November 28, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode of the Property Edge Podcast, we welcome Rav Prakash of Kemp Real Estate, a prominent player in Port Lincoln's real estate scene. Celebrated for his recent award at the REISA Awards, Rav shares his journey with Kemp Real Estate and their strategic use of tech and AI to enhance their operations.
The discussion covers Kemp's approach to maintaining a clean CRM, integrating new tech tools, and the challenges and advantages of regional real estate marketing. Rav also provides insights into their tech stack, onboarding processes, and future aspirations for leveraging AI in the industry.
00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:47 Meet Rav Prakash: Regional Industry Leader
01:24 Kemp Real Estate: History and Strategy
03:07 Tech Stack and Innovations
07:47 Challenges and Growth
10:19 Marketing in Regional Real Estate
13:36 AI in Real Estate: Enhancements and Future
16:51 Wishlist and Conclusion
Visit www.propertyedge.app/the-property-edge-podcast to see other episodes, see episode summaries and read transcripts.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
sonic logo
Rob (00:04):
Today's episode or the property edge podcast.
Rav (00:07):
A lot of the AI that we're using from a prospecting point
of view it relies heavily on onthat CRM data being as clean as
possible.
We're really fortunate to have anetwork that we can work with in
right around Australia, acombination of city based and
regional based real estatebusinesses who we can bounce our
ideas off.
our view on AI is not, it's nota replacement tool for, for real
(00:30):
estate professionals.
It's just an enhancement tool.
Mhm.
Rob (00:36):
Hello and welcome to another Property Edge podcast
where we discuss the tools, thetech, the AI, the platforms and
the data that are poweringtoday's industry leaders.
And I'm delighted today to bejoined by a regional industry
leader.
So Rav Prakash is with Kemp RealEstate in Port Lincoln on the
Eyre Peninsula.
(00:57):
Welcome, Rav.
Rav (00:59):
Thanks for having me, Rob.
Good to be here.
Rob (01:01):
Well, it's great.
Great to have you here and Iwill say first up,
congratulations on your recentwin because only a couple of
weeks ago, you were you wereawarded property manager,
commercial, industrial of theyear.
Well done at the REISA Awards.
Rav (01:15):
Thank you very much.
No, very, very honored toreceive that.
Could not have done it withoutthe support of an amazing team
that we work with here.
So thank you.
Rob (01:24):
Could you give our listeners a bit of an overview,
your journey and, and, you know,the size and the style of the
Kemp agency
Rav (01:31):
Of course.
So, for me personally, I've beenwith Kemp Real Estate now for
coming up to five years.
The business itself has existedin the Lower Eyre Peninsula for
coming up to 45 years.
So, over that time, there's beena few changes.
There's been several cracks atdifferent offices.
So we've had a central PortLincoln office, which has been
(01:52):
consistent.
We've had a little go at CedunaCoffin Bay, Tumby Bay we're back
to just the one centralizedoffice with a couple of team
members who do work remotely.
Rob (02:03):
and, and the Kemp agency, despite being in a really,
really farming area, you'repredominantly resi, commercial
and property management, andthat's right.
Rav (02:13):
there, that's right.
We've only sort of recently gotinto the, the rural or the
farming side of things over thelast couple of months through
the acquisition of anotherbusiness here on the Lower Eyre
Peninsula but very much a focuson residential and commercial
sales and property management.
Rob (02:28):
Well, there's one thing I was going to ask you, cause I
was going to say, we don't seemuch consolidation here on the
Eyre Peninsula compared to, youknow, in the larger cities,
particularly Adelaide.
What's the purpose behind that?
Can you give us a bit of thestrategy there?
Rav (02:39):
And so the motivation I guess, is to continue growing
and organic growth is always agoal and something we try to do.
But when the opportunity came upto buy another terrific business
on the Lower Eyre Peninsulawith, I think, the key thing was
with, was with similar valuesyou know, being a community
focused family sort of business,very much focused on people
(03:00):
thought we'd have a go at theopportunity.
And we're two months into it nowand it's been it's been a great
experience.
Rob (03:07):
I didn't realize that you were going into that sort of
phase of the journey, but couldyou just give, give everyone a
bit of an overview of Kemp'sapproach to tech?
Where do you see yourselves?
Are you, are you cutting edge?
Are you always looking to be afirst mover?
Are you, are you following a bitfurther back?
Cause I will mention this and bythe time listeners might listen
to that, you might've changedthe website, but the website
(03:29):
does say, and I'm quoting,"youcould say we are high tech.
We use technology to maximizeresults while continuing to
offer excellent customerservice." How are you high tech?
Rav (03:39):
Well, I'll start from the top.
So I think our philosophy onwhether it's sales, property
management it's very muchservice focused or high service
focused, personalized approach.
