Today’s guest Lauren Robinson is an industry pocket rocket growing a rent roll from 0 to 550 in 4 years organically, has a special focus on continuous improvement and has managed to set up a very successful business that practically runs without her. All of the team at The Hot Seat have known Lauren from many years ago when she used to work for a business you may have heard of called Pro-Rentals. On top of many other points within the interview, we discuss Lauren’s transition from Employee...

In today’s interview, we’re interviewing Terri Handy who comes with over 25 years of experience in the industry and works with clients in New Zealand and Australia in her businesses Pm Xcite and Lean Property Management solutions. One of the key reasons we were excited to interview Terri is her key focus is around the implementing change which is something that really resonates with the industry right now. A few of the topics we discussed include - The differences between Sales and...

In today’s interview, we’re fortunate enough to be interviewing Brad Filliponi who is co-founders behind a company called BoxBrownie.com who handle Professional high-quality photo editing, virtual staging, floor plan redraws, renders & virtual renovation with clients in over 75 countries. In our interview, we caught up with Brad in a room that backed onto the beach that had about a dozen kids playing in the sand in the background which made for an awesome interview. Some of the...

Today we have another fantastic guest on what is considered to be a controversial subject… Artificial Intelligence. Yes, we interviewed Patrick Hill from Realm Australia around all things artificial intelligence and what it will mean to the industry. So a few highlights from this episode include: Patrick’s career in psychology and the natural transition to Technology and Artificial Intelligence, Why many people in the industry use the term AI as a marketing ploy when it’s really just an...

Today’s interview is a little different as we're interviewing Julie George who is considered to be a disruptor in the industry as she is an expert in setting up and running an Airbnb business. As of recording this interview Julie has released a book called Million Dollar Host which I will link to in the show notes and in our interview we discuss how Julie invested $30,000 to get a 5 million dollar return in 2 years. Anyway, some of the key highlights from the interview include, Julie’s...

In today’s episode we’re interviewing Stepfanie Regan who is a Business Strategist at Real Estate Dynamics. Stepf has a large circle of influence outside of the real estate game and was the international property manager of the year in 2014. Some of the key highlights from the interview include the challenge of sales people becoming principles and that flow on effect around gaining business experience, how the massive changes around trust accounting and other technologies are going to...

In today’s episode we’re interviewing Kaly Smith Owner and Property Specialist of KS Property Solutions. There are a number of reasons we’re excited to be interviewing Kaly especially that Kaly is out there practicing what she preaches, every day. So, the key highlights of our interview include: How Kaly was able to single handed manage 160 properties, 60 storage sheds while running reception at the age of 21, The importance of being out of the office and in front of clients, How AI and...

Today we talk to Greg Waston. Greg is based in Palmerston North New Zealand, holds a strong presence within the industry and 22 years ago entered into the industry with his father and brother. In our interview Greg talks how not delegating ended up in overpaying the tax man 75k over 2 years and how that mistake meant they couldn’t pay themselves, why it’s critical to have a genuine passion that moves you to be more than a ‘salesperson’, why 65% of all properties in New Zealand are self...

Today we’re interviewing a self described ‘Industry Tragic’ Lisa Pentland. Lisa comes with 31 years of industry experience and just over a year ago as we record this video stepped into the role of General Manager of Sales and Service for Property Me. In our interview Lisa talks about her journey from receptionist to business owner and now service provider to the industry, how a Price waterhouse cooper survey shows ‘customers are happy to pay 16% extra’ for a good customer experience, Using...

Today we’re talking to Renee Reynolds of Release Property Management and hearing how Renne started an agency with ZERO properties and has built it to over 1500 properties along with the transition from doing all the work yourself to managing a team of people. Renee also shares her transition as a professional ballroom dancer to real estate, the importance of systems and procedures in a Real Estate business, the challenge of hiring good staff so your business can sustain the RELATIONSHIP with...

In today’s Interview we talk to Debbie Palmer of the PPM Group. Debbie started in real estate industry 30 years ago and around 20 years ago Debbie formed the PPM group. Debbie also runs the PPM conference which is one of the only remaining annual conferences for the Property Management industry and is celebrating it’s 18th year as of 2019. In our interview Debbie shares Why agencies are moving away from a shop front and more towards home based or a shared work space, How the importance of...

In this interview we talk to ‘Power Couple’ Hallie and Brennan Hill, who run 3 separate Ray White agencies in Brisbane. They are clients of Affordable Staff and over our time working with them we’ve watched their rapid growth and at the same time their constant adoption of technology into their business experiencing 17 million in sales in the last month and 45-50 new property managements on average every month. In our interview Hallie and Brennan share How buying habits are changing at a...

