Let’s learn from two leading real estate figures on how to make more sales and 'make more time' through the power of a Remote Professional.
✅ How QLD’s #1 agent, Alex Jordan (sold over 130 properties in the last 12 months) works with his 'Wingman' Benj to help him find more prospects, and deliver exceptional results.
✅ How Peter Kakos, who specialises in prestige properties with an average sale price of $11 million works with his 'Wingman' Ray to help manage high-stake sales. The office writes approx. $15 million in GCI.
✅ Find Your 'Wingman':
- Understand how Wingman (aka Remote Professionals) can multiply your effectiveness and efficiency.
- Find your Wingman
- WalktoAREC
This webinar is sponsored by Wingman
Let’s learn from two leading real estate figures on how to make more sales and 'make more time' through the power of a Remote Professional.
✅ How QLD’s #1 agent, Alex Jordan (sold over 130 properties in the last 12 months) works with his 'Wingman' Benj to help him find more prospects, and deliver exceptional results.
✅ How Peter Kakos, who specialises in prestige properties with an average sale price of $11 million works with his 'Wingman' Ray to help manage high-stake sales. The office writes approx. $15 million in GCI.
✅ Find Your 'Wingman':
- Understand how Wingman (aka Remote Professionals) can multiply your effectiveness and efficiency.
- Find your Wingman
- WalktoAREC
This webinar is sponsored by Wingman
I've got with me a dream team today. I've got people with me that are going to actually help you move away from trying to be everything to everyone. You've heard me say the pilot doesn't serve drinks on the plane, the medical specialist doesn't do the admissions, a nurse does it. And I have to say to you in real estate, one of the reasons why I think it's got such a high turnover rate and also why most real estate agents won't ever achieve the potential that they can achieve, is that, instead of just spending their time talking to current vendors and potential vendors or current buyers, they end up getting caught up doing a heap of other stuff. This is probably going to be music to your ear when I tell you that over the next half hour, we're going to show you a plan that's going to allow you to get rid of certain activities that take a lot of time in your day, including the administration, including marketing, including sending out digital price updates, including sending out digital pre-listing kits or any pre-listing kit diary management, email, buyer inquiry. The list goes on. It just doesn't stop, and I know that you keep hearing people saying pick up the phone, have more conversations, but you also have this constant fight in your head how am I going to do my prospecting when I've got to do vendor management, vendor reports? I've got to be out there putting the deals together. I've got to be managing my team. I've got to be going to my final inspections before settlement. I've got to be going to valuations. I've got to be going to pest and building. It doesn't stop. It's the highest paid hard work. It's the lowest paid easy work. And we're about to make life a lot easier.
Speaker 1:Today I've got with me the great Alex Jordan, many would say the number one real estate agent in Australia, and I can tell you the real deal. In addition to that, we have Nick Georges, one of the founders of Wingman and one of the executives there that works with Jonathan. Many of you know him from his days as being one of the thought leaders of PM in Australia. Peter Kakos, of course, from Atlas, been in real estate I remember Peter's probably three decades or close to it, all the way from Melbourne now one of the senior people in the Atlas Group working out of the Northern Rivers, and we have with us two remote professionals, which I'm going to ask Nick Georges in a moment to introduce. But if I can get remote professional number two don't be shy. If you do have a camera, that's working, if you just turn it on, that's it Beautiful. Look at that. He's got the Australian emblem there on the right-hand side. So, nick, firstly, gentlemen, welcome all. It's good to see you all. Nick, can I get you to introduce formally our two remote professionals?
Speaker 2:Thanks, tom, and thanks for that intro. Welcome, alex and Peter. We have two of our remote professionals here today Benj, who works directly with the Alex Jordan team, and Ray, who works with Peter Kaycos and the Atlas team in the lower North Shore of Sydney. I thought it'd be a great opportunity for all of your viewers, tom, to actually see and hear and feel the quality of the team that we've got in the Philippines. So I might just hand it over to you, benj, to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do for the Alex Jordan team.
Speaker 1:Benj, I can't hear you. You're on mute.
Speaker 3:No, they're not muted. They should be able to hear us.
Speaker 1:I think you know what might be easy for you, benj If you're not getting access coming through, maybe take your. I don't know, we can't hear you, but maybe take your headphone off and maybe go direct to the computer. I'm not quite sure, but while that's happening, do you want to introduce the second person, while we get Benj getting his mic working?
