Training Plans and Relationship Building

We explore how Elise Thomas blends VIP portfolio management with structured leadership, turning training into a measurable, six-month plan that lifts performance. We balance tech with human touch and share low-cost learning paths that keep teams sharp and clients loyal.

• role of a senior PM managing luxe clients and why it matters
• time triage and keeping a hand in the portfolio to stay sharp
• leadership study that changed coaching and feedback
• six-month individualized training plans with sign-offs
• motivation, self-education, and avoiding skill stagnation
• why owners must invest in training and product updates
• free learning channels for PMs without budgets
• designing client experience to reduce friction and complaints
• when human calls beat automation for trust and speed
• premium tenant onboarding at property with manuals and kits

If anyone wants to reach out to Elise or myself, you are welcome to. If you’re not working in a business where there is active training, please don’t victimize yourself over that. There are so many free options as well that you can access. Just reach out to one of us who can share them with you.

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This podcast is kindly sponsored by The Efficiency Co.

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This podcast is sponsored by PropertyMe.

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Chapters

• 1:36 Meet Elise Thomas And Her Role
• 4:11 Why Keep A VIP Portfolio
• 5:01 Time Management In Hybrid Leadership
• 5:36 Formal Leadership Study That Shifted Mindsets
• 9:30 Self‑Motivation And Continuous Learning
• 11:22 Building Individual Training Plans
• 14:49 Why Owners Must Invest In Training And Tech
• 17:28 Low‑Cost Learning Paths For PMs
• 17:57 Designing A Client Experience That Reduces Friction
• 21:49 Balancing Automation With Human Touch
• 24:19 Onboarding Tenants At Luxe Properties
• 28:01 Closing Takeaways And How To Reach Us

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:05

Welcome to another episode of the PM Collective podcast. And I have got someone who I'm really excited to start chatting to. I told her just before we started talking, then I'm going to hit record and then ask her all the questions. And that is Elise Thomas from Bell. Elise, welcome.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20

Thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22

Now obviously we have had a few sort of social interactions. You have generously jumped on to our audio summit, which is great. But I only know what I know from socials about you. So I am going to find out more with everyone that's listening. If you can introduce yourself, tell us a bit about yourself, where you are, and where you've been in the past.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

Yeah, currently I'm at Bell, Hunter Region, and I'm the team leader and senior property manager here. I do manage a smaller portfolio of VRP clients. That seems to be my expertise. I have been in property management for just over 20 years, and I started when I was, God, 17, straight from high school, fresh from high school, and started my very first role in reception, and then was able to build on from there. I have been in a team leader capacity kind of role for probably the last 12 years, I would say. And over that time I've won, I think, over 30, 30 awards. I've been a part of speaking at conferences, had articles in magazines published about me, those kinds of things. As well as I invested in myself and did some studying straight after I went on maternity leave, which was a bit crazy, but I was I completed my diploma in leadership and management and my advanced diploma as well. So I'm really interested in that leadership space and focusing on that as well as still maintaining a portfolio as well, which I still really love to do.

SPEAKER_00: 3:00

I was gonna ask you about maintaining a portfolio because I see a lot of agencies, that's sort of what they tend to do. And they have the VIP clients, assuming VIP clients means the luxe listings as opposed to the VIP in inverted commas difficult clients.

SPEAKER_01: 3:16

Yes. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:18

And do do like just out of curiosity, because I I guess I see it a lot. Do you find the benefits so that you can stay in touch with the processes, or is it purely just because these clients are sometimes a little bit more um just needing that, you know, that seniority to it? Like what's the reason behind that?

SPEAKER_01: 3:38

Yeah, so it's the the seniority behind it, obviously the confidence that I bring as well, and my history. So we like to marry up clients with the right property manager, depending on on their needs and their wants. So I manage the the properties that are luxe, as well as the clients that probably need a little bit more touch point than what the you know the general client would would require.

SPEAKER_00: 4:06

Yeah. And and then do you the other thing I also see with hybrid roles is, and this goes for all hybrid roles, but sort of just balancing that time. So do you have to be quite strict with the time, or is it that those those properties and that management sort of gets priority as it needs it, and then you fill in the gaps with the rest? How do you prioritize your week in that hybrid role?

