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Virtual Kickstart still delivers the goods for Barry Plant

18 February 2021
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10th February 2021

As a mainly Victorian based real estate group, planning their 16th annual Kickstart event was a logistical challenge for Barry Plant corporate. Usually a full day event at a major Melbourne venue, 2020 had proven that plans could be thrown out the window on the result of a single COVID test, so it made sense to plan a virtual event.

The previous year’s lockdowns meant that everyone within the group was entirely comfortable with Zoom however, a full day in front of a screen was a big ask and so Kickstart was divided up into a five day event with one or two one and a half hour sessions run each day and with decent breaks between the two-a-day sessions.

The event kicked off with a sessions by CEO Mike McCarthy, delivering the news that the group had just achieved its best December in its 40 year history, followed by Nigel O’Neil, Head of Strategic Growth, re-capping the significant number of innovative prop-tech tools that Barry Plant agents had access to.

The sessions were then divided into separate Sales and Property Management streams. On day two, the sales people were treated to a session by real estate legend James Tostevin who delivered clear lessons on how to win listings and ensure referrals. Amy Sanderson from YourPorter spoke about the “Kindness Pandemic” to Property Managers.

Day three saw sales people watching Bill Karp, highly successful owner of the Barry Plant Keilor East and Essendon offices, talk about implementing changes within your business and how to build and maintain a strong culture. The second speaker was top performing agent, Chari Emirzade from Barry Plant Geelong, talking about how to achieve rapid success in sales following his own example of 1000 sales in just five years.

Property Managers had a panel of experts; Steven Heaven from Barry Plant Docklands on how to grow your portfolio and Sara Press on surviving and thriving in property management.

On day four sales agents learned leadership strategies to advance their business in 2021 from Adrian Bo while property managers were treated to a session from the Productivity Ninja, Matt Cowdroy.

The final session on day five was a session for all conference delegates from Emma Murray, the woman described as Richmond Football Club’s secret weapon. She is one of Australian’s leading high performance mindfulness coaches and showed an excellent understanding of what agents go through in a listing presentation and spoke about how to prepare mentally for them – always bringing your “A Game”.

Barry Plant CEO Mike McCarthy was very happy with the virtual Kickstart. “It wasn’t our preferred option, but given the pandemic we felt we had no choice but to go online. However, it worked out really well; the feedback has been great, the speakers were well received and everyone appreciated the event being broken up into bite-sized segments and not having to drive into the city.”

He added “The important thing is that we were still able to deliver to our teams, through our expert speakers, the tools and motivation they need for a successful year ahead.”

18 February 2021
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