Yes, this one’s a bit delayed…
The big lesson from the trip away though is through me breaking my promise not to talk about skiing…
Whenever I go skiing I’m always looking for improvement – so I book lessons. This time was no different but out of the 4 I booked, only the first was a true lesson, the rest were more coaching sessions where I was trying different suggestions to tweak my performance.
A couple of the tips in that first lesson led to an even greater level of improvement than I’d expected – something that was shown to me just clicked in terms of a skill I’d been trying to master for years and instead of just being “told” I should be doing something, I was shown the process and then everything fell into place.
My point here is when you’re looking to improve in any facet of your life, whether it’s personal or professional, the value of getting coaching is immense – there is commitment in terms of money, time within the session, and also the suspension of what you think you know, but the improvement will be greater than you realise. By the end of the sessions, my ability had improved so greatly that the instructor (or coach as he really turned into) and I were giving each other tips on areas to tweak and match-racing down some of the runs – now THAT was exhilarating!
But what I’m hearing from some agency directors is that because sales are slow and commission income is lower, they’re not investing in training their Property Managers – robbing Peter to pay Paul – which is a false economy as sales and Property Management are two different divisions within the firm, or should be. The Property Management division should be self-supporting and by using the excuse that not making money in one area of the firm (which has always been a variable income) means that the real engine room of the company is being starved of oxygen in an environment where training is absolutely crucial will only pull down the operating efficiency of the Property Management arm of the business and lead to further problems down the track.