Speaker 4:Ray. Yeah, there you go, benj, all right. I'm sorry, that's all right. I'm actually new to this Zoom app. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 6:That's okay, that was a good day.
Speaker 4:Benj, all right, so hey guys, my name is Benj and I am working with Alex Jordan from McGrath, paddington. So my role is sales support and I'm a little bit by myself just on my spare time. Especially on the weekends, I like to spend time with my family. How old are you, do you mind me asking? Yes, I am actually 27 years old and I have a wife and a son.
Speaker 2:Yes, Benj, let me ask you, Benj, let me ask you tell us a bit about what you do day to day for Alex.
Speaker 4:All right. So actually my focus is on the marketing side and supporting the agents. So the main tool that I use are AgentBox and on it is CampaignTrack. So what I mainly do is I do the listing kits and it includes the RP data summary, the suburb flyover reports and then the form six, and also I'm creating marketing codes, proofing signboards and brochures and downloading and uploading photos and videos for the properties and also data mining and assisting the agents on their specialty suburbs.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. And tell me one more question what have you learned by working with Alex and working with such a high performing team?
Speaker 4:All right. So one of the things that I've learned is that the Australian real estate industry is really fast paced, so the agents are really busy, so time management is really important. So understanding what is urgent and what can wait is, um, certainly a big thing. And also I'm doing daily check-ins and end of the reports to keep that team up to date, and also one of the things is that I'm not being afraid to ask questions. So those are the things that I've learned so far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a can I ask you how long has Benj been working with you?
Speaker 6:We're at the beginning of, I guess, our working relationship. It's been a couple of months, about three months approximately. Pleasure to have him on board and I've had experiences with remote professionals previously, so this is not my first attempt at it. But the experience was very different to what we have now with Benj and Wingman and I think that's a reflection of these guys being trained for the industry. They know real estate, they understand the process. I think there's a strong bond between Wingman as a company and their staff. There's a strong connection. It's not just a work relationship. I think it goes a little bit beyond that. We've had a great experience to date, very different to our previous experiences with remote professionals, which was, to be frank, disappointing.
Speaker 6:Bench has taken off a lot of pressure from the agents and this is an industry where you can get distracted very quickly and very easily.
Speaker 6:It's the efficiency of the agent's role on a day-to-day basis. I would say majority of agents that I witness are probably doing 20% of proper dollar productive work a day and they spend the rest of the time bogged down in either paperwork, doing marketing quotes, letterbox drops, all sorts of things that, whilst you have to have those elements in your business, they're not going to really get you the deals. So the intent of getting someone like Wingman and Benj for us has been to take the pressure off the agents, and Benj now supplies us with a lot of important information that we weren't doing ourselves. So, for example, if we get a new listing and he will send it to Benj, benj will then send us contact details for everyone surrounding that listing, so we'll have a bunch of 50, 100 numbers, addresses and names. The agents then get on the phone, invite those neighbors to the open inspection, so we start to build relationships with them.
Speaker 6:At the moment his role is very marketing focused, but also data mining. But it's taken off pressure not just from us as agents, but also our admin person, kaya, who's very busy. So it just creates a lot more efficiency and the experience has been much better than ever before Lovely people to deal with, efficient, responsive, reliable, positive in their energy and, I would say, outrank local staff members. So I don't think we could have the same experience with someone from Australia.
Speaker 1:Well, I can see, alex. I can see why that happens, because for the investment of getting a person that seems on camera very responsible, a family guy I know, highly educated they're getting paid a fraction of a salary that we have people locally. But to me it's not even the money, alex. I think at the moment because we have a low unemployment rate in Australia, or actually in many parts of the world, but in Australia people can go get jobs anywhere and what we've slowly seen is the young person that used to sort of come into real estate is actually not seeing it as a privilege. They see it as an entitlement, having a role, and when things don't go their way, you just hear them. Oh mate, I'm moving on, I'm going on. He wasn't nice to me, nick, you've told me in the past the remote professionals. You know them intimately because it's your business. They are so appreciative of the opportunity to be able to have a full-time role and serve people in the real estate industry in Australia. They're grateful, and a grateful, happy employee becomes a successful employee.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think it's one of the most important factors of us as a business is not only providing amazing staff, but also providing guidance to the Australian businesses that work with us on how to integrate remote professionals into their business. And, like any employee across the world, if employees feel valued, they will put in 110%. They will want to do an amazing job for their employee and they want to make a difference in the business. They're not there in the background just doing administration tasks. They are part of your business, part of your growth and, ultimately, part of your success.