We're really fortunate to have anetwork that we can work with in
right around Australia, acombination of city based and
(03:59):
regional based real estatebusinesses who we can bounce our
ideas off.
And so our approach to any sortof technology that's new or
anything new we were going toimplement is to.
Yeah, stress test amongst ourpeers and see what their key
learnings have been.
And if they haven't you know, wetry to share what we've learned
(04:20):
from, from what we'reimplementing to sort of help
each other out, I guess.
Rob (04:25):
Yeah, that's interesting.
So, so that's just over thecourse of the years,
relationships have been builtlocally as well as interstate
and and there's your soundingboard for tech ideas.
Rav (04:38):
Absolutely.
Being a, you know, a boutiquebusiness not part of a franchise
group.
We've got a, we've got to sortof try and leverage whatever,
networks we can be a part of.
And we're really lucky that overtime we've been been fortunate
to be part of like mindedprivate sort of businesses yeah,
that the information that we'vebeen able to bounce off others
has been invaluable.
Rob (04:59):
Yeah, fair enough.
And so what does your currenttech stack look like?
You know, how have you built itup?
How is it connected?
And how happy are you with it?
Rav (05:08):
We sort of keep our a PM tech and our sales tech fairly
separate.
We use Agentbox as our sales CRMand then there's, you know, a
few different platforms aroundthat that we've utilized to help
with presentations forappraisals to help with our
prospecting.
From a PM point of view, we'reProperty Tree and again, like
(05:31):
you'd love to have just the, theone pm software that did
everything.
Unfortunately, we're yet to findit.
And I know there's others thatare trying to build it, but we
utilize a combination ofProperty Tree, Reapit's
InspectRealEstate and Agentboxas well.
And there's Inspection Expressand MRI's Inspect that fall in
for our routine and conditionreports.
(05:53):
So when it comes to our techstack, we're really cautious of
bringing more into it, becauseat the moment, we've got a
workflow within the businessthat works for us, and it works
for our clients.
Keeping in mind that all of ourtenants are local.
We recognise the differences inin market demands from a tech
point of view.
(06:13):
Some people just prefer a phonecall or a face to face or I'll
come in and see you in youroffice as opposed to a heap of
auto generated text messages oremails.
So we're conscious of that.
But we still wanna keep movingforward.
Rob (06:26):
Yeah, gotcha.
Interestingly, now that you'remaybe branching out into non
resi and non commercial areas,more farming, are you going to
have to bolt some bits onto yourtech stack?
To give you the information youneed, because I know from a lot
of regional agents, theycomplain that existing platforms
aren't really fit for purpose inmany ways.
Rav (06:49):
We're definitely finding that.
So we're still in the earlystages of incorporating that
rural part of the business intoour existing tech stack.
But again, this, it's a brandnew sort of new area for us to
go in into.
So.
I think bouncing ideas off otherbusinesses that are in that
rural, sales sort of sector,seeing what they use, how they
(07:10):
utilize it.
That's definitely part of oursort of next 12 months
Rob (07:14):
As a shameless plug, but also just our lived experience
with Property Edge is that we,we we sort of over index in
regional areas because using themap based search, you can just
click on things, then you canfind the information out very
easily.
Which, which, particularly withrural properties and farms is
often quite hard because, lot421 down First Street, you know,
(07:35):
it could be 20 Ks up a dirt roadand it's very hard to
distinguish between lot 2.
Rav (07:41):
Very much so.
We're just, we're justexperiencing that at the moment
as we're trying to incorporatethat farming stuff in.
Yep.
Rob (07:47):
Help us understand your, your staff onboarding enabling
of staff to get the most out ofyour tech stack through set
workflows, because speaking to,for example Luke from OC
recently, and then the lastpodcast we did, he mentioned
they have a different approach,whereas they tailor their tech
needs to every staff's workflowor try and show them how they
(08:10):
can use their own workflows.
Whereas most businesses tend tohave a set workflow they expect
staff to go through.
How do you get the most out ofout of your tech stack by
upskilling your staff?
Rav (08:21):
Great question.
I mean, through this recentacquisition we've had to onboard
more people in one hit thanwe've ever had to.
So it's been a great learningexperience and I'm not,
definitely not going to sit hereand say that our onboarding is,
you know, five star, a hundredpercent.
We're still seeing what worksbest for us.
So we feel really confident thatwith our current tech stack, our
(08:41):
workflow is good bringing in youknow, a half a dozen new team
members and trying to workthrough that workflow and keep
it consistent.
And offer consistent service toour clients and and make sure
internally where you know, we'reusing the term"pass the baton on
to the next next person in a ina nice way" has been a challenge
(09:03):
and definitely something that,yeah, we've had to refine on the
fly a little bit you know, wehad a plan of this is how we do
it.
This is how we're going to onboard.
But such is the nature of realestate.
Even the best laid plans change.
