S2 Ep 3 DIFFICULT DEALS- Meet LISA NOVAK (Novak Properties)

Difficult properties, difficult clients, difficulties of social media... we GO THERE in this frank but fun episode with the unapologetically real LISA NOVAK,  of north Sydney's Novak Properties

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Real estate agent or clients can't relate to the time of client. For everyone is going through a battle, you know nothing about difficult clients, difficult properties. Bring the color difficulties of going on social media. Welcome to Meet the Agent Podcast. I'm Wendy Clare of June Interior. Today meet Lisa Novak of Novak Properties. Welcome Lisa. I did love the first time I came across your Insta. I think the video, one of many, was you drying your hair in the car heater.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

It's so funny, that came up on my feed the other day.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I really enjoyed that. So it gave me a bit of a feeling for your personal personality, which I totally relate to. I love to have fun. One of the questions we love to ask on the podcast is if there was a music star or a style of music that most resembles you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

What a feeling, right? What the feeling? I don't know why. I've always thought, like, you know, if I wasn't in real estate, maybe I'd like to be some sort of a professional dancer, um, even though I can't dance to save my life. But um, I just love the feeling and the feeling of that song. Always bad, always bad. I remember once I won I won an award and I asked me if it's good win with the award. But with the song they end that was that song, I just think it's a really it's a really good feel good song. And you know, the other one is the other end of the spectrum, and that's gonna be the old people pay fan, which I love that song. I just think when you've got that song playing is you cannot be anything but super energetic and happy.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, absolutely. And that really kind of keeps you pumping through this busy schedule, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

That's it. That's it, exactly. That's what you need, right? So we we have to run on lots and lots of energy, and I think those uh those two songs definitely do that for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

And when you're not doing real estate, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Well, that's a really good question. Someone asked me that um a couple of months ago, and it was a really hard one to answer. And and I have to say, I had four weeks off over the Christmas period, and it made me realize that I probably need to do a bit more with my life than just work. I like to travel a lot, and but unfortunately, real estate doesn't allow you to do that a lot. You know, it really doesn't. So, you know, it would be outside of real estate would be travel, catching up with friends, family. I love spending time with with my two beautiful girls as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, and I saw the wonderful shot of you at the Australian Open. So you posted with Novak.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Well, that may or may not have been AI. I definitely was at the Australian Open as to whether or not we were there with Novak Djokovic or leave that up to you guys to work out.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

You were there in spirit, I could tell. Funny you say that. So, what has been your entry and your amazing journey to where you are right now in real estate? And you seem to be, you know, one of the fantastic, you know, women leaders, and there's not enough of them. So congrats to you for that. How have you got there?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Okay, so interesting journey because I only started in real estate sales when I was 46, and I'm now 54. So when you look at all the incredible agents that are out there, a lot of them have been doing real estate for quite a long time. You know, they've been doing it for minimum 15 years. I had to put my career on hold because when I, you know, I'd been wanting to do real estate sales for a really, really long time. We've got our own business, no back properties, and which we've been running for 25 years with my amazing husband Mark and all of our incredible team. But the business and the family actually needed me elsewhere. And it wasn't in sales. You know, it's a it it's a part of our industry that just, you know, the hours are relentless. And when you've got a young family, like I did 25 years ago, committing to a career in real estate sales just wasn't a possibility. You know, as I said, my family needed me, and the business also needed me in other areas, marketing and doing, you know, more of an admin-based job. But I really wanted to be in real estate sales. And, you know, it was only when I got to 46 and our girls had grown up and they didn't need me around as often. And I thought, I need to do this now before I get too old and I run out of energy. So I dived in headfirst at that grand old age. But the wonderful thing about coming into real estate sales later on in life is I think you, you know, where maybe you don't have as much energy as an 18 or 19-year-old, there's certain elements there that, you know, like confidence. I think that's, you know, that that's a big one. And probably not caring as much about what other people think of you. That's another facet, you know, because I think in real estate sometimes we can get hung up on that. And particularly when you're putting yourself out on a limb and, you know, you're putting yourself out onto social media platforms, you've got to not worry about that as much. So, you know, and as I said, coming in at that age was amazing because I had worked in the background of our business for quite some time. And there was a lot that I was able to reflect on from the outside looking in. You know, it's much easier to, it's much easier to read the label of a jar from the outside than it is from the inside. And often I thought, if I ever come into real estate sales, I'm going to do things really differently. And that time allowed me to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Wow. So yeah, it's not just the transferable skills, it's the wisdom of that experience that is always underestimated, but also having that outside view of how you can change things or be unique and different. That's that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. That's the background.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Well, you're really storming on that front. So fantastic. And tell me what have been then some of the most difficult things getting to our topic or the biggest challenges that you face. And I'm sure you'll have some incredible stories about that as well to share with us.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