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

Yeah, it's it's all about prioritizing as to kind of what needs my my the the most of my attention. I I'm quite good with being able to manage my time, but obviously, you know, in property management, you never know what's going to happen day-to-day basis. Things can, you know, one simple thing or phone call can happen and it throws out your entire day. So it's I try and prioritize as best as possible. But of course, if you have staff changes and all those kinds of things, that can obviously throw throw things out the window. Yeah, and it just comes down to purely prioritizing from there.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Yeah, excellent. Tell me more about the course that you did, the diploma. I I think that you know, there's you're you you and I are probably the same in that. Like I do love learning, I'm curious to learning, whether it's studying or you know, having a coach, I do love that side of things. Do you find that like how helpful, I guess? And this is a personal question because I'm interested for me. How helpful was a diploma? Did you find that there were things that to learn, or was there more to leadership than like what we just learned on the job? Like, can you sort of talk through your experience of that course?

SPEAKER_01: 5:40

Yeah, it was so, so interesting for me. I went into this course thinking I've been doing this for over 10 years. I'm going to absolutely, you know, smash through this course. I'm not going to learn anything new. I already know everything. And it was, yeah, I love learning. So it was very, very interesting for me. I was, you know, going through modules and you know, learning new things. And I was going to my head of department, oh my God, like, you know, the way that particular situation was handled, we shouldn't have done it that way. We should have done it this way. And it really changed my perspective a lot moving forward in how I handled, you know, day-to-day conversations with my team members. And yeah, so I was essentially almost coaching my head of department at the time and saying, no, this is not how we're going to handle that conversation. This is the best way moving forward. So it was it was so interesting for me. And then it was interesting enough that I wanted to do my advanced diploma as well. So, yes. And never you're always evolving in this role, especially in the leadership space. And obviously, property management, there's always new things, you know, coming to light. So, yeah, I'm always seeking to learn and to become better in anything that I do.

SPEAKER_00: 6:59

Yeah. I I say this to a lot of sort of clients that you you have to you have to love learning, you have to be self-motivated. And you know, myself or you know, other different coaches or trainers can come into the business as much as you want to help, but the goal always is to come back to that self-motivation and self-education. And so for like me personally, with an office that I'm working with, I will work with them for three months. But then it's like after that, you guys need to you need to learn.

SPEAKER_01: 7:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 7:35

You need to love the learning. I and I don't it it's it's one of those things that you everyone generally knows what they need to do as a property manager. You know, and it's like you're in the gym. You know you're meant to go to the gym, you know you're meant to do this and that. But the thing that is failing is that motivation, the accountability. That's that's like the missing gap. And I I don't know how to teach people to be motivated, if it's just born, or if you just have to keep on pushing, pushing, pushing.

SPEAKER_01: 8:08

Yeah, yeah. I think it's about finding what drives each particular person. Everyone is different, you know, everyone's brain is wired completely different. So yeah, motivation is so, so important to be able to be at the top of your game. Otherwise, you fall behind very, very quickly. But you find there'll be, you know, the the the standouts are the ones that invest in their their learning and seeking, you know, how to be better in anything that they do. And the ones that obviously fall behind, yeah, they they don't flourish, they're not at the top of their game, they still keep doing the same thing that they were doing 10 years ago. So yeah, it's very, very important for me to be continually learning.

SPEAKER_00: 8:50

Yeah. Did you say that you do the training for your team?

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

I do do training. The previous agency I was at, I was heavily involved in training as well, especially head office, involved in speaking at head office regularly. But yes, the training here, we have particular training plans that we implement for each member when they come on board with us, just to ensure that they're they're always working towards something.

SPEAKER_00: 9:16

Yeah, so if you we can talk about that a little bit, I think that's really interesting because I don't think that people have training plans, and I think it's good for them to maybe consider moving forward. Do you find in your experience so that because I get I guess I'll share sort of like what I do in our office, we've got we change it up a little bit. And I mean, keep in mind that my team see me every single day, so they're less really interested in the stuff that I do through the collective on the side because they're like, I've seen you, I've seen you enough ash, and that's totally fine. But the but like for us in the new year, we're going into, I think we're gonna start doing the quarterly training days, and we're doing that for a few various reasons. Number one, we're needing to batch our content days in in quarters now to for the guy that does our videos, and we're gonna just use that opportunity to do our training, all of our updates, product updates quarterly as well, which might sound far, but it sort of comes around quickly. And then the other thing that we found is because we have a very active messenger group every single day or day, we've not really needed needed to do staff meetings as much. And I've never done staff meetings, it was only something that we did last year, but we're actually going to pull them back, I think, and do them quarterly as well. So it's just the quarterly catch-up to cover all of those things, but it is a blanket training and it's not necessarily personalized, and it's not saying that we don't personalise. If someone comes to me and says, I'm really interested in this, or maybe I book my operations manager into something that I see, we definitely do it, but we don't necessarily create an individual training plan for each person. So is that sort of what you're saying that you're you guys look at doing?

