We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
145 - VPA & Complete Trust with Adam Empringham
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Unlock the secrets to revolutionising real estate marketing as we sit down with Adam Empringham from Image Property Group. His team is pushing boundaries with their cutting-edge Value Performance Advertising platform, designed to consolidate all necessary price points and products for seamless property promotion. From interactive listing consultations on iPads to personalised marketing strategies tailored for success, Adam shares how this tech-forward approach modernises every step of the process, delivering a more engaging experience for vendors and agents.
Prepare to be inspired by how live shopping carts and "pay now, pay later" systems are transforming real estate marketing campaigns. We shed light on how a more transparent and interactive strategy leads to a remarkable 35% boost in customer spending and confidence. As we explore digitisation's role in optimising efficiency, discover how seasoned agents are overcoming challenges and embracing new digital tools to enhance customer service. Celebrate with us as we reflect on the year's accomplishments and anticipate a future of continued growth and innovation in real estate marketing.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the author of the Complete Salesperson course Today. Vpa Value Performance Advertising what's going on? What innovations are happening? And there are some amazing innovations going on in our industry by people that you may or may not know for our listeners overseas. But joining me today is Adam from Image Property Group. Adam, welcome aboard. Thanks for having me, adam. You've had some amazing things going on in the VPA space, including building your own tech for your team, but we might start there. Where's the team up to now?
Speaker 2:To now mate. Plenty of talented agents across southeast Queensland now mate from Noosa down to the Tweed and the performance of the team is growing steadily month on month mate. So they're doing really well.
Speaker 1:And how many agents do you have on the ground?
Speaker 2:Mate, we have 108 agents as far as lead agents on the ground, 155 from when you start to include associates and bits and pieces like that, mate, and then our reimagined partners as well that we support as far as the white label model of what we do, and Adam as the director of sales for the group.
Speaker 1:That is a lot of agents on the ground, especially with many of our companies. Listening might have 10 agents only, so you are responsible for a big group of people. What have you been doing in the VPA space?
Speaker 2:Mate in the VPA space, I saw a unique opportunity to be able to enhance the customer experience, and we have two stakeholders in that mate the vendor, then also the agent, creating a platform that amalgamated price points, first and foremost, but also products for all things that are required to promote a property well and then connect it to finance services as well to make a nice, seamless customer experience. And then finally do a booking of photography and get some pieces like that, do it in a manner that was visual and easy to use and produce something far superior than a one page with some line items on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we were chatting about this off air today, I thought everyone's had that challenge. You're in the lounge room. You want to explain the communications plan, but your decision to make it an actual platform and just to give our listeners some context, take us into how the agents are delivering that in the listing conversation and what other tools they're using to get that value performance advertising across, to get the winning, the business moment.
Speaker 2:The simple theory of what we wanted to do is help the guys better position their price improvement plans, attract engaged Nick as a visual guide to step through the listing consultation, but then also modernize their signing convention, so signing off on documentation required, which is a marketing agreement and an agency appointment.
Speaker 2:We spent a lot of time, energy and effort in positioning that and simplifying it for the guys and then taking it from there was through my experience being in the industry for 20 odd years and then also looking at the evolution and the change of it there's been very little around the vendor paid marketing space, so it's always been show a couple of examples if you're lucky or agents are left to build case studies, and then, as far as the products were concerned, there was no automated resource that was expected that you've got to go to a real estate account, then you go to domain, then you go to your signage companies, then you go to your photographer and all of those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:In that administrative nightmare, no one had centralized it with all the relevant information regards to the products. There's platforms out there that centralize the price points of the product, but as far as the display and the features and the benefits of it. That's what we built out, mate, so an agent can now be in the living room and actually do a bit of show and tell, instead of just tell. They can look at live examples, specific examples of videography, social ads and, of course, the likes of REA products and domain products, signage brochures you name it and they get to create the campaign bespoke to what the customer's after, but at the same time, mandating the agency standards that might be required as well.
Speaker 1:And what I really love about this, Adam, is it falls into that sales technique of getting to yes, so by showing a beautiful display, and I would imagine this is all done on the iPad. How are they doing that?