Eva and David interview Tanya Titman who is the director of an accounting firm Consolid8 which recently merged with BDO where Tanya is still the director of Consolid8 and the head of strategic innovation for BDO in Australia. Tanya comes from a business owners background, has experience in operating businesses outside of the accounting space and uses accounting principles to grow those businesses. In other words, Tanya shares ‘Real World’ knowledge. In our interview we discuss Why tough...

Eva and David chat to the CEO of First National Ray Ellis, where we gain his insights on where the industry is now and where Ray sees it going in the future. Ray comes from a very varied background running a Casino/ Transportation Company, Managing an AFL club, owned an Advertising agency, Managing Director for Asia Pacific and started off his career in insurance before his role for the last 14 years at First National. In our interview they discuss why the industry needs to be more adaptive...

Eva and David interview Hamish Turner who specialises as a property management trainer, consultant and also sells Real Estate businesses. Hamish really understands how to identify the true asset value of a Real Estate business with as of September 2018 selling about a dozen Real Estate businesses with Hamish mentioning at the end of 2018 that he’d had a record year. Hamish shares key areas around how the industry is growing and his simple approach to building the value of a rent roll can be...

Eva and Damien interview Sadhana Smiles who is the CEO of Property Management Harcourts International. Sadhana discusses The concern of property managers losing their job as the industry changes, Why service is not just about the number of ‘things’ you do for a client and is more about the ‘stickiness’ of the services you provide, How technologies like ‘Google’ will impact a real estate agency in the future, Why your Property Management business is an asset and how you should treat that...

David and Eva interview Kasey McDonald from Property Management Training Academy on her experience in the industry as a property manager and now consulting within the industry. Kasey shares her early experience as a property manager, why staffing is one of the biggest challenges in the industry, the best way to recruit and find the right person to work in the PM industry, the repetitive nature of the industry and how it all comes down to service, the fear of PMs losing jobs and how...

David interviews our very own Outsourcing Specialist, Damien Barnett. Damien started in the Real Estate industry over 18 years ago and transitioned to work with us over 3 years ago. Damien is sharing his experience as a Property Manager and now a Service Provider to the industry and in this interview we discuss How technology is getting in the way of building relationships, the difference between a Property Manager and Office Administrator and why the industry has too many Administrators,...

David interviews Karen Coloso who is the GM of operations for Affordable Staff in the Philippines. Karen holds a masters in Accounting, has almost completed a law degree and shares her previous 10 years working for a not-for-profit before a brief stint in a call centre where she was called an ‘Asian Monkey’ on her first tech support call, the difficulties of working with teams in India, why she thinks it’s better NOT to have an Australian GM full time in our office, how to grow a culture of...

Damien and David interview Michael Furlong from Rent Roll Maximiser who shares his journey from hospitality to Property Management. This is a very controversial hot seat where Michael explains why purchasing his first 13 investment properties prompted his career change, Why most PM’s are just rent collectors that don’t add any value to the industry, why most property managers don’t understand Investment, tax, don’t understand how to fill in an authority or how GST works and why this needs to...

Damien and David speak with Malcom where he shares the ups and downs of almost 40 years as well as why we have a problem with Fee Structures within the industry with agencies offering as low as 1.5%, Automation and how changes in Amazon are directly flowing onto the Real Estate industry, answering after hour calls and how ignoring them loses clients and how 90 properties per PM vs 410 properties per PM and why the agency with 410 properties per PM is offering better support to their local...

Damien and David speak with David Berridge who is the national agent services manager of Rent.com.au and has been a part of the business for over 13 years where David reflects on the changes in the industry from a service providers perspective. David also talks about how he used to manage the website from a ski field in Switzerland, the challenge of traditional agencies vs. technology, a paperless real estate agency, Artificial Intelligence around decision making the importance of people in...

Damien and David interview Kelley Seaton from The Leasing Network who has extensive experience in the industry, operating a property management agency across multiple states before moving to the central coast where they currently run the leasing network. We chat about the hiring of staff on skill vs. personality, the importance of profiling your local staff to find gaps in your business, the importance of branding for recognition, integrating AirBnb into your business and how she used $80...

In this episode Damien and David interview Sarah Martin from Melbourne Property Managers who entered into the industry while still in high school and transitioned full time once at the end of school. Sarah is considered an innovator in the industry and we chat about technology in relation to server V’s cloud based programs and whether agencies are being left behind. Sarah mentions how she differentiates her business in the marketplace and the importance of being readily available to...