, um, very, um, yeah, very annoyed that they don't have access to these cool things.

Speaker 1: 30:07

But, like I mean, it's turned into a property me podcast, which is totally fine. I'll market it as a property me efficiency one. It's. That's absolutely fine to do. So the other thing I'm actually going to challenge you on something I'm going to ask you and you can give us the reason. I used to use AgentBox for my uploading as well and I switched to actually doing all my uploading from PropertyMe. Why have you not started doing that? Why haven't you made that switch?

Speaker 2: 30:37

I don't know. I guess because we've just had agent box, I have been going through and we've been uploading everything so that I've got everything in property me. Um, I guess, probably because I don't really know that much about it, I haven't really looked into it, um. So it's definitely something I've had in the like back of my mind to do. But it's like anything, and when there's new features that come out with with any system, and especially when you've been doing you know something for a long time, you get a bit stuck in your ways and you know it can be a little bit scary in changing sometimes. So I guess it's probably more about I just don't know enough about, you know, utilizing that side. It's definitely something I want to learn about and, you know, find out if that is going to be more beneficial for us to run it through there.

Speaker 2: 31:24

So, yeah, I guess, yeah, a little bit stuck in my ways, and that's just how we've done it and I've probably looked at other aspects of you know the business in moving forward and making everything as efficient, and that's probably definitely one where I need to sort of look into and go oh, I might as well look into doing it. That way it might be easier. The sales side uses AgentBox, so I guess that's why we sort of just keep using it for the rentals. But like anything I think in this industry, like from when I first started to now, it has changed ridiculously and you know if you're not looking at changing and implementing new things, if we just kept doing what we were back, then you know you'd be left behind like 20 miles down the road and be like where is everyone?

Speaker 1: 32:14

totally at the event on the weekend. Um, what one of the quotes that I took away is the world is going to change with or without you, so you might as well keep on moving, because it's the world's going to be changing anyway. So that was quite eye-opening for me. Well, I mean for someone who was also using AgentBox and made the switch probably I think about 12 months ago, to listings going through PropertyMe. I would say to you that it's been fabulous. There's been no hiccups and it's been a lot easier for my team to not have to use AgentBox and go into another platform, because I'm all about reducing things they have to go into. So that has been like really, really great for us and I just love utilizing the maximum of the products that we've already got.

Speaker 1: 33:06

So for Agentbox, we personally weren't really using any other features of it except for literally just being an uploader. So that's for me, why I got rid of it. Well, actually, so I haven't got rid of it because our sales team is still using AgentBox, because they're a bit slower to implement. But I have said to my business partner, bill, who looks after the sales side, I've said, listen, I really, really want to get the sales uploading into PropertyMe too now, because it allows me I can help them more. If I don't, yeah, if I can get them to also use PropertyMe.

Speaker 1: 33:41

So that's our next step in the business is to have all of that happening. The only thing that it doesn't, that you won't get is that CRM. But we actually, to be honest, weren't really using the CRM in AgentBox like efficiently, like we weren't cleaning the data, we weren't making cold calls, we weren't sending regular emails. So for me it's not really a big thing, the CRM. But I would love to see if and actually anyone that's listening to, I'd love to hear if you're using, utilising PropertyMe for your database, for your contacts, and using it as a CRM, because I haven't actually ever come across anyone that is.

Speaker 2: 34:27

Yeah, that'd be interesting because we quite often get people that contact us, you know, a few months in advance before they're needing to move. So we do use that side of agent box to let people know about upcoming properties because, you know, being regional, lots of people move here for different parts of jobs, whether it be at the mine or hospital or whatever it is. So we use that side of the, like the crm. But you know, for everything else you know it's, you know we don't probably utilize it as much as what it could be as well. So, yeah, it sort of probably makes more sense just to have it all through one platform rather than using two yeah, all right, so let's stay on the PropertyMe theme.

Speaker 1: 35:14

So, staying on the PropertyMe theme, can we just run past, go through two more features that could help with efficiency if you don't have any other technology in your business. The next one I want to talk about is inbox. Are you using the inbox of Property Me a lot or just managing it alongside?

Speaker 2: 35:34

your Microsoft. So we are, and just before Christmas I made sure that I linked up the mobile number so people could respond and that would go into the inbox. Because with Christmas holidays coming up, I'm like, oh, I just need to. And then I saw I could do that. So I was like, oh, oh, perfect, I'll do that. So we do, because all of our communication will probably 90 goes through property me.

