10 Years at Stocker Preston

In March this year I celebrated 10 years of service for Stocker Preston Real Estate. Stockers has been and still is a tremendous company. In 10 years this company has evolved in so many ways and has steadily rode the waves of market falls and its booms! Employees have come and gone and many funny and interesting stories along the way.

When I started Stocker Preston it had just the 2 offices - Augusta and Margaret River. Then it opened its doors to Cowaramup, then merged with Dunsborough Professionals, opened Vasse (which closed down a year or so later), then Bunbury opened, and now Busselton this year. What began as a very humble and modest organisation has grown to be a powerful brand in the south west of WA. 

What I believe Stocker's do very well, and something which I have fought on and off along the way, is its systems. Sometimes you feel like it’s a systems overload, but I’ve soon learnt that those very systems can be lifesaving. Even my own team now works within a strict systems based office, so everyone knows what everyone else does - without question.

Stocker's also commit time and money into training their sales consultants above and beyond the annual mandatory CPD points. Bi-monthly the entire company’s sales consultants meet for a day’s training at the Busselton office function room. It is here where we share success stories, hear from well-known speakers within the industry and more importantly take the time out of our busy weeks to focus on our business, instead of being stuck in it chasing tail.

Besides all that, 10 years has earned me Long Service Leave!!!  Something which I have been planning for, for a very long time and counting down the months and days. It was first meant to be watching the Ashes in the UK and then wandering through a bit of country France. It then changed to going to Hawaii, then added on the states and Canada….and now it is 3 weeks in Broome in September!!! Why you ask? Kids.

My wife and I have always said, we will never let our kids impact our travels. They will come, they will be fine, and we will have a great time. Ha!! What a joke! When it came to planning the holiday seriously, and really imagining those long flights, all that luggage, a toddler who never stops when you ask him, and admitting that many experiences will be lost or diluted, as we will be chasing a toddler around wiping his runny nose and jigging a 7 month baby to sleep…we looked at each other and said, maybe we are not ready for that yet.

So Broome it is and I can't wait! Its been a big 12 months and we need it. So off we go for 3 weeks to get some sun, play in the sand and do my best to not think about real estate…maybe a just a blog or two.

House Designs, Passive Surveillance and Margaret River  

As a property sales consultant, there are not too many homes in the Margaret River area which I haven’t been into. What I have noticed is that our house designs generally follow the same format – double lock-up garage, front door, main bedroom, living/kitchen and other bedrooms at the rear of the home. The front of the home is completely shut off from the public.  Rarely do you see a front porch, a living area with doors opening out,  a big lockup garage dominating the front of the house, and certainly not a person in sight! Once upon a time, houses addressed the street. People spent their time out the front, meeting their neighbors, kids playing with each other, and dare I say and expose my age, but a bit of street cricket!! Why do we sit out the back, enclosed in and for most of us, look at fence views?  Why do we need to be so private? Surely watching the world go by is far more interesting than the back yard and establishing relationships with those who live next to you.

What this lifestyle actually created, besides a friendly community, is passive surveillance. When ol’ Joe Bloggs is sitting on his porch watching the activity in the street, he was also keeping a watchful eye against criminal activity. Living out the front of your home is the best deterrence against burglaries or even strange and juvenile activity.   House designs are not only important within the four walls, but how you are positioned within your street socially. 

As more and more blocks are released in this very special place of the world, and streets start to resemble any urbanized city, we will slowly begin to lose the very unique and true sense of Margaret River. Margaret River is meant to be different, a magical place where the environment is overwhelming with beauty, a place where you can accidently leave your keys in the car in your drive way or car park and be almost guaranteed that your car will still be there when you return. But houses are not replicating this feel and in the process are weakening our passive surveillance and neighbor relationships. 

I’m all for development and totally understand more people wanting to live here. So we must share and meet demand, but perhaps we could address our building covenants and encourage house designed to mix it up by having an entertainment space at the front of the home?

Stocker Preston End of Year Function 2015

Our six offices got together last Friday night at The Goose Restaurant in Busselton for our End of Year Function. The theme was Tropical/Hawaiian. I’m not a big dress-up person, in fact not really at all, so when these nights are themed ones I cringe. But I do my best to so show a little effort, so I wore a florally patterned shirt with my jeans. Very poor effort some would say, particularly from the guy who was dressed up as a banana!

All in all, fun was had by all…maybe some might have had a bit too much fun. I recall someone doing handstands on the dance floor towards the end of the night – and survived! Besides being a time of the year to get together as one company and mingle and let our hair down, it’s the night to hand out awards for those consultants who exceeded targets and came out on top. I’m happy to say, that I was awarded the Number One Consultant for the Margaret River Office for the 2014/2015 financial year, and our office also had the highest number of sales achieved than any other office.

It was my biggest year in ten years of real estate and surprisingly too, considering the year I had. I hired and trained a PA in August 2014, she left in February 2015. Had my second child mid feb. Rehired and trained a new PA in March this year. I believe these challenges actually inspired me to keep going and to be smarter about my business. Working out the right systems for my business and my team in the past few years has been integral to my success – plenty of room to improve however!

See picture below of the Margaret River Sales team winning their award.