So, to answer your question, Ithink, yeah, we always try to
refine our workflow and use ourexisting tech stack and make
(09:23):
sure we're using our existingtech stack to the best of our
ability.
The onboarding of it.
Yeah, it's been a challenge, butwe're getting there.
Rob (09:32):
It's not something you've had to do or get used to.
You know, some of these largeragencies in Adelaide now they
have onboarding teams that theysend out because they're getting
so used to acquiring otherbusinesses and bring them in.
Rav (09:42):
As a bit of perspective, I guess, Rob, we've gone from,
we're at about 19 team memberswith maybe one or two that were
on parental leave and that sortof stuff.
And we've, we've sort ofovernight bumped up to about 27
with two on their way in.
That's been a pretty, prettyquick pretty quick growth for
our little business.
(10:03):
In the cities.
I completely understand whenthey've got hundreds of team
members.
What we're talking about issmall fry.
But I guess from a regionalpoint of view you know, to bring
on 33 percent more within yourworkforce as a small business is
significant and comes withchallenges.
But it's something we're reallyproud off.
Rob (10:19):
You could probably help, validate a theory that I have
that one of the key differencesabout rural or regional real
estate is that you have a verydefined market.
Your market's bounded by thebeach.
And whereas in more metro areas,the, the, you haven't got
defined, you might say you'vegot a defined suburb, but
(10:39):
everything seems to overlap.
And so marketing to locals iseasier because you can find them
at the footy ground.
You can find them yeah, thelocal RSL or wherever, you know,
you happen to do your communitywork, but you can also find them
in Google ads really easily or,you know, Facebook ads.
So my question to you in aroundabout way is from a
marketing perspective and amarketing tech perspective.
(11:00):
You would use these toolsalready, but do you think you've
got an unfair advantage theregiven the defined nature of your
market
Rav (11:07):
yes.
Yeah, it's definitely a benefitof being where we are.
Like like you said, there's oneroad in.
If you're coming over fromAdelaide, you generally go on
the same way through.
So it's very, probably is anunfair advantage in that sense
that for us to, if we're tryingto be strategic with our
marketing or if we're focusedwith what we're trying and who
we're trying to attract from asales and a property management
point of view we, we do have a,an upper hand on, on our Metro
(11:31):
counterparts but of coursethere's other challenges that
you face as well.
If you go to that same well allthe time, sometimes things
aren't going that well, youdon't get the results and that's
that's the downside.
So we're not just purely focusedon, you know, absolutely
everything is traditionalmarketing where we've had to
have to look at other ways to,to sort of broaden what we're
(11:54):
doing.
Rob (11:55):
My next question involves support, support when it comes
to data, data hygiene, but alsoIT support in building your
platforms up and keeping themhumming.
Because if there's, if there'sone thing that can add value to
an agency, if.
God forbid one day you wanted tosell the thing.
It's having a really clean andlarge prospect list and customer
(12:17):
list that's well maintained.
Have you had much support inthat area?
Rav (12:23):
Yeah.
So from a, from an IT point ofview, we do have some managed
assistance from an Adelaidebased firm with just general day
to day IT.
We were trying to handle allthat internally, on top of
trying to make sure our databaseis clean and we're entering data
in properly and all that sort ofstuff.
So we decided that we wanted tosort of control our database.
(12:43):
So AgentBox is our CRM.
A lot of the information thatgoes into there is great if it's
captured and entered inproperly.
But when we're trying to managethat with general day to day
support and improvements andthat sort of stuff, we thought
maybe we'll centralize theAgentBox and the data inputs.
And we've got some certain teammembers, and some checks within
(13:05):
our workflow to make sure thatif the information isn't
captured correctly, we follow upand we get it back and we input
it.
A lot of the AI that we're usingfrom a prospecting point of view
it relies heavily on on that CRMdata being as clean as possible.
Is our CRM perfectly clean.
Absolutely not.
But we just figure if we can, ifwe can try and control what
(13:28):
we're doing right now andcontinue to look back at what's
in there and fix when we can forus and the way we're sort of
structured that's our best bet.
Rob (13:36):
Where do you see, you know, AI going in, in real estate
because there's some dystopianversions of where it might go
where people never talk tohumans anymore.
But then there's some reallysolid use cases, which is just
giving practical and easyinformation to customers in a
quickly accessible way withouthaving to bother a human and to
ensure the customer gets theanswers when they want them.
(13:58):
You know, where do you see thatbalance and where do you see it
going?
Rav (14:01):
Yeah, so AI, when we first saw, I guess, its capabilities
probably coming up to two yearsago it was a little bit
overwhelming and definitelydaunting.
For us our view on AI is not,it's not a replacement tool for,
for real estate professionals.
It's just an enhancement tool.
Our view is at some point intime, everyone's going to be
using it anyway, in some shapeor form.