Speaker 2:I made it as iPad or laptop. They can do that. But what we've done cleverly with Bespoke is they can actually send a client prior to so part of pre-lease. So we use a pre-meeting proposal and this product's ingested inside that so the client can actually go shopping themselves and start to pick and choose what they would like to use within their campaign and then they can actually send that to their agent prior to the consultation and or have it there for the point of discussion. And in our experience so far, any client that does that their lay down is there as far as being a quality listing appointment ready to rock and roll, because they're the ones that are doing that, the highly motivated ones.
Speaker 1:Now this is absolutely amazing and I hope our listener can visualize this stunning platform, which is like a real estate property shop of. I want a video, I want this, I want that, but they're seeing it in the brand how it's going to look, and have many people actually done the selection process before the agents got there? Has that been a big take up or what's the report on that process?
Speaker 2:before the agents got there. Has that been a big take-up or what's the report on that? Well, that's what I've liked about Platformly is we've actually left it to the agent as to how they want to implement it. So we mandate the standard as far as how to use the platform and teach them how to, but then how they want to implement it into their own business. It has the capacity for an agent to create their favourite campaigns and bits and pieces like that. It also has the capacity to be able to give social proof as to what other campaigns are being used for properties similar to. And then the final component is it has the ability to be able to build it as you go. But the thing is it's not a difficult exercise. It's easy to be able to step through each part and go. I want that. I want that. I want that.
Speaker 2:I've seen a bit of a 30-30-30 split. I've seen 30% of agents go right. These are my standards, these are my favourites, that's what I'm going to pitch. I've seen 30% of the agents use more of a consultative approach, which is okay, let's do this together. And then I've seen 30% of the agents do their thing, which is they've always done, which is stick to the traditional while they get used to the technology. This product supports that too. But it was definitely music to my ears.
Speaker 2:Not that long ago, speaking to one of my agents that had been around for a while by no way shape or form tech savvy, they were really proud of themselves. It was like, okay, I had my price improvement plan laid out. As far as the visual, I had my iPad and on my iPad I had three tabs open. I had the image website, which it was for me to be able to demonstrate to them how we have everything all in one spot the capacity to make an offer. Look at all the contractual documentation everything all in one spot.
Speaker 2:I had signed ready to rock and roll with form six that our sales support team had pre-prepared for them, where they could sign on glass and execute that, and then they had Bespoke open, and Bespoke is the marketing solution that we're talking about now. And his consultation was a reverse of what he would normally do. He would normally go okay, this is about us and this is what we can do for you, that type of thing. Talk about a form six and then try and talk about marketing afterwards, or sometimes have marketing summer in between. But what happened in this instance is he was able to consult with the client around what products they were going to use to showcase their property, and then, out of that, what occurred is that he was in a position where the client was so happy with the campaign that they put together, which was the largest VPA schedule that he had ever appointed, and it was signed and financed instantly, before they'd even discussed commission or pricing.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So what followed that Lee, was that he was then able to execute his agency appointment at the highest rate of comm he's ever got, and there was no argument around pricing, because there was just complete trust, because what was done differently was the provision of information, and the visual nature of that information could be easily ingested, which really elevated the trust from the client and agent relationship, because the client didn't feel like there was anything being hidden from.
Speaker 1:I hope our listener takes in just that part of the audio and how powerful that is To present to someone in a fashion of should you decide to go with us? This is what the site looks like. However, on our site you can buy the property now. You can make an offer, you can have a bid. You are running that digital sale from your site. You can download the contract. This is what you're going to look like, but the purchasing community, with the track and engage commit, can commit to your site. You can download the contract. This is what you're going to look like, but the purchasing community, with the track and engage commit, can commit to your property. So the owner's saying, okay, well, that all looks good.
Speaker 1:Now let me show you the marketing campaign that we used on a property not dissimilar to yours. We're looking for the same audience. They invested X amount of dollars, so you're using that third party perspective of how another successful result was achieved. They show the actual elements of that campaign. Add it to the cart as they're going. We're not using a prop here, we're using the actual live shopping cart of the product. And then, finally, I'd need you to sign the authority over here, which is the Form 6, and that will activate my services. But just so I'm clear, adam, people are paying for the campaign and then signing the Form 6.