Speaker 1:May I ask you and we're going to come back to Benj and Alex in a moment but I'd like to talk to our second remote professional. If you'd like, to introduce him and let's get to know him as well.
Speaker 2:Ray, I'll ask you the same question. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you're working with Peter and the Atlas team in the Long North Shore.
Speaker 3:Hello, good morning guys. My name is Ken. I am working with Michael Coombs from Atlas in Neutral Bay, new South Wales, so my role is sales support. So in my spare time I love playing volleyball. I have a group of friends and playing during weekends Also visit my mom and siblings for a bonding time.
Speaker 1:Family. Nick, you know what I noticed about people, filipinos. Families are very high value for them. I know that from Filipinos. I know in Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's super important and this is one of the reasons why our model is a work from home model. It allows the team in the Philippines to actually spend more time with their families. That's one of the main reasons why we do have a work-from-home model In Manila and in the Philippines in general. It's actually quicker to walk to places than to drive around and get public transport. The city is absolutely gridlocked. The city is absolutely gridlocked, so eliminating that travel time to and from offices in the hubs of Manila allows more efficiencies and more time for our Philippines team to spend time with their family. Benj, I'd like to ask you tell us some of the tasks that you're doing for Peter, Michael and the Atlas team.
Speaker 3:Okay, I focus on creating marketing codes and proposals for the sales team. I receive all information about the codes and proposals from the agent, so I build a proposal using RealHub and Engage and, once completed, I send the document to the agent as a draft for approval before sending to the vendor. Once I finish my proposal staff, I also doing a data migration task project using an agent box and RECS tool Awesome.
Speaker 1:I'm curious, nick, how long actually. I should just ask Ray this how long have you been working with Michael Coombs and the Peter Kakos group?
Speaker 3:I started March 19th.
Speaker 1:March 19th. Yes, I've had a question that's come in and I want to touch it as we're going along. Elisa says to Alex and Benj but everyone can chime in Maybe Alex is a good starting point how long did it take to get onboarded and get used to the systems and processes in your office? So I suppose it's yeah, like Alex, I know that you said the experience was a bit different, because they do come trained. I can tell they've been trained on AgentBox, They've been trained on CampaignTrack, They've been trained on Engage. How long did it take?
Speaker 6:Alex. The onboarding process was really efficient for this experience, which was great. So we probably, I would say, in the first couple of weeks we had a good understanding of how we would work together. Benj came pretty well educated on everything we needed to sort of share with him, very different to before, the previous remote experience that we had. It took a couple of months of training. We never really got to the point we were satisfied with, so we parted ways with the previous company.
Speaker 6:I think these guys, because they're real estate focused, there's a lot of training that goes behind the scenes before we get to meet them. There's still probably at least a couple of weeks of them understanding our business, the way we operate our processes. But they're very intelligent people. They obviously know what they're doing so they pick things up quickly. They're very intelligent people. They obviously know what they're doing, so they pick things up quickly, and the experience in terms of their demeanor, their approach to work, their work ethic, their attitude, is really positive.
Speaker 6:For me it's just a delight to work with them and that impacts the team's, I guess, morale as well, because if you've got someone in the background that doesn't have the same positive mindset and attitude and is difficult to reach and the language that they use in their responses is a bit sort of restrictive and combative, which we often see in support staff. It really brings the team morale down. But nothing's been too difficult for Benj. It's created a lot of efficiency to the point. I didn't think he would add as much value from a GCI basis that they've done, because ultimately we're trying to grow our business and now, if we take Benj away, there's a big gap which we didn't sort of know until Benj came in and now has sort of filled that role and now we think, okay, you know all of these things that we weren't doing. Well, if we stop doing that now, we're going to go backwards. So it's an important part of any agent's toolbox, I think, and for us we've partnered up with the right person, so very grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Peter, can I just ask you? Firstly because you haven't said anything yet and I want to bring you into the conversation because I know that you are using remote professionals in a broader way than what say Alex is. So firstly, just introduce yourself. You work part of Atlas, you tell us.