(14:23):
It's just a matter of how longit takes to get there.
So for us we're testing it wherewe've got some really good team
members that are up to speedwith how to use it for work and
also in their personal lives.
And ChatGPT is probably thesimplest example for us.
You know, a few years ago, youwould have to pay someone.
If you didn't know how to writeyour own new listing there was
(14:46):
people that would offer aservice for$500 or whatever.
Don't quote me on that number,but you can now get that done
within 20 to 25 minutes if youprompt ChatGPT properly, 25
minutes, you're being generous,but that we were spending money
on or spending time on it'ssomething we do a lot when
you're listing properties forsale for rent.
(15:06):
It hasn't replaced the salesperson, it's just enhanced their
ability and given them more timeto do other stuff.
And our view is, yeah, it's anenhancement to the service we
offer.
And, I'm sure it's the same witheveryone.
I think the face to face or inperson interactions that you
have with people are still, arestill, really important.
And if you haven't got thatskillset and the ability to do
(15:27):
that sure you might get someresults, but we've taken that
view that to offer a highservice and a, and a, good place
to work.
You know, it's all about peopleand how you interact with
people.
Rob (15:40):
Yeah, all about people.
That was the theme probably forthe first three episodes of this
podcast.
Everyone was making it very,very clear that tech's
important.
At the end of the day, it'speople that make the sales,
people that have therelationships.
From an AI perspective, youknow, our lived experience at
Land Services is that we'reactually going to be relying on
a lot of our partners, that thesoftware platforms that we use
(16:00):
to expand on the AI capabilitythat they have build that in,
and then we'll get the benefit.
That's it.
Rather than us trying to cobblesomething together for our own
use.
We'll be doing a bit of that forsome specific niche areas, but I
can imagine in the real estateworld, you're just essentially
waiting for these platforms tocome out with some really great
stuff that you can then justswitch on right away and your
(16:20):
team gets benefit from.
Rav (16:22):
Absolutely.
We're waiting for them to pullthe trigger on a few of these
new AI enhancements.
And then obviously we want totest them, make sure they work
the way we want I've been toldthey're going to work.
I think it's a really importantthing.
And then obviously roll it outto our clients if we can.
But yeah, it's a bit of awaiting game at the moment.
If we can do some stuff in thebackground just to sort of fill
in the blanks, absolutely.
(16:43):
We've been exploring options.
We're confident that, you know,your Reapits and your MRIs of
the world are working on thenext big thing.
Rob (16:51):
And I'd be excited to see what they come up with to
speaking of the next big thingChristmas is coming up and so on
your wishlist for Christmas,what sort of tech tools or data
do you wish you had access to,to help your team perform?
Rav (17:08):
Really good question.
I think some of the data that'sout there that's been captured
by I guess some of the portalsand the the way they've gone
about capturing that has been,you know, it's hats off to them
because what they have withintheir ecosystem is is
phenomenal.
And the information that theyget and derive is, is really,
really important.
(17:28):
I think for us, it's just, it'dbe great if we had the ability
to capture that ourselves and,and have it within our own CRM,
but that's a difficult thing todo.
So, the wish this would bealmost as if we had our own our
own portal.
We try to navigate and directtowards our website as much as
we can.
But people are going to look atlook at the portals.
(17:48):
So having a system in a websitewhere we could capture that
information and be able to shareour value with our clients in
that sense would be amazing.
Rob (17:58):
So just help expand on that.
What, what sort of information,what would you want in the
portal?
I mean, realestate.
com is the big, big portal thata lot of people go through.
I'm assuming that's what you'respeaking about, right?
Rav (18:08):
I think so.
I think the model that they'vegot where I guess you know, Rob
Turnbull signs up as a, with aaccount and then, you know, when
you're as you're looking for aproperty you enter in what
you're looking for and thatinformation is then stored and
you can get alerts.
And so I think in its simplestform, like I said, we use
AgentBox.
You can do that, but it's thenadding the the next layers on
(18:31):
top of that, which yeah, hatsoff to realestate.
com.
They've built this amazingbusiness and system over a long
period of time.
But I think looking at whatthey've done and how they've
done it and what they'reactually offering as a real
estate business, a singleoffice, if we could do something
like that, it'd be amazing.
So that's my, that's mywishlist.
sure how we get there.
Rob (18:50):
REA group, realestate.
com's parent is the mostvaluable part of News Corp now.
So you can see how well theymust be doing.
And on that note, I reckon wemight leave it there.
Rav thanks so much for sharingyour perspective.
Some of the key things that Itook away were your your
approach to tech, speaking toother people around the country,
(19:11):
you know, getting that vibe frompeople, understanding how you
support your staff with theworkflows and, and, and the fact
that you're just growingenormously and got, got some
some teething.
I suppose just normal growingpains is one that I think a lot
of agencies probably will haveto start learning about if
they're going to start growingin that similar manner.