Speaker 2: 35:59

Um, because I really love that you can track and trace and check and see when emails are opened. Um, because a lot of times you know whether it be for, you know, inspections or whatever it is, people can sometimes forget oh no, I didn't receive it. So it's nice to be able just to check and go. Oh, actually, I can just check in the system and it was sent out on this day. You've actually opened it. Or, you know, maybe you'd forgotten, because we send out our inspections around the month before to give people plenty of notice and, you know, sometimes things come up. Life gets busy, we understand, but it's nice to be able to have that as a fallback, whereas if you send them through because we use our normal email through our Google account, it doesn't give you that feature, so you can't go back and say well, you know, I've sent it, you don't have that tracking and tracing.

Speaker 2: 36:49

So I find that that's especially with how everything is moving it's even more important to track and trace and be able to see when particular emails are being opened, if they're being ignored, especially around rental arrears, Because if you're not hearing from someone, you can't get them. They're not opening their emails. It may give you more calls to go. We better go do a welfare check to check. You know there's so much happening in the world so you just don't know. And I'd prefer to find out sooner than later rather than just going oh well, we've tried to call and we've sent them an email, but you know not checking to see if it's actually being read. So I think it's a really good feature to have on there, and as much communication as you can is just to go through PropertyMate and then you don't have to copy and paste it into the system as well. So it sort of stops you from having to do that double up because, like everything, any email correspondence, if it's not through PropertyMate, is copied and pasted across so that it's all there for future reference.

Speaker 1: 37:49

Yeah, Okay, so you still would copy and paste, yeah, the actual, just body of the email, Okay. Yeah, We've got one property manager who uses the PropertyMe inbox solely so doesn't have access to the other one. She loves it and it's actually from a business owner's point of view. It's really easy to help her and provide support when she's on holidays because you know, I can just I can have access to that inbox at any time, the PropertyMe one. So that's definitely helpful.

Speaker 1: 38:18

The only negative I would say is that calendar appointments don't come through properly in the PropertyMe inbox and so when there's like I want to invite her to a team meeting or something like that, I sort of have to let her know separately to put it in her diary. So that's a little bit annoying. But surely it's not a massive like. Surely that will be fixed at some stage down the track. I would love to see.

Speaker 1: 38:45

Definitely, as you said, the opening and seeing that something's being read is amazing helps. If you have to go to court things like that, that's just a no-brainer. So I would, as a business owner, I would love to see all of our inboxes directly going into the PropertyMe. The best thing that I can sort of give advice about is to if you are unsure whether you want to do it or not, what we did is we just get IT to put a forward on the emails. So, for example, we had PM5 at, we still have PM5 at, SoCo Realty, but the email gets diverted into the PropertyMe inbox so that if I was to like I had a girl trial it but then decided she didn't like it and then all we had to do was undivert that email address, it wasn't a big problem. So you can easily trial it for three months or six months and then just take the undivert off if it doesn't, if it's not what you were wanting, you know I mean yeah, no, that's a good idea.

Speaker 2: 39:47

Yeah, I didn't think of that to diverting the email to it because, yeah, it would make it much easier just all in one funnel than different places.

Speaker 1: 39:56

Yeah, and even if I just give it a go for three months, say she's teen, listen, we're going to just give this a go, we're just going to get them all diverted and just see what happens.

Speaker 2: 40:05

The only problem with that is I'm a bit crazy and I start work very early, so I quite often schedule emails so people don't know what time I'm actually starting.

Speaker 1: 40:15

So that would be the only problem well, maybe you just don't start so early and you just do it at normal times like everybody else.

Speaker 2: 40:23

Yeah it might be actually looking you see, I've never worried about scheduling emails.

Speaker 1: 40:28

It's like if I'm sitting it early, I just send it early. It's just it is what it is.

Speaker 2: 40:33

3.30 or 4 in the morning is probably a little bit early.

Speaker 1: 40:37

It would be Okay. Last one, before I let you go, is obviously, propertyme has advanced really well with tasks and checklists, and so are there any that you're utilising? Are you using that a lot in your business at the moment, or is that something that would definitely? Now that we've got that, actually, it's probably a lot easier for people that don't have efficient other tech, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 41:02

Yeah, absolutely. I've only probably started using the checklist since late last year, and it's amazing. So we've got our new tenancy checklist, a vacate checklist, rent review checklist, um, what other ones have I got pretty much any sort of process that you need to follow where there's multiple steps, um, and if you've got a variety of people that are assisting with those tasks, it just creates a onestop where you can just get a complete overview. So we've broken sort of everything up. So it's good for you know. Say, you've got a tenant moving in and someone comes to get keys. If I'm not in the office or you know just the office manager is, she can go into the checklist, see has everything been done? Then knows that she can release the key. So it's, you know. It saves that phone call.