Speaker 2:Yep, and when you think about the potential objection that typically comes around vendor pay, but also because of the increases in cost associated with these products and those sorts of things, what it was doing, too, is putting a lot of pressure on the performance phase as well, so alleviating that has been a significant improvement, and we've also seen about a 35% increase in customer spending, and it's been interesting to watch what products they're choosing to spend that money on as well. What products they're choosing to spend that money on as well.
Speaker 1:How interesting A 35% increase in what the owner's investing. To get the result from the example. Are they paying credit card on the night?
Speaker 2:no-transcript. I mean we just got a pay now, pay later option which is through a third party finance funder. There's plenty of them. The audience would be aware of them. There's half a dozen of them out there now. So this platform is integrated with their signing conventional platform. So they just simply select pay now, pay later. Sign on glass. They're done.
Speaker 1:That commences the application process, and it's approved and this brings in that beautiful part of the whole stage marketing conversation that you don't even have to use your own credit card on money. It comes off on settlement at the end. In the last 12 months, adam, we've had a massive increase of the consumer loving the I can do. It now comes off settlement. Yet the amount of agents that don't even have that conversation or provide that option is mind-blowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in addition to that too, lee, you've got the appetite for clients to want to do that. But then you've got the absolute pain in the ass of reconciling all of that money and who gets paid what and where does that go. And that's an administrative nightmare for our admin team behind the scenes for a majority of real estate transactions. And what we've done with this software is we've centralised that as well. So additional support for complete visibility for all parties to see where funding's up to, and then they can see it being reconciled along the way. So then it reduces errors and dramatically improves the relationship with suppliers as well well, because we're able to pay them immediately, opposed to in 30 days' time or 60 days' time.
Speaker 1:So, adam, congratulations. This is a massive project that's definitely improved the life of the agent, anything that gets us to a faster yes, a more confident campaign. And you're so right about the administration comment there. You know everyone's had that final, last change of the campaign with ordering an extra dust shot and in the back end they're going what is this? The time that's been wasted in the platform? Just take us into how that got managed or what you did in the specification to get that built.
Speaker 2:We just kept that really simple, so all providers were able to upload their products. We have the ability to control and mandate those products as well. As far as the standards that we want to see as an agency as well and that's been a really important part of it too being able to elevate our standards around how we want to represent property, because that consistency and market makes a big difference. The biggest areas we saw huge improvement there in videography and photography. We were just able to set the products mate and then whenever there's an update, you just simply go into the back end and update it and that update might be a new product or it might be a changing pricing. Simple as that.
Speaker 1:And then everything's connected to the dwelling. That's the master account. The tool goes through, it's coming out on settlement and the job is done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you'd be surprised how many people also pay up front way, and that's also been something that we've seen significant change in because of the transparency, the information that's provided to them. It's tangible, it's real, they've seen it. So then they don't doubt it. They're like, okay, cool, I'll pay for that, no worries.
Speaker 1:Now, Adam, this is a big project that you've undertaken. What got you inspired to do it?
Speaker 2:Our customer experience. There is rubbish. You look at the vendor engagement around this is that most agents are presenting off a one-page piece of paper with six or seven line items. There's no provision of information and people are in the dark. To be able to provide something where there's complete transparency, all of the information in one spot. That looks good, presented a really good opportunity. What I also liked about it too, in the provision of that information, it elevated the agent education around those products too. It elevated the agent education around those products too, because if you're going to provide this information to market, well, you better know it, because if you ask questions, then you need to be in a good position to be able to answer them that, through increasing the exposure in market, elevated our agents' understanding of product. And when they're more confident in knowledge we all know with great knowledge that transfers confidence and when you present with confidence, you win more business.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more, and this sounds too good to be true for our listener of wow, how would you do all that? But you've spent a lot of time yourself getting ready for this and you and I spoke on air probably about six, seven months ago and you'd just gone through the listing leave behind of attract, engage, commit. Now, Adam, that triggered the whole country to start thinking about the leave behind and we've seen some great examples and different versions of that as people present in different ways. The tools that you've got now for the agents have definitely increased the confidence, which has increased the results. Got to ask you, as a director of sales, of so many salespeople, what are you passionate about next in the business or what are you working on that will further bring this efficiency to the agents?