SPEAKER_01: 10:59

Yes, yes. So yeah. So at the moment, just to to give you a bit of an idea how how we do it. If we recently we had a younger kind of green P PM join our team, she's been a property manager for about a year. So coming into the this agency, we we needed to know what she knew, what she didn't know, what she needed to kind of unlearn, if she'd learn any bad habits from the previous agency. So we've sat down and we have a plan for the first month, and then we have a plan for the second month, third month, and so forth. Essentially, the first month is she has to learn all of our new systems and and procedures. So that's the most important thing, as well as having a plan to reach out to each of her clients, because that is super important when you take on a new portfolio that you speak to each of those clients. So for the first month, we have a plan for her to learn all the processes and systems, and then we meet regularly throughout that month, and at the end of the month, we'll go through and we'll both sign off on each of the items. Just so we've seen it, you've probably seen it so many times before, when property managers start with an agency, and three months down the track they say, I wasn't shown that, or I didn't know that. So it takes away that that whole situation from happening. And then the second month is when we actually go through each of the processes to make sure she completely understands, you know, the the lease renewal process, uh rent reviews, how how to manage maintenance properly, if she's able to do all of those things confidently. And if not, that's where we can focus on training and go into it a little bit deeper. So we have a complete six-month training plan in place, and then from there we see what her goals are, what her professional goals are, and then we can make a plan together as to how we can get or work towards that particular goal. So, yeah, it's obviously catered for everyone differently, depending on the individual and what their needs are and their experience, but at the end of the day, everyone has a training plan. It doesn't matter if you've been in property management for a year or 20 years, we're always wanting to work towards something.

SPEAKER_00: 13:12

Yeah, amazing. That's really impressive. What do you think? If there's like, and saying this, the agents that do this don't listen to my podcast, so it's gonna fall on deaf ears because the people that listen to it are the ones that like the training. But the what what's your sort of thoughts when you see or when you see business owners that don't invest in training and don't want to spend the money because people are only gonna leave after 12 months and and all of that, and they don't value that from a you know, if you were to speak to that business owner, what would you say?

SPEAKER_01: 13:50

You're silly. You need to invest in training with your staff, otherwise, you are going to fall behind the rest of the other agencies and your competitors out there that are investing in the training and wanting to be, you know, you don't have to be trailblazers in the industry and you know be the first to try things, but you need to be constantly working and investing in technology and software to ensure that you're providing, you know, the best service to your clients because the software helps your employees or your property managers do their job as efficiently as possible, which can save time, money down the track, obviously, you know, and that's going through to the service to your clients. So, you know, you will fall behind very, very quickly if you're not willing to invest the money into your property management business for training and software technology, etc.

SPEAKER_00: 14:45

Yeah. Sometimes it's just as simple as having product updates on a regular basis. So I've got a friend who's got a few offices, and she was telling me how she has had products that she uses come into the office and say to them, can you please come in and do a demo as if we were a new client so that we can just double check new features? I just thought that was such a good idea. Um you don't you it can be as simple as just doing a product update every year or two years for the team for sure. I also think, as well, there's for property managers that are listening that maybe are in a position where they do have a, you know, a boss or management that don't invest in the training. I think as well, there are a lot of free and affordable options as well. Like there is so many different podcasts. There is different free, you know, YouTubes and webinars. And I guess the other option is just for those people that are stuck, they could really find them and just absorb them. That would be my probably next thing. Do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

Definitely, definitely. Yeah, there's podcasts out there. If you can find, I mean, there's so many Facebook groups for property management, there's TikTok accounts, etc., find a mentor, reach out to someone, and you know, they can always guide you as well as to to what you can do and what you can search for out there. That really we've the people that will go far in this industry are the people that know where to look and have the information at their fingertips. So if you go out and look for yourself, for free, yeah, free podcasts, it's all there. That information is there for you at your fingertips for free. You don't have to pay any money. Go out there, look for it. It's there, definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

And and yeah, and and don't sort of have that victim mentality of, well, my boss, my boss doesn't pay for training. Well, okay, that's not that's not great, but it's not the end of the world. Take responsibility, go find it. And and and maybe if that's something they can message through myself or yourself, just to um if they need some guidance of where to find that, we can definitely point them in the right direction of where the uh free free options are. And finally, to also share the audio summit we've got coming up, which this replay, those listening to this replay will probably be will be after the math, uh, or will be after the math. So you shared a audio for us on the client experience. If you want to sort of touch on that and the you know, the the value of yeah, of in looking after our clients.