Speaker 5:Yeah, thanks, tom. People will be quite surprised that. Nick, I see you laughing there about how I haven't said anything yet, so normally I'll, but it's great. I'm the Managing Director of Atlas Low North Shore and so we've been working. So Ken, who is on the call, is now directly with the Michael Coombs team, so he's got a slightly different role. And we've got another remote professional his name is Ray who operates through our agent services team, so his responsibility. So, from an agent point of view.
Speaker 5:They're going to be very much agent focused in terms of quotes and marketing and, you know, direct client feedback, whereas the remote professional that we have for our group works encompassing the whole team, particularly assisting our agent services. So they'll be assigned tasks on a daily basis. They'll be involved in data cleansing and communication out to agents, communication via EDMs out to our clients as well. So they've got to be really upskilled in terms of RealHub, canva, agentbox, all our systems and processes they're across so they can really chime in wherever they're needed across the whole business. To the question before around how long do they take to onboard? Now, you know there's very specific tasks for, say, for Alex's team or for Michael's team. It's quite specific in terms of an agent sort of point of view. It needs to be a little bit more holistic from a company point of view, though, in terms of getting them across all the systems.
Speaker 5:The most important thing I'll say in terms of induction Wingman do a wonderful job in getting them to a certain level with a certain skill set that they're already coming to the table with.
Speaker 5:But it's really important that you've got a dedicated team member, especially in that first month or so. That is their go-to person and they're actually talking them through screen sharing. This is how we do things, step to step, to step to step. I think the most important thing is is you've got to have someone and some time and ability of someone to be able to do that, and not just you know. Let them free reign and um and find and navigate their own way through. Without that support it's going to blow out by a couple of months, whereas we can really fast track it to within sort of three to four weeks. And they're well and truly up and running because they are incredibly dedicated remote professionals and they've just got such wonderful nature that's what we love about them and their work ethic is tremendous and they're just like what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? But you've got to spend the time in actually getting them to a point where they can sort of have free reign.
Speaker 1:Nick, the training. This, to me, is probably the big differentiator, because virtual workers, remote professional my, you know, VA overseas this has been a term that's been used for a decade, but it was a weird process, like you'd get someone you didn't even know. Like, where do we start with these people? Right, but your model is that, as Peter says, they come to you with a certain level of competency and understanding of your Australian system. So I'm just going to share a slide right here, right now, and that is when they come to us. They essentially are able, pretty much right from the outset, to get oh, sorry man. Uh, they come up, stop share, sorry team. Stop share, sorry team. You should be able to see, maybe not, it doesn't matter. Look, all I'm trying to get at is that they seem to come along and understand the CRM systems, the price updates, the real tear engage stuff they're able to understand about cleaning a database and getting it from being fat to fit. What is the process that you have internally in training and education of these people?
Speaker 2:So the first thing is we're actually doing at the moment anywhere from three and a half to 4,000 interviews a month in the Philippines to get roughly 100 Philippine staff into our academy. So our academy, we're very, very stringent with that process. Our academy, from day one in the academy we peel it right back. Yes, there might be university educated and very capable, but from day one in the academy we're talking to them about what is a vendor, what is a buyer, what is an agreement, what's a sales contract, like real basic stuff. And then it develops into how to use Realtier, how to use CoreLogic, how to use all the major CRMs and platforms. And then, once an Australian business selects their remote professional and goes through that process, what we do is we call it a specific training. So once they've selected, to the onboarding date, there's usually a two to four week period and that two to four week period we really hone in on exactly what that agent or business specifically wants them to do. Now that gets them to a certain level.
Speaker 2:But, as Peter touched on, we understand as a business, every single agent and every single business have their own flavor, have their own characteristics, have their own way of doing things, and that's why it's super important when the remote professional is onboarded and integrated. There is someone, a point of contact on the ground In Peter's case I think it's Alice, in Alex's case it's Kaya but there is a go-to onshore here in Australia for the remote professional to connect with and actually help them integrate it. At Wingman we understand that one of the biggest challenges was the integration into the businesses. We've now also got a team here that can assist with that. So we're an ever-evolving business. We are aligned with a number of really high-performing agents and we're learning from them. We understand that this is an evolution of what we've developed, and what we've developed is phenomenal to date, but we want to continue to grow as a business and grow with some of the elite people in the industry.
Speaker 1:Can I ask Alex, in the short term, when you're communicating with your remote professional, what do you seem to use phone?