(19:33):
So anyway, thank you so much forsharing your perspective today.
Rav (19:36):
Thanks for having me, Rob.
It's been a pleasure.
Rob (19:39):
Listeners, I really hope you have enjoyed today's
episode, talking to a regionalindustry leader.
Thank you for spending the timeto listen to this today.
If you want any more informationabout the Property Edge Podcast
or the Property Edge platform,head over to propertyedge.app
and until the next time, byebye.
sonic logo
sonic logo
Rob (00:04):
Today's episode or the property edge podcast.
Rav (00:07):
A lot of the AI that we're using from a prospecting point
of view it relies heavily on onthat CRM data being as clean as
possible.
We're really fortunate to have anetwork that we can work with in
right around Australia, acombination of city based and
regional based real estatebusinesses who we can bounce our
ideas off.
our view on AI is not, it's nota replacement tool for, for real
(00:30):
estate professionals.
It's just an enhancement tool.
Mhm.
Rob (00:36):
Hello and welcome to another Property Edge podcast
where we discuss the tools, thetech, the AI, the platforms and
the data that are poweringtoday's industry leaders.
And I'm delighted today to bejoined by a regional industry
leader.
So Rav Prakash is with Kemp RealEstate in Port Lincoln on the
Eyre Peninsula.
(00:57):
Welcome, Rav.
Rav (00:59):
Thanks for having me, Rob.
Good to be here.
Rob (01:01):
Well, it's great.
Great to have you here and Iwill say first up,
congratulations on your recentwin because only a couple of
weeks ago, you were you wereawarded property manager,
commercial, industrial of theyear.
Well done at the REISA Awards.
Rav (01:15):
Thank you very much.
No, very, very honored toreceive that.
Could not have done it withoutthe support of an amazing team
that we work with here.
So thank you.
Rob (01:24):
Could you give our listeners a bit of an overview,
your journey and, and, you know,the size and the style of the
Kemp agency
Rav (01:31):
Of course.
So, for me personally, I've beenwith Kemp Real Estate now for
coming up to five years.
The business itself has existedin the Lower Eyre Peninsula for
coming up to 45 years.
So, over that time, there's beena few changes.
There's been several cracks atdifferent offices.
So we've had a central PortLincoln office, which has been
(01:52):
consistent.
We've had a little go at CedunaCoffin Bay, Tumby Bay we're back
to just the one centralizedoffice with a couple of team
members who do work remotely.
Rob (02:03):
and, and the Kemp agency, despite being in a really,
really farming area, you'repredominantly resi, commercial
and property management, andthat's right.
Rav (02:13):
there, that's right.
We've only sort of recently gotinto the, the rural or the
farming side of things over thelast couple of months through
the acquisition of anotherbusiness here on the Lower Eyre
Peninsula but very much a focuson residential and commercial
sales and property management.
Rob (02:28):
Well, there's one thing I was going to ask you, cause I
was going to say, we don't seemuch consolidation here on the
Eyre Peninsula compared to, youknow, in the larger cities,
particularly Adelaide.
What's the purpose behind that?
Can you give us a bit of thestrategy there?
Rav (02:39):
And so the motivation I guess, is to continue growing
and organic growth is always agoal and something we try to do.
But when the opportunity came upto buy another terrific business
on the Lower Eyre Peninsulawith, I think, the key thing was
with, was with similar valuesyou know, being a community
focused family sort of business,very much focused on people
(03:00):
thought we'd have a go at theopportunity.
And we're two months into it nowand it's been it's been a great
experience.
Rob (03:07):
I didn't realize that you were going into that sort of
phase of the journey, but couldyou just give, give everyone a
bit of an overview of Kemp'sapproach to tech?
Where do you see yourselves?
Are you, are you cutting edge?
Are you always looking to be afirst mover?
Are you, are you following a bitfurther back?
Cause I will mention this and bythe time listeners might listen
to that, you might've changedthe website, but the website
(03:29):
does say, and I'm quoting,"youcould say we are high tech.
We use technology to maximizeresults while continuing to
offer excellent customerservice." How are you high tech?
Rav (03:39):
Well, I'll start from the top.
So I think our philosophy onwhether it's sales, property
management it's very muchservice focused or high service
focused, personalized approach.
We're really fortunate to have anetwork that we can work with in
right around Australia, acombination of city based and
(03:59):
regional based real estatebusinesses who we can bounce our
ideas off.
And so our approach to any sortof technology that's new or
anything new we were going toimplement is to.
Yeah, stress test amongst ourpeers and see what their key
learnings have been.
And if they haven't you know, wetry to share what we've learned
(04:20):
from, from what we'reimplementing to sort of help
each other out, I guess.
Rob (04:25):
Yeah, that's interesting.