SPEAKER_01: 17:33

Yeah, yeah. So over the years, I have I wouldn't say fine-tuned, but I've worked very, very hard on the client experience because when I started in property management, I was not I I was basically thrown in the deep end. So I I it was single swim for me, so I learned very, very quickly how to do the role. But after after I was able to, you know, wrap my you know, wrap my brain around how property management works, I then really focused on the client experience because I was 17, I was sick of being yelled at by clients, and I was like, I don't want this to continue happening, what's going wrong? And I was in one of those agencies where the owner of the business did not invest in technology, did not invest in in training and learning and things. So I went out there and I saw my own learning, and over the years, the 20 years I've been in real estate, I've almost fine-tuned it. It'll be a constant work in progress, I think. But it has been something that I've really focused heavily on, and it's really going back to the basics. It's not about hiding behind technology and hiding behind, you know, a laptop screen. It's about speaking to people, seeing people in person, putting a face to the name, and understanding them as a human being, as well as making them understand that we're human beings as well. It's that personal touch, and that's the 1% that people aren't getting these days because a lot of property managers hide behind emails constantly and don't necessarily like to pick the phone up or really meet clients out at properties or have coffee with them. But yeah, it's about that extra bit of communication with them, knowing or doing exactly what you're going to say, or you're doing a little bit more than what you say that you're going to do, and them having no question marks on their side or thinking, oh, I wonder what's happening with that. It's you updating them before they even get the opportunity to wonder what's happening with their property. Yeah. So it's always going to be a work in progress, never going to have it perfect, but I feel like I do a really good job at it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:48

Yeah, yeah, that's great. We I I was speaking to someone actually the other day about this exact topic and saying how, yeah, we we I think when we go so heavily into that tech space um and automation space, then now going into the the front facing again and the phone calls, that's actually going to be seen as the point of difference. It's sort of like going backwards a little bit, but you will stand out more when you have when you start doing that again. And so I it is it's just so it's so interesting. I was speaking, I was sitting next to my young PM yesterday, who actually is someone who picks up the phone. And I was sitting next to her because the desk side by side, and I heard her calling a contractor. She was calling just to explain the job, check their availability, and you know, see if that's all right. And then I'll be honest, my first thought was just send a work order. Like, why are you calling? But then afterwards, I was like, you know what, that's actually quite nice. But I also did have that hesitation of she's wasting too much time calling and then you know, sending the work order through. But I don't want to lose that because I do feel that we are going to go back into that service. Um, and there was another one yesterday that I I think that, yeah, the human connection I think is really important for me because I went into a women's refuge yesterday with 12 ladies where we're just doing education for tenancies and how to how to look after a property, how to apply, how to communicate with a property manager and helping them understand the back end. So, like what we did or what I did is explain to them, even at the very start of the application process, understanding that, you know, if their references don't get back to us quick enough and there is like 20 applications in on a property, an incompleted application won't even probably make the list to be checked, just explained a few things to really bridge that gap behind property managers sort of being seen in a negative light. And there was a lovely lady who said she had a disability and she comes across very black and white. And she said to me, She goes, How do I, how do I not piss people off when I send emails? Because I'm very black and white, and people think that I'm like being mean and and because I'm just saying what it is, but it's I have a learning disability and I don't know how to fluff up my emails, like I don't know how to use my words. And I said, that absolutely fine. I said, the problem, the thing is, is that if I know you and I've seen you and met you and I know that that's your personality, and you send through that blunt email, I wouldn't take any offense to it. But I said if I haven't met you and you haven't explained that, I I probably might take it the wrong way. So we so I said to her, what you could do with the property manager is to send the email or call the property manager first and just say, Listen, I've just sent an email across, but I have got a disability, a learning disability, and I find it really difficult to send emails and I just want to make sure that it's come through with the right intent. I said, that's all you have to do. And then all of a sudden the property manager will read that differently, and you've explained that your intention was good, you just struggled to get that good intention. It's sometimes it's just as simple as that.

SPEAKER_01: 23:15

That would change a whole situation. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, it's it's really important to be able to, especially tenants when they're moving into a property, is to meet the tenant when, you know, make a time for them to come into the office when they're collecting the keys to actually sit down with them, even if it's for five minutes, just to have a general talk about the property. The the more luxe properties are actually meet them at the property themselves and actually show them through the whole property, how they use appliances, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_00: 23:44

Oh, because they'll be expecting that as well, I'm sure. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 23:46

Yeah, they expect that that extra that extra part. But yeah, it's really good to meet the tenants and be able to put a face to the name. You you ask what their expectations of of us are, and then we tell them our expectations as tenants, you know, when they're gonna hear from us, when will I hear from them? All those types of things. So it that's where you learn those, you know, those little you know, pieces of information as to how they're going to be to interact with, and you can accommodate that, that's fine. And speaking about the contractor that your your junior, you know, spoke to, that's that's relationship building, even if it is a contractor. At the end of the day, they could be a landlord or a tenant down the track, they could also, you know, refer people to you as well. So it's yeah, the the really that that phone, like speaking to someone, you know, on the phone, it is really, really important as opposed to just you know sending a work order.