Speaker 6:So I would suggest WhatsApp's the best app to use. Look, our remote professional bench is an extension of our team and family, so that's the way we review it, or review it. We're in a whatsapp group as a team and he's in that group, so any communication within the team bench can see what's being said. If someone needs to speak with bench, they can address it either direct on whatsapp to him or in the group. I think that's the best way. It's better than email. Text message isn't really practical, given we've got iPhones and Samsungs and different countries. I think WhatsApp's the best way. And, nick, I reckon it's a reflection of the people you're teaming up with, mate, because I've experienced remote professionals before, as I've said to you, but it's a real delight to have you, benj, on board. Bro, seriously is man. It's a refreshing experience to have someone that is understanding of our business, is willing to help with passion and the positive attitude and that lifts us as a team. It genuinely does. And now the opportunities that are coming to us from prospecting, where the agents can now sit down and just dial numbers and connect with people and build relationships. They were not doing that before because it would take them hours to mine the data and that was clunky and prohibitive and they were like oh, I don't have time, and so it just creates a lot of efficiency and from a dollar productive point of view, I don't know of a better alternative. Like, if you've got to invest in this business real estate you can either get away and go on the cheap and try and avoid costs, but really to really grow and have market share you've got to invest. And the efficiency that the remote professional brings versus someone onshore, I think is far superior and the attitude is far better as well. So for us it's been a great partnership. We hope it continues.
Speaker 6:But I have to say that before I got into this I was skeptical because I'd experienced it before. Nick kept on talking it up. I was like, yeah, man, I've done this before. I don't think it's for me. It was like, just give me a shot, let me try.
Speaker 6:And I got a sense of who the people were and what these guys are doing in the Philippines. I think it goes beyond work. My interest in them is not just about partnering up from a business point of view, but the support they're giving to these people I think is important. Our culture, unfortunately in Australia is, they expect a lot. This is just, you know, new sort of the young generation high expectation but little output. You know the work ethic isn't as strong, but they expect a lot back, whereas it's very different in the Philippines. And these guys, to Nick's point, I mean to get to work and back, some of the staff in Philippines are traveling for one and a half, two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening. They don't see their families. So to be able to give someone that opportunity and them to support us, I think it's just a really nice win-win scenario.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very, very, very well said. And again, team, we're taking advantage of a global economy that allows you to use currency differences to your advantage and benefit other people along the way. May I ask also the same question to Peter Kakos? The way that you communicate with your remote professionals is what way?
Speaker 5:Tom, you know. Can I just go back on something and it's an interesting point that Alex makes, because I hear this all the time and it was my trepidation I've never experienced sort of VAs before. I'd only experienced the horror stories that people had shared with me over years, and I think what it comes down to it reminds me of. I remember putting my first PA on back in the 90s, as one of the first ones to ever put a PA on, and we didn't know what the hell we were doing. And I think that was that's basically. What I see is a lot of agents who tried this VA or companies that tried VAs didn't know what the hell they were doing. They just sort of all care, no responsibility, I'll get someone else to do it. So I think what's really helped is, yes, we've got wingman who have got them to a certain level, but I think we've become better as professionals in systemising our business and not complicating our business.
Speaker 5:The worst thing you can do is not have a system and expect the wingman to just, you know, buy magic or osmosis just to create magic within your business. You need, first of all, you need to start with the right systems and the right processes and the right expect expectations of what you want them to do. So which leads to that communication piece and whether it's um, it's whatsapp, we just jump on teams. We would um, our girls would jump on, our agent services would jump on teams three, four, five times a day. If it needs to be 10 times a day, it would be, but there are regular meetings to top and tail every single day. This is what the expectations are at the start of the day and at the end of the day. What did we achieve today? And at the middle of the day, if required, if they've got any little questions or anything like that, they can certainly chime in via Teams. We don't want sort of every hour or every half hour. We'd certainly also combine your questions into chunks unless it's super urgent and it's a real roadblock for you taking the next step in what you want to do.