So, so that's just over thecourse of the years,
relationships have been builtlocally as well as interstate
and and there's your soundingboard for tech ideas.
Rav (04:38):
Absolutely.
Being a, you know, a boutiquebusiness not part of a franchise
group.
We've got a, we've got to sortof try and leverage whatever,
networks we can be a part of.
And we're really lucky that overtime we've been been fortunate
to be part of like mindedprivate sort of businesses yeah,
that the information that we'vebeen able to bounce off others
has been invaluable.
Rob (04:59):
Yeah, fair enough.
And so what does your currenttech stack look like?
You know, how have you built itup?
How is it connected?
And how happy are you with it?
Rav (05:08):
We sort of keep our a PM tech and our sales tech fairly
separate.
We use Agentbox as our sales CRMand then there's, you know, a
few different platforms aroundthat that we've utilized to help
with presentations forappraisals to help with our
prospecting.
From a PM point of view, we'reProperty Tree and again, like
(05:31):
you'd love to have just the, theone pm software that did
everything.
Unfortunately, we're yet to findit.
And I know there's others thatare trying to build it, but we
utilize a combination ofProperty Tree, Reapit's
InspectRealEstate and Agentboxas well.
And there's Inspection Expressand MRI's Inspect that fall in
for our routine and conditionreports.
(05:53):
So when it comes to our techstack, we're really cautious of
bringing more into it, becauseat the moment, we've got a
workflow within the businessthat works for us, and it works
for our clients.
Keeping in mind that all of ourtenants are local.
We recognise the differences inin market demands from a tech
point of view.
(06:13):
Some people just prefer a phonecall or a face to face or I'll
come in and see you in youroffice as opposed to a heap of
auto generated text messages oremails.
So we're conscious of that.
But we still wanna keep movingforward.
Rob (06:26):
Yeah, gotcha.
Interestingly, now that you'remaybe branching out into non
resi and non commercial areas,more farming, are you going to
have to bolt some bits onto yourtech stack?
To give you the information youneed, because I know from a lot
of regional agents, theycomplain that existing platforms
aren't really fit for purpose inmany ways.
Rav (06:49):
We're definitely finding that.
So we're still in the earlystages of incorporating that
rural part of the business intoour existing tech stack.
But again, this, it's a brandnew sort of new area for us to
go in into.
So.
I think bouncing ideas off otherbusinesses that are in that
rural, sales sort of sector,seeing what they use, how they
(07:10):
utilize it.
That's definitely part of oursort of next 12 months
Rob (07:14):
As a shameless plug, but also just our lived experience
with Property Edge is that we,we we sort of over index in
regional areas because using themap based search, you can just
click on things, then you canfind the information out very
easily.
Which, which, particularly withrural properties and farms is
often quite hard because, lot421 down First Street, you know,
(07:35):
it could be 20 Ks up a dirt roadand it's very hard to
distinguish between lot 2.
Rav (07:41):
Very much so.
We're just, we're justexperiencing that at the moment
as we're trying to incorporatethat farming stuff in.
Yep.
Rob (07:47):
Help us understand your, your staff onboarding enabling
of staff to get the most out ofyour tech stack through set
workflows, because speaking to,for example Luke from OC
recently, and then the lastpodcast we did, he mentioned
they have a different approach,whereas they tailor their tech
needs to every staff's workflowor try and show them how they
(08:10):
can use their own workflows.
Whereas most businesses tend tohave a set workflow they expect
staff to go through.
How do you get the most out ofout of your tech stack by
upskilling your staff?
Rav (08:21):
Great question.
I mean, through this recentacquisition we've had to onboard
more people in one hit thanwe've ever had to.
So it's been a great learningexperience and I'm not,
definitely not going to sit hereand say that our onboarding is,
you know, five star, a hundredpercent.
We're still seeing what worksbest for us.
So we feel really confident thatwith our current tech stack, our
(08:41):
workflow is good bringing in youknow, a half a dozen new team
members and trying to workthrough that workflow and keep
it consistent.
And offer consistent service toour clients and and make sure
internally where you know, we'reusing the term"pass the baton on
to the next next person in a ina nice way" has been a challenge
(09:03):
and definitely something that,yeah, we've had to refine on the
fly a little bit you know, wehad a plan of this is how we do
it.
This is how we're going to onboard.
But such is the nature of realestate.
Even the best laid plans change.
So, to answer your question, Ithink, yeah, we always try to
refine our workflow and use ourexisting tech stack and make
(09:23):
sure we're using our existingtech stack to the best of our
ability.
The onboarding of it.
Yeah, it's been a challenge, butwe're getting there.
Rob (09:32):
It's not something you've had to do or get used to.
You know, some of these largeragencies in Adelaide now they
have onboarding teams that theysend out because they're getting
so used to acquiring otherbusinesses and bring them in.