Speaker 2:So we're working on a really really cool tool at the moment to help agents with their prospecting and market and understanding who they should be speaking to and when. So simplifying that way to encourage agents to focus on core marketplace to grow their presence, because there's no secret to the success of the majority of highly successful real estate agents in the country dominate a marketplace, they're hyper-local to a community and they're well-known. So helping our team with the visibility of that. We're building out a really cool product for that to be able to assist them. That reduces a significant amount of time on the collation of data but then also a significant amount of administration associated to the CRM as well. So really excited about that product. We've released it already and we've got some raving fans, but we're always interrating and improving.
Speaker 2:So that will continue and also bring some visual optics to that too, like with mapping, and that's one thing I've always loved about how domain and REA and some of our other providers are able to map out areas and you can clearly see where you are and where you're not. So helping an agent do that hyperlocal to their market is imperative. So we've done that now and there's some significant benefit in that. But what we've done is we've connected all the data points as well. So for our team, now they can click a button and it can compress an entire suburb instantly, and then they can have all of the contact details available in the public forum under their nose immediately, opposed to searching for them one after the other after the other or paying someone else to do it. So the profitability of that is significant, but on top of that as well, the efficiencies are outrageous.
Speaker 1:So you've really digitized service area, bringing the dwellings database as the main contact record but then grouping that together by coding your area so the agent knows where they are, where they're not but who they need to contact, and then they just need to pick the right promotion to attract, engage and commit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, then you're just going to do the work, and I think for a lot of agents there's no reluctance to do the work. It's just where do I spend the time? For us, it's about simplifying that for the buyers, so then they can just get in and do the things that they enjoy doing. And hopefully you all know if you're doing something you enjoy doing, then you're going to get better outcomes out of it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely amazing. Well, adam, it's been a massive year for the group, great results, as always, and if success is about consistency, your story is being tracked. This is your third time on the program, for different reasons, but final question for you what were the big lessons of the last 12 months for you? Being 2024 of time of recording and we're coming towards the end of the year now, which no one can believe but what was the big takeaway lessons for you for 2024?
Speaker 2:Lessons more. The big takeaway lessons for you for 2024? Less is more. It was probably one of the biggest lessons for me as a growing group and wanting to, I guess, accommodate as many things as we possibly can and as many people as we possibly can, actually making a conscious decision to hyper-focus on what was most relevant and get it done. So, ultimately, what you start you have to finish. And using the simple power of three, like pick off three, get them done, then move on to the next, but spending the time prioritising that and making sure that whatever you choose to do within the business is in line with the core values and the goals.
Speaker 1:And you had some amazing agents that were, you know, quite new to the industry, get some very big results where they've come from a different background. But the use of the digital offer and the digital sale take us into that for this year. What was big about that?
Speaker 2:It's been really good for us, and particularly for, I'll say, for how it is like the old school guys that were really reluctant to change, and it was the learning that their reluctance was actually through fear.
Speaker 2:It wasn't because they weren't willing to try something new, they were just fearful of how to use it and how to be able to present it confidently.
Speaker 2:So as soon as we spent the time educating and trialing and testing to then give them confidence to take that to market, they've had some exceptional results through that and then it's really elevated their customer service experience in market, like the transparency that that provides and then how much easier it is to win business off the back of it because of the social proof associated to it.
Speaker 2:So that's been a really, really good thing for us and that's been across the entire segment of our agents, whether it's been somebody with less than six months experience. Well, fortunately for them, they don't know any better. They're the best learners because they just want to get in and learn best practice and put it in play. Sure, the people that have been doing it for a couple of decades and were really reluctant, but then when they tried it, they're like, oh shoot, this is not that. And then all of a sudden they built confidence in that and continued it. So that's made a big change and improvement to our business, but it's also dramatically improved the customer sentiment as well, which is something that's mutually beneficial for everyone.
Speaker 1:Absolutely fantastic. Well, adam, you're one of our greatest sales directors in the country and I can say that as I look at what you do in projects be it listing, be it what we're seeing now with the VPA and they are making significant difference. You're attracting some incredible professionals. I want to thank you for joining us on the program and we wish you all the best for the next 12 months.
Speaker 2:No worries, mate, and same for everybody else out there. Have a great back end of the year and bring on 2020 far.
Speaker 1:We're looking forward to it. Thanks, mate.