Speaker 5:But the communication piece is critical because communication is the basis of culture. We want them as part of our team and the beautiful thing about our remote professionals and the wingman is we're creating a community. We like to look at it as a community. We want them included in everything that we do within our team. So we want them as part of our really it's around our culture. That's why they're responsible for so much communication pieces going out to our clients and also communication pieces internally with our agents as well. So our agents get a feel for them right across the business as well and what their role is, and they are, you know, creating content pieces for everyone to utilise.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm just going to share now see if this works here, and I think you should be able to see now a slide there, and this slide here is showing you a model that I use metaphorically, using martial arts, but in real estate becoming a black belt in real estate, and what you'll notice, it's all about team at the top, you know, and the gentleman that we've got on here, on here at that level. I know your role is different now, pete, but for most of the people that are watching this, they're moving up the ranks, up this ladder. Now, to be able to do that, you're going to need to. Actually, what do they say? The bigger the dream, the bigger the team, and all we're trying to do is create processes in your business that are allowing the remote professionals to be doing lower dollar productive activity so the lead agent can be doing the key stuff.
Speaker 1:Your morning catch-up like a work-in-progress meeting, basically WhatsApp group that Alex made reference to. Just remind me also again, nick. Actually I feel slack because there's so many messages that are coming in here and I don't want to feel like we're not paying attention to this wonderful audience that's on Facebook. I think we've got a few hundred. Well, we've got at least 158 on Zoom, but we've also got a few hundred eyes watching this on Facebook. The question is how concerned? Alexander Loretty writes how concerned about cyber security were you at first? And how does Wingman protect? Is there any like Nick? Maybe you answer that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we take. Obviously, security is a very high priority for us. We don't know everything about security, but we are partnered with a company that specialises in security Connected Platforms is their name. If anyone is considering or concerned about the security, we're happy to put you directly in touch with our provider. We do that regularly. They can talk to you about the ins and outs of help, but we are as secure as anyone here in Australia and any of the banks, and we take security very, very seriously and touch wood. To date we haven't had any problems, but we will continue to fine tune that and continue to work on upping the security from that level. I noticed also, Tom, there was a question from someone in New Zealand. Do we work across New Zealand? The answer is yes, so we have a number of offices that we're working with in New Zealand and we're actually going to New Zealand in June and spending a week there.
Speaker 1:So we'd love to connect Nick, in case people at this point of our webinar have got yeah, I want to take this further, I want to find out more, I want to get one. What's the best way to connect with you?
Speaker 2:I'll put it in, or Susan can put it in the chat wingmangroupcomau, or you can contact me on Instagram or email. Nick at nickgeorgescomau.
Speaker 1:Okay, susan, if you can put the wingman URL there, the social media one, they'd. Probably it's easier if they just go on and find it, but wingmangroupcomau. Also, if we can put it into Facebook, by the way, everyone, I'm letting you know the investment I think is around 25 grand a year, just to give you a bit of context. Just a bit of context. Grand a year, just to give you a bit of context. Just a bit of context. If you don't spend the 25, you'll be paying tax on it. That's going to mean that really, your net saving would have been 15 grand, right? So just think about for $15,000 a year, right? You have got someone that is with you 35 hours a week. That's grateful. That is bending their back. That's their core job. They think of you all day. If you don't think that you're not going to get another listing and another sale because of that person there, I think I don't even have to ask you that question. I think you know that question and I think what it is is right now.
Speaker 1:Probably you've been someone that has been resisting because you kept on thinking it is a significant investment. I can't train them, I don't have the money. Wingman has been a panadol to that headache that people have had. I want to answer this question that Vish has asked, which is what CRM systems are the remote professionals familiar with? Also, what does Tom Panos think might be a great CRM? Listen, I'm biased. I get paid money by Agent Box in my partnership relationship. I'm going to say Agent Box. Right, I mean Alex uses Agent Box. I'm not quite sure, pete, what do you use Agent Box? Okay, well, there you go.
Speaker 6:Agent Box is happy right now. Tom.
Speaker 1:Agent Box is happy. They've got one guy that's getting paid talking about them. Box is happy. They've got one guy that's getting paid talking about them and they've got two people that pay them talking about them. But, nick, if they're not an agent box client, what other systems?
Speaker 2:So they're trained up on Vault Rex. All the majors Locked On Box and Dice all the major CRMs, realtair, plug for Realtair there. Yeah, all the major CRMs and platforms across both sales and property management.
Speaker 1:Okay, octale Vale says and this question is for Alex and Nick Well, anyone can chime in because, peter, you've also had experience with this question. My experience with VAs is they quit after a couple of weeks of working with them. How do you address the issue and ensure they stay connected and continue working the issue and ensure they stay connected and continue working? Well, look, octave, look, I've had, you know, remote professionals and VAs. They haven't quit. I've had some that have quit.