What comes to you? Yeah, so look, the the first thing that comes to mind is just the absolute lack of balance that is is in real estate sales. And I remember starting out and I had said to my husband, I still really want to go and watch our youngest daughter play Saturday sport on Saturdays. And at that time, he had said to me, Of course you're going to be able to do that. But in the truth, the reality was that couldn't have been further from the truth because Saturdays, as we know, is game day in real estate. And I built momentum quite quickly. I was fortunate. You know, I worked hard and I had a lot of listings from very early on. And I just, you know, there was no way in the world that I was going to be able to do that. And, you know, as a working mum, that comes with an enormous level of guilt as well. You want to be there for your children, they're our number one priority. Yet my my career was taking over so quickly. So for me, that was the hardest thing. And I couldn't work out, particularly in the early days. And listen, it's a work in progress. Anyone that says they've got the balanced thing right, kudos to you. I haven't found a person yet. But for me, it was that balancing act of going, okay, I'm working 90% of my time and I've got 10% to be able to share amongst all the other areas. So very, very early, I worked out that I needed to get that a little bit better. And for me, putting in these not negotiable areas into my life actually was a game changer where I'd say, okay, if work is taking over, then I need to just diorize things like I would an open home or like I would an auction. I need to diorize family time as well and make sure that I'm present. So that worked well for me. Tuesday, nothing's changed since seven years. Every Tuesday night and every Friday night, there is a family dinner without fail, not negotiable.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

I love that. So it went from being wishful thinking into, you know, locked in in the schedule. So being very practical about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah. And look, that may not work for everyone, but for me, that worked really, really well. It's like it's in the diary and it absolutely has to happen. And look, you know, now the kids are older as well, they don't necessarily want to spend all day Sunday with us. So for them, you know, a two or three hour dinner on a Friday night works really well. But that's not negotiable. As I said, it it just works. We commit to it and it works and everyone's happy.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah. Have there been any difficult moments with the clients that you want to share with us? I mean, I'm sure that's also a really tough thing. You've got the relationship with the kids, but also with them. And I I mean, one of the questions I thought is wonderful to ask you because you'd be really candid is, you know, are there things that you just shouldn't say in real estate as well? That clients, for example, I'm not an agent, wouldn't really know and understand.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Look, I think, you know, the the thing is, and the uh the hardest thing that I think an agent finds in in our industry is to be completely honest and transparent. Like when you go to a doctor, if they've got bad news to deliver, they're not going to sugarcoat it, you know, and you owe it to that patient, or in our case, to our client, to be completely honest with them. And, you know, as real estate agents, we can get things wrong. You know, we go in, we give an opinion of value on a property. We're not property valuers, we are real estate agents, and we can get it wrong. The buyers come through and they're telling us something very, very different. And I think the industry as a whole really struggles to be able to convey the truth to a client. But it's our obligation to do that. It is our absolute obligation. And, you know, I always make sure that my clients are getting the absolute honest truth, whether it's good news or whether it's bad news. They're always going to get the truth from me. And, you know, there have been times, listen, we deal with very, very different difficult situations. You know, sometimes we're dealing with a family and there's been a death in the family. Sometimes we're dealing with a really messy divorce. You know, sometimes people are in terrible, terrible debt. You can deliver bad news and still be extremely empathetic. You know, and that for me has probably been the hardest thing is having to deliver bad news when we felt that the market was, you know, at a certain level, but the buyers have been telling us something different. But your reputation is actually built in the mess. It's not built on the best days, it's built on your hardest ones. And I think that's important for people to really understand. You know, how do you communicate when there's bad news and how transparent you are when the answer isn't what people want to hear?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Right. Wow, that's really interesting. So, yeah, it's better for you like ripping the band-aid off in a sense to get the bad and the ugly.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Absolutely. And that's the thing. Look, clients don't remember the perfect campaigns. They remember how you made them feel when things might have been falling apart. I remember I had, let me tell you a story. I remember I had only been in real estate sales for about a year and I walked into a listing presentation. And the husband and the wife, they were just on tender hooks. They weren't talking, they were sitting at opposite ends of the dining table. And I walked in and I saw this pile of listing presentations from other real estate agents. There was about eight of them. And when I sat down, I said, Can I just ask you, are they listing presentations from other real estate agents? And they said, Yes. I said, May I ask why? Because eight's a lot. And I said, May I ask why you haven't actually chosen any one of them? And I don't even want to open up my listing presentation because I don't think you need to hear another one. But I do want to know why haven't you chosen any of those other real estate agents? And is there anything at all that I can do to just help? And that was the clench up. No one actually had stopped to ask, what is it that you need help with? What do you need? Everyone just sat down and went through their pitch and forgot to actually ask the client, what can I do to help you? What do you need from me?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

