Our guest today is Kasey McDonald, who trains Business Development Managers (BDMs) in Australia and here in the United States. She is a consultant for the BDM Academy, which helps property management companies grow and scale, paying special attention to sales.The topic we’re discussing today is how you can support your business development manager so that you can scale your property management business.

Without a proper sales system and salespeople, a business will never grow to where you want it to be. In the U.S., it’s a huge area of opportunity. Kasey has been a BDM herself, and has over 19 years of experience and knowledge in this area.

The role of a good business development manager is to bring new management accounts and be responsible for the complete sales cycle. This is typically done through different methods like handling telephone calls, building referrals, creating newsletters, and hosting workshops.

You’ll need to be clear as to what the expectations are for any BDM that you hire. You need someone who:

Attitude is important. You can train skills, but you cannot train an attitude. If you are able to find someone with these qualities, then you will have the archetypal business development manager on your hands. If the BDM understands the direction and expectations from the business owner, you’ll get great growth, as long as they are dedicated to the process.

Before starting on your search, be aware of two big mistakes people make when hiring and training a business development manager:

You have to analyze and assess your business. Otherwise you could think you’re growing, but properties are actually going out the back door because you aren’t providing the level of service that you need to provide. Make sure you know and understand your business and what you can take on. Have the processes, systems, and a database in place.

Some business owners will employ a BDM and just let them go, leaving them to their own devices. No one is checking in or monitoring performance or keeping them accountable. Then, there’s no growth and no one knows why. You need to make sure that you keep your BDM accountable and sit with them regularly to review targets.

In order to have success with a BDM, do your best to avoid these mistakes. Strongly consider the direction of your business. This means knowing what kind of income is being generated, and how much it costs to manage those properties. With this information, you’ll be able to work out incentives for your BDM as well as the Key Performance Indicators (see: Property Management KPIs) and goals. Once you have realistic goals and targets for your business, from there, you can go through individual activities that you want your BDM to handle.

Kasey decided her business needed a BDM when she was at 50 or 60 properties. At that point, she herself moved from the role of property manager to the role of BDM, and hired a property manager so she could focus completely on this part of the business. It accelerated her business quickly, allowing her to add 127 new properties in a year.

Depending on your size, you might already have a staff member in place who would make a great BDM. Maybe that person is not performing well on a sales team or property management role, or they are struggling slightly in what they are currently doing because their skill set is different.

The hospitality industry is a great example; you always find great waiters and waitresses who have amazing communication and customer service skills. Deniz Yusef mentions that bank tellers are also a great place to source talented individuals. Ask them if they’ve ever thought about a career in real estate. Your BDM needs to effectively communicate with clients and deliver outstanding service.

As mentioned earlier, you need to be clear as to what you expect out of your BDM, or you and the BDM will find this to be a frustrating experience. When starting out, hone down what your priorities are for the first three months and then six months after that. You can even take it further and decide what to focus on in the first 30 days. These are a few things that you can have your BDM start out doing:

Relationship building is vital to a BDM’s role. Once your BDM gets some familiarity with your company and its services, have them focus on developing relationships. There are five types of people that every BDM should network with:

At a certain point, the BDM role needs to be consistent in sales and activities. Next, we’ll go over the strategies that you can use to set your BDM’s up for success.

Having a personal brand, meeting new people, and attending networking events helps immensely, but to become a good BDM, prospecting is the main activity. They have to be comfortable picking up the phone and making those calls. They’re speaking to people they have never spoken to before. This is what property management company owners should expect from a BDM. When hiring someone for this role, consider that skill. Below are three proven prospecting strategies for BDM’s:

Prospecting doesn’t have to be uncomfortable, and there are some great methods for this part of a BDM’s role. Consider doing an hour of power, where the BDM stays late one day a week with your sales team calling your database of prospects. Have them talk to owners about whether they have any rental properties, and be willing to answer any of their questions. Make sure the BDM asks probing questions, talks them through investing in properties or tells them what happens in the process of finding a tenant. Then, at the end they can offer an appraisal. If you’re an information provider and not just giving them a sales pitch, you’ll get a better response.

Have your BDM’s invite people to a workshop that provides information and education. Owners will be willing to spend some time learning, and this can be used as an opportunity to build a database of useful contacts. This is more comfortable than a sales phone call because you’re being helpful. It’s always a good idea to have regular seminars or webinars as those prospects will see you as the bonafide leader in the area. You’ll find the closing ratio is fantastic.

If you want to develop a relationship with vendors and contractors who can bring you more business, host a barbecue once a month or once every quarter. Kasey did this with the tradespeople she was already working with. She’d encourage them to bring other people, and she’d provide beer and food. It provided networking opportunities, and she’d have about five minutes to introduce herself and talk about her business. She was able to obtain new business directly from the people she worked with. This is a great way to build a referral network and establish new relationships.

Measuring and tracking success is important because results are what you want all that work to produce. Look at breaking down your KPIs and setting specific targets:

If the target is to have those 10 physical conversations per day, they will likely have to make 20 to 30 phone calls since people will not be available and messages will be left.

Figure out what kinds of listings and appraisals came from the BDM activities. You want to determine how effective the calls and activities are, and if the goals are not being achieved, why not.

If the numbers seem low, figure out why those achievements didn’t happen. Talk through the activities with your BDM and find out what is preventing him or her from getting in front of people.

A recurring theme for BDMs is their database of leads. A lot of people miss opportunities if there isn’t a good system in place. All the work that’s being done gets devalued if you’re not staying in touch with people. Follow up with individuals in the database. Track the letters you send through the mail and make sure all activity goes in the database. Track the newsletters you send every month and the seminar invitations that are sent out. There should always be some touch point.

Note: LeadSimple and Fourandhalf have partnered to deliver this service to property managers. Click here to learn more on how we can help your property management company.

Please feel free to contact Kasey at BDMacademy.com.au. Hopefully, she will be at the U.S. to teach a session or two at the PM Grow Summit.

If you have any questions about what you’ve learned today, talk to us at Fourandhalf. To receive updates on the latest episodes of The Property Management Show, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes. 

Get tips on how to handle the complete sales process for an incoming owner lead with our free eBook The Art of Winning the Sale!

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