Rav (09:42):
As a bit of perspective, I guess, Rob, we've gone from,
we're at about 19 team memberswith maybe one or two that were
on parental leave and that sortof stuff.
And we've, we've sort ofovernight bumped up to about 27
with two on their way in.
That's been a pretty, prettyquick pretty quick growth for
our little business.
(10:03):
In the cities.
I completely understand whenthey've got hundreds of team
members.
What we're talking about issmall fry.
But I guess from a regionalpoint of view you know, to bring
on 33 percent more within yourworkforce as a small business is
significant and comes withchallenges.
But it's something we're reallyproud off.
Rob (10:19):
You could probably help, validate a theory that I have
that one of the key differencesabout rural or regional real
estate is that you have a verydefined market.
Your market's bounded by thebeach.
And whereas in more metro areas,the, the, you haven't got
defined, you might say you'vegot a defined suburb, but
(10:39):
everything seems to overlap.
And so marketing to locals iseasier because you can find them
at the footy ground.
You can find them yeah, thelocal RSL or wherever, you know,
you happen to do your communitywork, but you can also find them
in Google ads really easily or,you know, Facebook ads.
So my question to you in aroundabout way is from a
marketing perspective and amarketing tech perspective.
(11:00):
You would use these toolsalready, but do you think you've
got an unfair advantage theregiven the defined nature of your
market
Rav (11:07):
yes.
Yeah, it's definitely a benefitof being where we are.
Like like you said, there's oneroad in.
If you're coming over fromAdelaide, you generally go on
the same way through.
So it's very, probably is anunfair advantage in that sense
that for us to, if we're tryingto be strategic with our
marketing or if we're focusedwith what we're trying and who
we're trying to attract from asales and a property management
point of view we, we do have a,an upper hand on, on our Metro
(11:31):
counterparts but of coursethere's other challenges that
you face as well.
If you go to that same well allthe time, sometimes things
aren't going that well, youdon't get the results and that's
that's the downside.
So we're not just purely focusedon, you know, absolutely
everything is traditionalmarketing where we've had to
have to look at other ways to,to sort of broaden what we're
(11:54):
doing.
Rob (11:55):
My next question involves support, support when it comes
to data, data hygiene, but alsoIT support in building your
platforms up and keeping themhumming.
Because if there's, if there'sone thing that can add value to
an agency, if.
God forbid one day you wanted tosell the thing.
It's having a really clean andlarge prospect list and customer
(12:17):
list that's well maintained.
Have you had much support inthat area?
Rav (12:23):
Yeah.
So from a, from an IT point ofview, we do have some managed
assistance from an Adelaidebased firm with just general day
to day IT.
We were trying to handle allthat internally, on top of
trying to make sure our databaseis clean and we're entering data
in properly and all that sort ofstuff.
So we decided that we wanted tosort of control our database.
(12:43):
So AgentBox is our CRM.
A lot of the information thatgoes into there is great if it's
captured and entered inproperly.
But when we're trying to managethat with general day to day
support and improvements andthat sort of stuff, we thought
maybe we'll centralize theAgentBox and the data inputs.
And we've got some certain teammembers, and some checks within
(13:05):
our workflow to make sure thatif the information isn't
captured correctly, we follow upand we get it back and we input
it.
A lot of the AI that we're usingfrom a prospecting point of view
it relies heavily on on that CRMdata being as clean as possible.
Is our CRM perfectly clean.
Absolutely not.
But we just figure if we can, ifwe can try and control what
(13:28):
we're doing right now andcontinue to look back at what's
in there and fix when we can forus and the way we're sort of
structured that's our best bet.
Rob (13:36):
Where do you see, you know, AI going in, in real estate
because there's some dystopianversions of where it might go
where people never talk tohumans anymore.
But then there's some reallysolid use cases, which is just
giving practical and easyinformation to customers in a
quickly accessible way withouthaving to bother a human and to
ensure the customer gets theanswers when they want them.
(13:58):
You know, where do you see thatbalance and where do you see it
going?
Rav (14:01):
Yeah, so AI, when we first saw, I guess, its capabilities
probably coming up to two yearsago it was a little bit
overwhelming and definitelydaunting.
For us our view on AI is not,it's not a replacement tool for,
for real estate professionals.
It's just an enhancement tool.
Our view is at some point intime, everyone's going to be
using it anyway, in some shapeor form.
(14:23):
It's just a matter of how longit takes to get there.
So for us we're testing it wherewe've got some really good team
members that are up to speedwith how to use it for work and
also in their personal lives.
And ChatGPT is probably thesimplest example for us.
You know, a few years ago, youwould have to pay someone.
If you didn't know how to writeyour own new listing there was
(14:46):
people that would offer aservice for$500 or whatever.