Speaker 2: 41:53

So, again, having those sort of checklists in place as long as they're utilized properly, like any system, as long as you're utilizing them and making sure there is update as possible, it can save a lot of that. You know, back and forth and time wasting instead of just knowing oh well, you know this tenant's moving in, everything's paid, everything's signed, you know the detailed report's been sent, the ingoing's been sent, and then you're less likely to miss things, because we all know that some days can just turn from a crazy cruisy or cruisy day to absolute mayhem within an hour or anything. Oh my gosh, I don't even know what's up or down. So having those checklists there make sure that you don't miss any essential steps. And I think that's really important, from not only for a business owner but also for employees, because last thing you want to do is for someone to come in the office and go. I'm just here to pick up keys. Oh yeah, sure, here you go. Lease isn't signed, rent isn't paid, no bond Uh-oh, we're in trouble. So it just takes away that risk and tries to minimise things as much as possible.

Speaker 2: 42:59

I think for, you know, any office the main thing needs to be around compliance and making sure you minimise any risks or potential risks before they happen, and to be proactive rather than reactive, because I think a lot of property managers, whether they're time poor or don't have the systems in place, if you don't think ahead and be proactive and you're just reactive, that's when people burn out, that's when they go. I've had enough. I can't do this. It's just too stressful. So, yeah, I'm all about making it as easy as possible, have those things in place so you don't always have to go oh, have they done that? Yeah, I can't remember. Oh, checklist, yeah, they did it. Oh, okay, cool. Next task Moving on yeah, I think they're amazing and I'd probably still want to get a few more in place, but just for those everyday, mundane tasks, it's just really, really good, because it's just transparency for the whole team.

Speaker 1: 44:00

Yeah, I think Property Me's picked up the game with a lot of things in the last 12 months, and I haven't explored the lease renewal tab, but I've seen that that's just been launched as well, so that's only going to get better. So, really, the title that I had before for this podcast has now changed to something like you don't need tech, you just need property made Sort of. That's where we've gone with it. But again, it is a popular software that people use and I'm sure that these takeaways you can still implement with the other systems that you've got. But ultimately, if you don't have the opportunity to have other good tech in your business, what it comes down to in summary, is look at your actual trust software and make sure that you are utilizing every little bit of it.

Speaker 1: 44:49

So property me utilizing tasks, checklist labels and inbox is probably my biggest takeaways from chatting with you. That I will help give you those efficiencies and you don't necessarily need anything else in your life if you're using it properly. And I know that all softwares I'm pretty sure they all have those training videos that none of us watch, but maybe it's time that you actually just start watching a few and really self-educating yourself on your software that you're using Because, like we've talked about, you don't know what you don't know. I thought I knew everything and then I had a few things that came up and I was like you know how embarrassing that I didn't know that you can do that.

Speaker 2: 45:32

And I was like you know how embarrassing that I didn't know that you can do that. Yeah, and I think another key point is, you know, chatting to other property managers, getting a part of other groups If you're, you know, getting stuck on something that's taking up a lot of time. Put it out there and you'll probably get an answer that you never thought, or someone will be happy to share and go oh, actually, you can do this, this and this in PropertyMe or in this software that you're using. So I think it's all about being as collaborative as possible and I think that's what really excites me now that we're able to share and it's more open and discussions rather than just, oh, I don't want them knowing what I'm doing, oh no, I can't discuss that like, oh no, we want to make the industry better, we want to raise the bar, so we need to work together.

Speaker 2: 46:16

Yeah, so have those discussions, you know, meet up with local property managers or, if you're not comfortable with that, look for, you know, outside of your area and you know I'm quite happy and I love to hear from other people and you know mentoring people, and it's just. I love to hear from other people and you know mentoring people and it's just. It's so rewarding to be able to have those conversations and chat with people, even different states, because all the legislation is different. So it's nice to bump things off and go oh you guys have to do that there. Wow, that's different, we've got it lucky, actually. It's really interesting, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 46:50

yeah, yesterday I did another recording with victoria property managers and exactly that I was like we need to know what's happening in other states, like we need to be well first with with what's going on, not just in our own little bubbles. So, yeah, a good start is listening to podcasts like this to, um, yeah, really hear what's going on and, and, yeah, get yourself out of that bubble, know what everyone's doing, know what's going on and get yourself out of that bubble. Know what everyone's doing, know what's going on in everyone else's property management's lives and work towards, like you said, raising the bar. So that is the aim of the game. Well, simone, it was beautiful chatting with you and catching up. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing some knowledge around how your office works, and I know that I will be going and creating some new labels when I get off to put into my system. So it was really great to chat with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.