So it's like you're and I ended up winning that listing presentation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

I bet. I mean, I would have hired you absolutely on that too. Oh, that that's actually really eye-opening. I I love that. I mean, I suppose too, it's about that longer goal, isn't it? So, I mean, I had a situation, I mean, talking staging, which is a little bit related, where I mean, they asked me to give a quote on the place. And I I had to say, look, if you have only set amount of money, you actually really should put it into painting because there's an it factor here that the staging is going to be at odds with. People go, well, beautiful bed, but that wall really looks old and ugly. And it's like the, you know, it was a divorcee situation. There were so many bad vibes. And I said, you know, I think the best way to kind of give this place a new life is paint it white. And I actually offered, look, I will go in there with this spray, you know, spray gun paint thing instead of the 20% discount I'd offered your agency. I'll do it for you for one coat just because, you know, you need help, and that's the best way to do it. That's right. And I never heard back from them. And I saw later that they they painted the whole interior white as I'd suggested, and the exterior, and and they sold it. And whether that was staging with someone else, I don't know. But I never heard back. I didn't get any Google Star reviews, but I thought I kept my integrity. I could have probably got the job because they were trying to do it with staging instead of, you know, actually doing the house. But I don't know. I feel honesty in the long term is really going to be what's more important, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Which is what you're saying. Absolutely. And you know, and that's the thing, right? People will never forget the way you make them feel. That is the truth. There's, you know, there's there's no commission, there's no marketing, there's no amazing campaign that can override that. People will never forget the way you make them feel. I had a just to tell you another story, I I, again, I'd only been just early on in my in my real estate career and I didn't have that many listings at the time. And I decided to do the letterbox drop that everyone does, and you know, dropped it out to all over DY. I'm based over on the Northern Beaches. Anyway, I get this phone call from this lovely lady, and she's got a property that she wants to sell, a little two-bedroom, very entry-level apartment in DY. Anyway, she liked the fact that I was a lady, she was an older lady, and she she was quite an unwell lady. She had Parkinson's disease, so she was quite vulnerable. Anyway, her carer actually had called me, and the carer said, Look, you know, I wonder if we could organize a time to meet in this cafe. I said, sure. Anyway, we met and we chatted for two hours. Beautiful lady. We had lots and lots in common. And she said, Look, you know, I'd love to put you on. I'd love you to sell my property. List the property, get an offer, and it was $700,000 at the time. This is going back seven years ago. And my client said, We'll take that. And I said, Do you know? I actually think we can get you a little bit more. I think that's I don't think that's the best offer. I do think that I can get you a little bit more. Just hang in there. I think we should wait until Saturday. Anyway, I ended up getting her an extra $25,000. She never forgot it. She never forgot how I looked after her. She called me up about five years later and said, I've got a property that I'm looking to sell in Manley. And I wonder if you could come over. Anyway, went over there and she had this incredible property that was almost on the beach front in Manley. Little did I know it was one of Manley's best properties. It was an area at that time that I hadn't serviced a lot. We ended up taking that property to market and it sold for $21.5 million. Broke the record in Manley, still holds the record in Manley for the highest price ever paid per square meter. And so, you know, that was all from a little two-bedroom apartment that was entry-level. But again, she never ever forgot the way that I had treated her at that time. And, you know, I, as I said, I had never sold a house in Manley at that time. That changed things significantly for me. But, you know, you've got to look after people. I would say it's the crumbs that make the cake. I think often a lot of agents will get hung up on the fact. Listen, I get people asking me all the time, you don't sell apartments, do you, Lisa? I think, you know, you only just do those prestige homes. I'm like, of course I sell apartments. I've got a beautiful one-bedroom apartment that I'm selling at the moment. And then I've got multi-million dollar houses that I also sell. It's the crumbs that make the cake. Look after people. It doesn't matter whether that commission is $15,000 or $150,000. Treat everybody equally.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I just love this too, having this podcast, getting to hear this story from you and from others, because I mean it just strikes me how, you know, traditionally agents get such a bad reputation, and obviously the underpricing, overquoting, blah, blah, blah. And hearing these particular examples from you really shows that's, you know, not always the case. And it's about finding those genuine people. And they're there. I mean, I'm only scouting and scheduling genuine, generous people, you know, and people love listening to it for that reason. I think you just find the same with your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And you know what? Just be inexcusably yourself as well. You know, you can't be all things to all people. I lose listings too. You know, I don't get every single listing that I've gone that every listing presentation that I've gone into. But do I go in there and give it everything I've got? Yes. Do I offer a wonderful service? Absolutely. Am I being myself? Absolutely. Are they getting the same person that they might have seen on a signboard or on my social media? Are they getting that same person? Absolutely. And so that's the best I can do, but I can't be all things to all people. And I think, you know, when when agents lose out on listings, they'll often beat themselves up about it. You just weren't the right person for the job. You know, there there are times when if I've lost a listing, I think to myself, I feel sorry for you. You would have been in the greatest turns. You would have been so well taken care of. But if they were shopping around for the cheapest agent, I'm not going to be it. I'm definitely not the most expensive, but I also don't want to be known as the cheapest agent. So, you know, but but they will get they will get well looked after. But I'm very good at saying to myself, dust yourself off, pick yourself up and keep on going. Because otherwise you're going to miss the next one as well. She can't be all things to all people.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Wow, right. And you mentioned social media there. I mean, that is just such a different world, too. And I can see how it must be very difficult. And a lot of agents actually have huge networks and things, but they don't necessarily have Insta happening. It doesn't mean they're not, you know, just as good as the agents with 20k Insta. But I'm interested to know, like, tell me, do you get trolled on social media? What experiences have you had there?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