Don't quote me on that number,but you can now get that done
within 20 to 25 minutes if youprompt ChatGPT properly, 25
minutes, you're being generous,but that we were spending money
on or spending time on it'ssomething we do a lot when
you're listing properties forsale for rent.
(15:06):
It hasn't replaced the salesperson, it's just enhanced their
ability and given them more timeto do other stuff.
And our view is, yeah, it's anenhancement to the service we
offer.
And, I'm sure it's the same witheveryone.
I think the face to face or inperson interactions that you
have with people are still, arestill, really important.
And if you haven't got thatskillset and the ability to do
(15:27):
that sure you might get someresults, but we've taken that
view that to offer a highservice and a, and a, good place
to work.
You know, it's all about peopleand how you interact with
people.
Rob (15:40):
Yeah, all about people.
That was the theme probably forthe first three episodes of this
podcast.
Everyone was making it very,very clear that tech's
important.
At the end of the day, it'speople that make the sales,
people that have therelationships.
From an AI perspective, youknow, our lived experience at
Land Services is that we'reactually going to be relying on
a lot of our partners, that thesoftware platforms that we use
(16:00):
to expand on the AI capabilitythat they have build that in,
and then we'll get the benefit.
That's it.
Rather than us trying to cobblesomething together for our own
use.
We'll be doing a bit of that forsome specific niche areas, but I
can imagine in the real estateworld, you're just essentially
waiting for these platforms tocome out with some really great
stuff that you can then justswitch on right away and your
(16:20):
team gets benefit from.
Rav (16:22):
Absolutely.
We're waiting for them to pullthe trigger on a few of these
new AI enhancements.
And then obviously we want totest them, make sure they work
the way we want I've been toldthey're going to work.
I think it's a really importantthing.
And then obviously roll it outto our clients if we can.
But yeah, it's a bit of awaiting game at the moment.
If we can do some stuff in thebackground just to sort of fill
in the blanks, absolutely.
(16:43):
We've been exploring options.
We're confident that, you know,your Reapits and your MRIs of
the world are working on thenext big thing.
Rob (16:51):
And I'd be excited to see what they come up with to
speaking of the next big thingChristmas is coming up and so on
your wishlist for Christmas,what sort of tech tools or data
do you wish you had access to,to help your team perform?
Rav (17:08):
Really good question.
I think some of the data that'sout there that's been captured
by I guess some of the portalsand the the way they've gone
about capturing that has been,you know, it's hats off to them
because what they have withintheir ecosystem is is
phenomenal.
And the information that theyget and derive is, is really,
really important.
(17:28):
I think for us, it's just, it'dbe great if we had the ability
to capture that ourselves and,and have it within our own CRM,
but that's a difficult thing todo.
So, the wish this would bealmost as if we had our own our
own portal.
We try to navigate and directtowards our website as much as
we can.
But people are going to look atlook at the portals.
(17:48):
So having a system in a websitewhere we could capture that
information and be able to shareour value with our clients in
that sense would be amazing.
Rob (17:58):
So just help expand on that.
What, what sort of information,what would you want in the
portal?
I mean, realestate.
com is the big, big portal thata lot of people go through.
I'm assuming that's what you'respeaking about, right?
Rav (18:08):
I think so.
I think the model that they'vegot where I guess you know, Rob
Turnbull signs up as a, with aaccount and then, you know, when
you're as you're looking for aproperty you enter in what
you're looking for and thatinformation is then stored and
you can get alerts.
And so I think in its simplestform, like I said, we use
AgentBox.
You can do that, but it's thenadding the the next layers on
(18:31):
top of that, which yeah, hatsoff to realestate.
com.
They've built this amazingbusiness and system over a long
period of time.
But I think looking at whatthey've done and how they've
done it and what they'reactually offering as a real
estate business, a singleoffice, if we could do something
like that, it'd be amazing.
So that's my, that's mywishlist.
sure how we get there.
Rob (18:50):
REA group, realestate.
com's parent is the mostvaluable part of News Corp now.
So you can see how well theymust be doing.
And on that note, I reckon wemight leave it there.
Rav thanks so much for sharingyour perspective.
Some of the key things that Itook away were your your
approach to tech, speaking toother people around the country,
(19:11):
you know, getting that vibe frompeople, understanding how you
support your staff with theworkflows and, and, and the fact
that you're just growingenormously and got, got some
some teething.
I suppose just normal growingpains is one that I think a lot
of agencies probably will haveto start learning about if
they're going to start growingin that similar manner.
(19:33):
So anyway, thank you so much forsharing your perspective today.
Rav (19:36):
Thanks for having me, Rob.
It's been a pleasure.
Rob (19:39):
Listeners, I really hope you have enjoyed today's
episode, talking to a regionalindustry leader.
Thank you for spending the timeto listen to this today.
If you want any more informationabout the Property Edge Podcast
or the Property Edge platform,head over to propertyedge.app
and until the next time, byebye.
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