SPEAKER_00: 24:42

Yeah. So in my mind, I'm just thinking, you know, we're we're here, we're telling business owners go into technology, but then we're like, yeah, but but don't go all the way into technology or use it to your advantage, it's such a such a balance. And that's why it's just so good to have these podcasts, but you can, you know, we can hear how you do in your office and we can share because if you don't share that, those opinions and that conversation, you will just sit in your office thinking that what you do is normal and and the right way. And maybe it is the right way. Maybe you're doing you're listening to this and you're saying, you know what, tick, we're doing a great job in our office. Or maybe you're listening to this and going, oh, okay, I haven't actually thought of that. That's maybe something that we could could tweak. But the the balance of the technology is is good, but the balance of the meeting the people and the phone calls can't be forgotten either.

SPEAKER_01: 25:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 25:39

Um sorry, last one, I just keep on thinking of things. You said that you go out to the properties before the luxe ones. And I have always had that thought that, gosh, I would love to have the team to have the capacity for every new sign-up that you actually meet people on site and you, you know, you go through, like you said, go through how to work everything. And I just feel like that would be such a more nicer experience from a tenant instead of coming into the office and picking up a big bunch of keys. But I don't know whether it's like logistically, like if I was to say that we did that as an agency, it would have to be everyone would have to do that. And I just don't know if it if if it's possible. Do you just do it for those ones? And have you thought about doing it for all properties?

SPEAKER_01: 26:27

Yeah, ideally, I would love to be able to do it for all properties, but logistically and time-wise, you know, it's it's impossible for me to do that at the moment. Deluxe properties, yes, I will do it for all of them. So I will make a time with the tenants to meet them out at the property. I will always get there early to make sure all lights are on, aircons on, windows are open, like make sure it's nice. I have a candle burning, so you know, a nice little tenant pack for them on the bench. And yeah, it's it's it's a really nice thing, you know, to be able to do for the tenants. And I've done it for many, many years, not just at this agency, at the previous agency I was at. And I really enjoyed doing it because it was like a really nice welcome to the home. And we could show everything's working. I didn't get the you know, the questions, you know, weeks and weeks after, oh, how do I use the oven or how do I use the you know the automatic blinds or you know, all those questions. So they know up front, and I would also leave it was like an information pack on the property. So basically everything that I show them in person, all of that information on how to use each appliance, etc., is in that book as well. So it was a really lovely touch. And I'm not all property managers would do that in the office that I worked at. I think I was the only one that did it because I had the more luxe properties on my portfolio. But yeah, ideally it'd be great to do it for all of them.

SPEAKER_00: 27:47

But it would be. I think if you were going to, you'd have to have one person dedicated as your concierge, for example, and that would one person would do everybody's yes, that would be the only way, but then that's a a big salary that you would want to, you know, somehow get the value out of it. Yes, I yeah, I have to work on that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01: 28:16

Yeah, I got the idea because we the previous agency I worked at, we had a holiday portfolio. So we were managing holidays for a very short period of time. But you know, during that time, the holiday manager would actually go and meet the clients, so all the Airbnb guests would actually meet them at the property, show them through how to use things, etc. So they didn't get those, you know, calls afterwards on how do I use this, how do I use that? So they actually did that and I thought, wow, that is an amazing idea. I want to do that for my properties, you know, that you know, the bigger properties, the ones that bring in the more money. I think that's a good idea because you know the clients are going to expect a level of service and I want to provide that to them. So yeah, and I've done that ever since.

SPEAKER_00: 28:58

Yeah, love it. Amazing. Well, I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for sharing, particularly the sort of that training and the importance of the individual training plans, I think, for the team. I think that is something that a lot of people will take away and um have a think about if they're not doing in their office as well. So I appreciate you taking the time to share all that. If anyone wants to reach out to Elise or myself, you are welcome to. And if you yeah, if you haven't got a you're not working in a business where there is active training, please don't victimize yourself over that. There is so many free options as well that you can access. So just reach out to one of us who can share them with you. Thanks so much, Elise. Great, thank you very much.