Overview
Magain Real Estate opened its first Adelaide office in 1975. Since then, it’s grown into a thriving business, employing approximately 60 people.
The Situation
Magain Real Estate is based in Adelaide’s southern suburbs. I was engaged in July 2014 to help the business develop a strategic plan for growth.
My approach is about:
Data-led analysis
I started with a business diagnostic. This involved analysing the company’s financial data and comparing it to industry benchmarks. This gave me good insight into what was working and not working in the business, from a financial perspective.
Then, I interviewed every employee about the culture of the agency and ask for their input on how it could be improved. This information was summarised and presented to the agency’s owners and management team.
Engaging the business
We held a planning day with the senior leadership team to address the issues identified in the business diagnostic and the employee feedback.
Specifically, we discussed the agency’s culture, and agreed to make changes, especially around leadership and engaging the team. This included creating an opportunity for high performing sales people to own and operate a franchise of Magain Real Estate.
A bit of healthy competition helps to focus a sales team. So, we created a monthly league ladder and ranked each sales person based on their results. Again, this helped them meet (or exceed) their sales targets.
Following the planning day, we created annual income, expense and cashflow budgets. This gave the owners insight and control over the finances and gave the senior leadership team a clear understanding about their income targets and what they could spend.
Ongoing coaching
I meet with the owners and their management team monthly. Managers prepare KPI reports for the meeting and receive a copy of the company’s financial data. Engaging managers in financial decision-making is critical because they learn the financial impact of their decisions, including hitting or missing sales targets and expenditure.
The Results
- Revenue has increase by 80 percent
- Net profit has increased by 20 percent (more than 20 percent of total revenue)
- More efficient business operations from having clear systems in place
- Clearer financial reports to support decision-making
