From airline pilots to surgeons, many professionals rely on checklists as a safeguard against human error. Though taking a client through the process of buying or selling a home is by no means as high-stakes as landing an airplane or performing surgery, the consequences of forgetting even the smallest detail when working with clients can damage the relationship and tarnish the image of the industry as a whole.
A new online tool has been designed to take the guesswork out of executing a seamless sale. Specifically created for real estate agents, The Real Estate Crate offers checklists and systems for all stages of working with clients, from annual sales and commission tracking to bookkeeping to business planning.
The website is the creation of Ken Finch and Darin Perrett, two brokers with Royal LePage Signature in Toronto. As busy professionals, the pair identified a need in their own work for tools to help them manage the multiplicity of tasks related to sole proprietorship.
“Wearing different hats of salesperson, administrator, market expert, project manager, advertising and branding manager can be overwhelming,” says Finch. “We realized we needed systems and checklists to really excel because there were just way too many things to remember on a daily basis.”
The Real Estate Crate is the result of 20 years of combined learning that Finch and Perrett have gathered from various seminars, workshops and conferences as well as through their own trial and error. For example, they have both learned the hard way how forgetting a lock box at a property, or showing up at a clients’ home without the necessary forms could negatively impact their businesses in the long term. These were lessons they did not learn when they were getting their licenses.
“You come out of real estate school so blind,” says Perrett. “They don’t teach you anything about sales or overcoming objections or how to track leads. This product fills in the gap in real estate training for both new and seasoned Realtors.”
During the past 10 years, they have built a library of resources specific to the industry along with a number of proven strategies and systems to help them run efficient businesses, while also wowing their clients in the process. Their mission is to enhance the level of professionalism in their industry and to lessen the stress levels of agents who may be juggling the complexity of four or five deals, all closing on different days. Their software package, they say, ensures accuracy, credibility and smoother customer interaction.
“This is everything we have learned over the years in one product; 10 years of experience, learning, dropping the ball on a deal and figuring out the problem so that we don’t do it again,” says Perrett.
“Once we started implementing these procedures we noticed a dramatic improvement in how effective we were, how organized we became and how much free time we had,” says Finch.
Finch and Perrett’s roots go back to high school when they met in computer class in Richmond Hill, Ont. during the early days of the personal computer. As teenagers, they recognized in each other complementary strengths, with Finch’s talents on the techie side and Perrett’s in sales.
They lost touch after high school and reconnected again in 2004 when they were both getting their real estate licenses.
As newly licensed agents, they joined separate brokerages but continued to stay in touch, having many discussions about certain missing components in their respective workplaces such as business mentoring or help with branding – things they had to learn on their own over time.
In 2010, they both joined Royal LePage Signature and have been collaborating ever since. Through the years, they created systems using online tools like Google Docs to store forms and manage client information. All of those tools have been integrated into The Real Estate Crate to help other sales reps cut down on needless errors.
The software also offers the benefit of mobility so that an agent can have access to their information from their smartphones. The checklists and systems are iterative and will be updated in future versions of the software.
“It took us several months to get all of the content together because as we were developing it, we would think about something new to add based on our own experiences. We just kept adding to it and will continue to do so in the future,” says Finch.
Access to an online account costs $545 for the first year and then $10/month after the first year.
“It is the perfect complement to a coaching system at a fraction of the cost,” says Perrett.
With all of their hard work and investment in the product, they hope that it will prove a useful tool in the arsenal Canadian sales reps and brokers.
Carrie Brodi is a contributing writer for REM.
