We had such a good time with our friends from the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) this week. Thousands of agents and brokers descended upon Niagara Falls to show their commitment to the industry. If you took the effort to be present, you undoubtedly want to improve in your craft as a realtor. These are the people we want to surround ourselves with and we were right to think that being present would be win for us. Without a doubt, we all got the advice we wanted to hear, as OREA invested in having great speakers that would offer fresh, brilliant perspectives. The insights from Chris Voss and Seth Godin were invaluable to the attendees, shedding light on the best marketing and sales practices. A former FBI negotiator, Voss, was able to convince the audience to be the trusted source by truly understanding a client’s situation, following up with them at scheduled times, never leaving them to guess what is happening during the process. Don’t ever leave a client wondering. Be consistent and active throughout the whole process. Nobody likes to deal with someone that may be dropping the ball.
The REALiTY Conference was something to admire, explore and enjoy. Render Developments definitely came away with valuable connections and the potential for new clients. Like any situation regarding marketing and sales, you get out what you put in. you have to make deposits into the situation in order to benefit the most. We definitely represented our desires to succeed by having tons of conversations. Everyone that was there had some sort of connection to pre-construction developments. If they haven’t focused on pre-construction sales, our new agent friends are definitely focusing on them now. That is thanks to all of the people that came by our booth, engaged us with conversation and allowed us to explain the value we bring to realtors.
A big shoutout to Jennifer Aunger-Ritchie, who moderated our speaking session at the Young Professionals Network booth. She had us laughing from the moment we met her. It is clear that she is devoted to her real estate clients, and has a passion for the real estate industry. As she said, “real estate is in my DNA.” If you get the chance to hear the story about how she was born, you must listen! These won’t give the story justice but here is a piece of it. She was born just before her mom signed a deal as an agent! I think that story proves Jenn’s destiny was in real estate. What really made me take a step back to admire Jennifer’s accomplishments was when the big announcement from Queen’s Park came at the same time we were scheduled for our interview. We heard over the P.A. system on Thursday that there was significant news to share with all of the realtors at the event. Everyone rushed to the theatre in the midst of the event to hear the news. We could hear murmurs of what was coming. Lots of speculation, but no concrete facts as to what the leaders of OREA were going to say during the announcement. The timing for a big real estate announcement during the OREA event was impeccable. Positive news for the industry, during one of OREA’s biggest events, was surreal and welcomed. We all rushed to the theatre to hear Sean Morrsion proclaim our “ten years of blogging and lobbying was a success!” All Ontario real estate agents have won the right to incorporate as a single agent business! That is huge as it will save some agents ⅔’s of all their taxes as agents. Jennifer had actually helped to ensure the legislation was formed properly so that agents would benefit the most from the changes. This is a wonderful opportunity for all realtors to learn more about their profession, increase their business acumen, and benefit from accounting practices that allow them to treat their expenditures and earnings the same way a corporation would. Thank you so much Jennifer for helping the real estate profession in Ontario! We are better off with you and your efforts. We also thank you for helping to make sure that our company was represented in a positive light. Jenn’s willingness to read our materials beforehand so that she can understand our company was a nice gesture and helped ensure we would represent our value properly. When we got on the stage to speak with her, we were totally at ease with Jenn’s ability to engage us in a friendly manner.
There are so many takeaways from the conference, and we want to make sure that we name a few of them.
Why was OREA important for us?
- We met Sean Morrison, the President Elect for the Southern Ontario district and are currently working on a partnership with OREA and RBC.
- We had a great chat with Tim Hudak, who was willing to look at materials after the show to see how he can help.
- Our Realtor Referral Network grew to 105 agents, simply because of the booth we had.
- We were able to launch our new marketing video, which you can see here.
- We proudly support our new friends at Huckleberry Labs, who launched a great real estate agent texting service.
We had a great time at the event, and we look forward to 2021, as we have already agreed to come back. Our aim was to put our best foot forward, showing how important it is for us to be at Reality Conference 2020. If you are connected to the real estate industry, and want to grow your network, I highly recommend joining all of OREA’s events as either a sponsor or exhibitor. The takeaways will change Render Developments forever.