So, you know, funnily enough, I actually don't. I don't get trolled a lot. I I I not to say that I haven't been, I have, and I had actually had a really bad experience with it, which I'm happy to share, but I actually don't get trolled a huge amount. And I think maybe the main reason for that is because the following that I've got is purely organic. People are only following on my social media if they want to. Right? I haven't promoted my social media. There's no ads that are done, there's nothing sponsored, there's nothing boosted. It's all just purely organic. So you're only there if you want to be. There's there's there's two things that happen when people get trolled. They're either getting trolled, which means someone's just come on and made some sort Of a stupid comment, whatever that might be. And it's very simple. You can just simply block that person. The other one is when people are actually genuinely being bullied. And that is what happened to me. I got bullied. It was a couple of years ago. Someone popped up on my Instagram and they had said something about the service that I offer, what I do with my social media and the pre-market that I offer and a zero-dollar marketing campaign, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, initially I thought it was just some good constructive feedback and you know, I was responding. And then it turned really, really nasty. And, you know, I kept writing back saying this is really uncalled for. I'm just going to block your comment. And that's exactly what I'm sorry, block your block your profile, and that's exactly what I did. And this person kept popping up elsewhere. Emails, Facebook, Instagram, he was everywhere. Anyway, then I thought, you know what? I'm not going to let this guy off the hook. I am actually going to shine a light on him and I'm going to gather up some phenomenal people in our industry because when I had put it out there onto my social media that this was what was happening, I had that many people contact me saying, Oh my God, Lisa, I have a terrible story to tell. Wow. And they were too scared to speak up. And I thought, this is crazy. And these people need to know that there are things that you can do about it. So I called on Tom Panos, who obviously many people know. And I also called on Lisa Jemerson. Lisa Jemerson is one of the best real estate lawyers in the country, if not the best. And we got on together and we actually did a show about it. It's never okay to be bullied. It's like being bullied at school. It's never okay. And you do need to speak up about it. And it doesn't because you do stand up to it, right? Like the whole like, I'll just ignore it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And it doesn't, and it and it doesn't stop. And you really do need to shine the light on what I say the other cockroaches. You do need to do that. But you know, there are a lot of laws and legislations around that now. There are. And there are things you can do. And the social media platforms also will take it very, very seriously. And they will act on it very quickly as well. But there are definitely things that you can do about it, but you should speak up.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah, and particularly because he's if he's targeting you, he's probably targeting other, you know, other women in real estate in your area. So they often won't know as well. I I had that happen and I discovered all the kind of leading women in in my network had all been targeted. And when we all mentioned it, it was like, oh, that's fun. So well done, you really interesting. And hey, how fantastic to get Tom panels, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

