From our CEO: Reaching a global audience

One of the best things about the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World© (LeadingRE) network is the opportunity it gives members to build real, personal connections with other members and thus to quickly access a global collective of expertise when dealing with potentially devastating events like the Covid-19 pandemic.

This advantage was underlined for me when SA went into lockdown in March this year and I was able to reach out to LeadingRE friends in countries that were further along the Covid-19 curve than us, quickly find out more about what we could really expect and make better decisions about how Chas Everitt should respond as a result.  

The most important of these was to accept that we were in for a "long haul" necessitating operational changes that might very likely become permanent. We consequently concentrated all our efforts on accelerating the uptake of a digital business eco-system that we had spent the previous three years building, and ensuring that all our agents and admin staff were completely comfortable using it to work remotely, from home or wherever else they were in lockdown.

This happened within days and as a result, our agents were able to stay in touch with all our sellers, buyers, landlords and tenants and continue to provide them with outstanding service, while most other agencies were still floundering around, cut off off from their customers and wondering what to do.

And the payoff of our focus on technology was very evident three months later, when the millions of Rands worth of deals that our agents had been able to facilitate even during lockdown started to register in the Deeds office, and we were also fully ready to maximise the opportunities in the demand surge that followed the Reserve Bank's drastic interest rate reductions.

Indeed, we have had record sales across the group ever since the hard lockdown was lifted, and this past month I was honoured to be able to share this success - and my gratitude for all the help and advice I received from my LeadingRE friends and colleagues around the world - during a panel discussion on "The LeadingRE Advantage in Local Markets" at the LeadingRE 2020 Global Symposium.

The panel was chaired by Paul Boomsma, the President and CEO of LeadingRE, and the other members from the Global Advisory Board were Michael Saunders, the head of one of the biggest real estate groups in Florida, USA, and Benedetta Vigano, head of the Giorgio Vigano real estate group in Italy.     

I was also invited to be the keynote speaker on "Leadership in Challenging Times" and because the Global Symposium, like many other events, was held virtually this year, I found myself speaking to about 16 000 people - a very much bigger audience than I had initially expected.

LeadingRE has 550 brokerages and more than 135 000 of the very best property practitioners in more than 70 countries, and it was incredible to have the opportunity to reach so many of them and to continue to build up the real estate profile of SA. Yet another benefit, for our customers as well as our agents, of being part of this exceptional network...