It’s been two years since Victorian-based Barry Plant Group have been able to hold their annual Kickstart event in a format other than virtual, but the drought was over on Wednesday, 9th March. Over 300 excited and highly motivated members of their sales teams gathered at The Carousel in Melbourne’s Albert Park to network and learn from the best in the business – setting themselves up for a successful year.

Real estate coach, Tom Panos, was a keynote speaker and he delivered in spades with a high energy talk on that basic real estate tenet: putting the customer first. He also spoke about how real estate has evolved and how, as an agent, your online brand was so important.

The second keynote speaker, media coach, Imogen Callister, expanded on this critical link between a digital and social media presence and business growth, providing valuable insights on how to engage people and turn them into clients as well as cautionary tales on how important it was to ensure your entire online presence was professional.

Sarah Savio from Barry Plant Croydon, one of the group’s top-performing sales agents, spoke about how having a team had helped her grow her business while Andrew Koulaouzos, another award-winning agent from Barry Plant Taylors Lakes, revealed how his focus on authenticity helps his clients meet their real estate goals and become ambassadors for him.

This is the first time in the 17 years that Barry Plant has been holding its Kickstart, that property managers weren’t invited but Barry Plant Group CEO, Nigel O’Neil, felt that now was the time to de-couple the two arms of the business and give each sector a major conference specifically focused on their educational and motivational needs.

“We have a large property management conference later in the year,” Nigel explains. “While in the past Kickstart has been a huge event for the whole group, it has suffered from trying to be all things to all people. We used to run property management sessions when we were running sales sessions and we’d find office principals with their global view of their business, struggling to choose a session to attend.

With a whole day devoted to sales, the sessions are richer, more focused and we hope will deliver a real boost of motivation.”