He's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

What how did he react? Like what there must be some story there.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Well look, Tom, Tom was great. And he, you know, he he first of all, he's a he's such an amazing advocate for real estate. You know, he does so much for our industry, but he's also been a target at times, you know. I mean, I've been on many, I've been on many of his um, you know, interviews that he's done on social media, and I've seen it happening myself live. And he's great. He'll always call them out, but he was wonderful. You you will be able to dial back through my my social media post and you will be able to see that interview there. It was about a year and a half ago, actually. So feel free to any any of your listeners can feel free to go back and watch it.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, what is it like for you of being a podcast host? I mean, that's a wonderful thing about having you on. And you mentioned about Tom doing that. I mean, it's very new for me. I I'm I'm so in awe that you're fitting that in with your incredible real estate business and busyness.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

But tell us more about that. I would say, you know, give it give a job to a busy person if you want to get it done. But it's something that I'd wanted to do for ages. I'd really wanted to do a podcast for ages. And a good girlfriend of mine is Imogen Callister. She runs a company called The Media Coach. She looks after a lot of social media content for lots and lots of great agents all around the country. She's also an incredible trainer as well. And she's a great friend of mine. And I thought we'd be really good together, just talking about super, super authentic, down-to-word stuff that maybe people just never talk about in our industry. You know, now we've done, I think we're up to about 25, maybe more episodes. And it's been doing really well. It's been doing really well. There's nothing scripted. You know, often we'll, we've got some, we've had some phenomenal guests on there, including, you know, international people. And we've had Tom Panos on, and it's just been awesome. It's been really well received. It's done a lot, lot better than we ever anticipated that it would. So we're super grateful for that. But I love it. I love doing it. Well, what I found was I think people struggle to just be themselves. And I think it's the fear there that people are going to make judgment on who they really are. But once you're actually comfortable with just getting onto your social media or getting onto a podcast and just being inexcusably yourself, it's actually quite a freeing space. It's quite a freeing space. It really, really is. And if people don't like you, if people want to ridicule you, you know, that's fine. I I just I don't buy into it. You know, there was a lot of noise about when I started doing my social media. I started doing it quite early on into my career. And there was a lot of noise from the industry because seven years ago, like there was no way people were putting unpolished things onto social media. You know, videographer was a major big deal then. Everything was pro photos and and pro videos. And there I was popping up on social media, just going, you know, just unscripted and really raw content. And blown the early. Yeah, that's right. There was a lot, there was a lot of noise around that. And I just, you know, it was hard, but I did. I pushed through it all. I really did. I pushed through it all. And you know, as much as people I'd have people calling me, real estate agent calling, going, Lisa, this is really embarrassing what you're doing. Like this is extremely unprofessional. It's it's it's not great. It's not great, great look for you or for your business or for our industry. And I was like, that's okay. I think thank you. I really appreciate the feedback, but I'll do me and you do you type thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

There's room for both, isn't there? I mean, you know, we've got those splashy, wonderful agents out there, like you know, you'd know Tina O'Connor. She is so beautifully presented and polished, and that's who she is as a personal. And I love it, and it's fantastic. And then, you know, we've got room for you know, the other side. I mean, I'm in the coast as a headquarter, and people don't wear makeup there. So, you know, I'm struggling to find that confidence as well to just, you know, as you said, being mean. But yeah, it's out there uh either way, it's all good. All good. I'm I'm interested to know. I mean, you you're obviously, you know, being yourself out there at 24-7, which is is so courageous and liberating. Is there anything still that you wish people knew or understood about you?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Oh, that's an interesting question. Um you know, it's it it's hard being on all the time. It is, because at the end of the day, we're all human beings, you know, and you do need to tap out sometimes. I think I've gotten a little bit better at doing that. It's been hard, like I've had to really concentrate on tapping out because you know, I go away on a holiday and I wasn't on a holiday, I was just lying to myself. It's like, oh no, no, no, I'm on a holiday. You know, I'd be overseas, but I'd be up all night on the phone for work. Wow. I've gotten better at that, but I've had to really concentrate on doing that. I really have. And I think it's important for people to understand that it's okay to do that. It's okay to actually just completely shut off from work. I had a client who had contacted me the other day and he said to me, I couldn't believe it when you told me that you weren't back until the 19th of January when I called you during Christmas and New Year. And I said, I know, I've gotten better at doing it. And he was so happy for me.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Thank you so much for joining us, Lisa. It's been just as fantastic as I expected. And thank you everyone for listening to you. And Bendy Claire, and it's a nice one.