Speaker 6:Yeah, tommy, can I chime in there? Yeah, I think it comes down to the experience of the person supporting you. You know what's the relationship that you have with them. Are they happy in their role? Are they being respected, considered and heard? Are they part of your extended team? Are you treating them as a separate person? And it really comes down to that person's work ethic, their passion to be supportive of your process, the connection relationship you have. I don't think, I don't know, with Wingman, nick, you can answer to that, but we don't have that experience. I haven't had it before, but I've heard of others. But I think if you are connecting with the right company and with the right people, the odds of that are very low. These guys are very grateful for the work that they do, they appreciate the opportunity and there's a strong relationship between us.
Speaker 2:So I don't see that as a risk if you partner with the right team. I echo that. I think we are in the business in the real estate industry of building relationships and quite often we put to the back burner the relationships within our business. We're just worried about the relationships with the buyers and the vendors. I think if you put the emphasis on building a relationship internally in your business whether that be front desk, whether it be a sales associate, whether it be your number one sales agent or your remote professional, whether it be a sales associate, whether it be your number one sales agent or your remote professional I think if you can build a relationship and make them feel or bring them into the vision and the vision of the business, you won't lose them.
Speaker 2:Obviously, there's always a human factor. There's things that happen. Have we had remote professionals that have left after a couple of weeks? The answer is yes. But I bring it back to the Australian business. Did they put the emphasis on building their relationship with the offshore team? And I can confidently say any Australian business that has integrated and made the remote professional part of their team, the retention is like nothing I've seen. So we've got over 400 staff now in the Philippines, and the amount that we are losing is non-existent because we put such an emphasis on the relationship that we build as a business with the offshore team or with our remote professionals, and we also instill that in the businesses that we build as a business with the offshore team or with our remote professionals, and we also instill that in the businesses that are coming on board with us to actually spend the time, integrate them well and build a relationship with them, get to know them as a human being, not just someone doing some tasks in the background.
Speaker 1:Len asked the question how do you manage the tasks of your remote professional? Do you do that through a CRM, google Sheet or something like mondaycom? Anyone? Pete, you're nodding your head. What's your?
Speaker 5:Yeah, we've got mondaycom and we also use Trello board as well.
Speaker 1:Right, let's move on to the next question. Adam Joski, Good to see you, Adam. Hi guys, Thanks for the session. I was wondering if you guys are client facing at all, in terms of speaking with vendors, buyers or database Nick generally like yeah, I think the answer is no, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, generally it's something that we don't encourage right away. Having said that, we have developed. There are a number of. I mean, we've got Ben Jen Ray here who are speaking to an audience of 150 people, so we've got businesses that have utilised Wingman and our offshore team at front desk reception at Housemark, which is our real estate business. Jeff, who's our front desk manager, based in the philippines, takes 90 calls a day. I think 50 of them get through to the property managers. Their english is amazing, but I think I think as a rule, initially I would get them integrated into the business, get them to know your systems and processes, get them to know your marketplace. Before I would get them speaking to clients, buyers, vendors. I think that is your role as a lead agent or as someone running a business to hold those relationships, and I would get the remote professionals doing the things that are going to give you more time to build those relationships and I would get the remote professionals doing the things that are going to give you more time to build those relationships.
Speaker 1:Okay, russell, barry or Barry, sorry Russell has asked how many weeks per year coverage. In other words, would I need to factor holiday weeks for the support person? So, yeah, just uh, nick, how does it work? Uh, uh, annual leave, um, and and hours that they work uh, 40 hours a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, is is the full-time package. Uh, they have 10 10 sick days and 10 annual leave days a year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in Australia there's 20 annual days, isn't there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's total 20, but 10 sick days and 10 annual leave days.
Speaker 1:Okay, while I've got you, can you remind me again, for those that have seen the REB story, that was written about the walk you're going to be doing to Eric. So on the Sunday where Eric kicks off, what are you actually doing, nick? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:So we are. One of the big initiatives for us is we're partnered with a company called Destiny Rescue. Destiny Rescue are a nonprofit organization and a charity that rescue children from sex trafficking across the world. Obviously, we have a huge connection in the Philippines and the Philippines is, unfortunately, one of the one of the big countries that that is running rampant. Uh, we are doing, um, we're raising awareness and raising money. Uh, we're doing it on the thursday and the friday before eric. Uh, we're walking 100 kilometers, um, and we would love anyone who's coming to erIC to get involved. We're doing 50k over both days.
