What you missed at the Elite Retreat in Bali

Five agents from all over the country were chosen to accompany our Trade Me Property team after completing an expression of interest process answering two questions: what they wanted to gain by attending and what their best experience had been when using Trade Me Property.

Business owner and agent, Brianne (Brie) Bignell, says Hannah Gill’s session on company culture and the Culture Playbook had the biggest impact on her.

The agent has already got in touch with Hannah, who’s based in Canberra, for more information. “She’s all about ensuring that there’s the right culture in the team, and are you getting the best out of your people?” says the Ray White team leader

The Culture Playbook conversation prompted Brie to look at her own team and staff and to ask, “How am I showing up as a leader? How do I want to be running my business?” And not to be afraid to have the hard conversations.

“I’ve asked her to email me the Culture Playbook. I see it as a really good health check for the business,” says the Ray White team leader.

Hannah’s talk asked questions around what you won’t tolerate as a leader and when you feel most empowered, explains Brie.

Another highlight for the Ray White agent was a session with Tim Duggan, author of the book, “Cult Status:How to Build a Business People Adore.” It’s about building a business or an agency where people want to work, and who clients want to work with, says Brie, a theme she felt tied in well with Hannah Gill’s session.

The Ray White Beachlands agent also liked the messaging about AQ vs EQ.. “To my vendors, I say: ‘selling a house is like sailing a yacht, you go where the wind is, you might think you’ll go left but you might have to go right’.”

The biggest takeaway for Harcourts Holmwood Christchurch agent, Zani Polson on AI was, that you can’t break it and it’s only as good as the stuff you put into it. Kolmeo chief executive Scott Batemen talked about the power of AI, and gave practical tips to agents on how to use it.

The agent wrote her mission, her vision and impact statement using ChatGPT which she calls Rosey (inspired by Rosey the Robot in The Jetsons). She likes to talk to it like it’s a person, thanking it and saying hello.

She wrote a customer email, which would normally take 30 minutes, in 1.5 minutes.

“You can use AI to give you an idea of how to approach something. You can say, this is great, but can you make it more casual? It’s learning how I speak and how I approach things,” says Zani.

Another takeaway from Kolmeo’s Scott Bateman for the Harcourts Fendalton agent was yes, have a mission statement and values, but also have an impact statement too. “The way society is moving, people are aligning themselves with brands that have an impact on society,” she says.

The Christchurch agent says she’s also going to talk to her management team about Synthesia which she learned about at the retreat. It’s a synthetic media generation platform used to create AI-generated video content. It allows you to take selfies and then creates multiple profile photos. It will be very useful for new agents starting out, says Zani.

What Barfoot & Thompson’s Bob Voss was looking for from the Elite Retreat were ideas for increasing his business from 50 sales a year to 80 or 100 without burning himself out. And he got some answers, particularly from Mark McLeod, the Ray White chief strategy officer, he says.

He liked the CSO’s blend of old school and new school wisdom. “To agents saying that their appraisal numbers are down because the markets are down, his message was,“Take responsibility. Appraisals are nothing to do with what the market’s doing.” People want to know where they’re at and they need advice from a good agent in any market.

The Auckland agent was also struck by a question posed during the retreat, which was, what technology stack are you using? In other words, what are the pieces of tech that stack together to make your business more productive and/or more approachable for the customer?

The Barfoot & Thompson agent says he liked the thinking around AQ, with the idea of having an option and going for it, but if things change, having the mental capacity to alter course.

Bob is looking into an automated AI email programme which he can set up so that when buyers make an inquiry about a property, it will send through all the relevant documents in an instant. People like an Uber instantly so why not their real estate information too? he argues.

Tommy’s agent, Zoe Smith, says she was able to catch up with tech entrepreneur Jeff Turner in person at one of the more casual meeting events at the Elite Retreat, which was a real highlight after his interesting talk.

“Jeff’s talk was all about looking beyond the how of tech to get to the why,” says Zoe. The entrepreneur works with early stage real estate tech companies in North America.

An idea presented at the retreat which really resonated with Zoe was the idea of using AI to “rehumanise time”, in other words anything you can automate to AI should give you time back. In real estate, it’s time that can be spent with your clients and customers which is the part of the business you enjoy the most, says Zoe.

Also, it was good to have speakers who were from outside the real estate industry, she adds. “If you’re all the same then there’s less potential for innovation.”