Speaker 2:Day one will be a core team of wingman and a few businesses that we're aligned with, and day two, we're inviting the greater real estate industry to walk from Koolangatta back to Main Beach, where we have a bus.
Speaker 2:We'll have a bus in the Gold Coast. If anyone wants to come and do 20Ks, 10ks, we would love anyone from the real estate industry to get involved. Yeah, the website if you want to get involved, or just send me an email if you want to come and support and if you want to donate, just go to destinyrescuecomau and click on the Wingman link. We would love the real estate industry to get behind it. Aric is an amazing event with a lot of learnings, but we understand there are bigger things happening in the world and I know we're just a splash in the ocean, but if we can help in a little way, I think we're up to just over 20,000 raised which is going to save, which will save about 14 kids 14 children and we want to continue to do as much as we can to raise awareness for this horrific thing that's happening across the world and do our little bit here in Australia.
Speaker 6:Okay, Tom you said you wanted to trim up for Eric.
Speaker 3:You should probably join them.
Speaker 2:Tom, we'd love to have you, but I know he's crazy the days before Eric.
Speaker 1:Susan, Susan, I can say the same thing about you. You said to me you wanted to sort of look great, let's do it.
Speaker 3:I'll see you there.
Speaker 1:Probably more important for you than me. I'm sort of in a relationship, but you're going to be footloose. Nancy Pari, you want to look a million dollars, Susan.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, can I just remind everyone, nick Georges' number is 0421 303 032. His email is nick at nickgeorgescomau. The website is wingmangroupcomau. It is 1144.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, so good to see you, and we have three Greek heritage guys on this. I just realised we have two Filipinos, three Greek heritage guys. We've got Alex Jordan and Susan quietly away. So firstly, gentlemen in the Philippines, thank you for jumping in today. I also know that jumping on to Facebook and having all these people look at you, and also on Zoom looking at you, can be overwhelming if it's something that you don't regularly do. So thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1:Alex Jordan, you know, still to this day, I've looked at every TikTok In TikTok. I love looking at inspirational video. I like looking at 30, 45 segments of stuff, but nothing has been more powerful than a video I saw about 18 months ago when Alex Jordan went in and showed his parents that he had discharged their mortgage. And man, you put that on TikTok. That will give people goosebumps. In an industry where the next reward is a Maserati or a business class ticket to Las Vegas to watch the UFC, it is so exciting to see what some real estate people do with the fortunes of having a great real estate life and what you do for your family. Incredible video Alex and Peter Kakos. Am I right? Three decades in real estate.
Speaker 5:Yes it is. It is that 30 years now, Tom 30 years in real estate.
Speaker 1:As I'm talking to you, are you in Byron Bay right now. Are you in Byron?
Speaker 5:No, no, no, I'm in Sydney. We've got a Byron Bay office as well, but I'm I remember I saw you there last time.
Speaker 1:You're in Sydney now, but you know you've been quite eloquent in the way that you've explained how a remote professional can work and it does sound like well. The truth is, it sounds like if you're totally disorganised and your place is just operating in chaos. I don't want you to think that you're going to get a remote professional and say, sort it all out is going to be your answer, because you did make a very valid point. You know our processes that we currently have and most businesses have improved from the milk bar type operations of a few decades ago, and it's just the matter is time like, and what this is going to allow you to do is to have choice management, to pick better choices in what you're doing with your time, because there are other people that are really good and like doing stuff that you probably good and like doing stuff that you probably don't like doing and are not good at. This is the value of this equation that it is win-win for all parties involved, and I want to thank you all.
Speaker 1:Enjoy Anzac Day tomorrow, gentlemen in the Philippines. We have a day here. It's a public holiday. Tomorrow, gentlemen in the Philippines, we have a day. Here it's a public holiday. Tomorrow In Australia it is Anzac Day, and that's why there's a lot of people that are happy today in Australia.
Speaker 6:Thank you guys, thanks gentlemen, thanks Ben.
Speaker 5:Thanks, ken, nice to meet you guys.
Speaker 6:Appreciate it.