Stephanie Wimpenny shares the big things she and her family-owned real estate business learnt from being on The Mentor with Mark Bouris

Topic – 5 things I learnt from Mark Bouris

Mentor – Stephanie Wimpenny

• Market research and testing
• What to test and how
• Why ask people

Marketing Monday – Fancy sleeping under the stars for charity?  Here is your chance.

Transcript:

Kevin: A week or two ago, I released a podcast that I’d recorded with Stephanie Wimpenny. Stephanie, of course, was the star. She starred in the Mark Bouris first episode of “The Mentor”. And she joins me all this week.

Kevin: We’re gonna talk about the five things that she learned from working with Mark Bouris. Good morning, Steph. How are you doing?

Stephanie W.: Good morning, Kevin. I’m really well, thank you.

Kevin: Always great to be talking to you, and just a little bit of history for those who maybe didn’t listen to the podcast and didn’t watch “The Mentor”, and that is totally unforgivable.

Kevin: But if you didn’t, Steph and her family have a business that was called Ubiquitous Realty; it is now called Moreton Bay Realty, after the experience with Mark Bouris. You said to me in the podcast, Steph, that it’s something that you wouldn’t have traded. A great experience?

Stephanie W.: Yeah, it was a wonderful experience. It’s something that not a lot of people get to do in their lifetime, and while a lot of people commended us for our courage, especially going as the first cabs off the ranking. For me, the most amazing thing to be actually in a show and to see what actually happens, how it’s all pasted together, and it was just wonderful.

Kevin: Did you feel that you were fairly represented in the show?

Stephanie W.: Probably not in the ads, and even probably, there were parts of the show that were a little bit harsh and out of context. But that’s the thing when you sign up to one of these things. You’re at the mercy of editors and what they think is going to get ratings, as opposed to the actual reality of the situation.

Kevin: Yeah, well, the journey might have been a bit rough, but the outcome, I think, was really quite rewarding, wasn’t it?

Stephanie W.: Yes, definitely.

Kevin: That’s what we’re gonna focus on this week. I’ve asked Stephanie to put together for me the five things that she learned from working with Mark Bouris.

Kevin: She said the first one was do market research testing. Let’s talk a little bit about that. How did he broach that with you?

Stephanie W.: The biggest topic of contention, or the first topic of contention, at least, as a business, when he came into it, was around the name. And he basically said, “Well, how did you come up with the name Ubiquitous Realty?” And I said to him, “Well, you know, it was a really long process for us, firstly, as a business.”

Stephanie W.: It took us months to come up with the name, and it was literally going back and forth with logos and different things, and I was watching sunrise one morning and a news reporter used the word “ubiquitous” in whatever their spiel was, and I thought, “Oh, gee, I have no idea what that is,” so I googled it and I found that it means “found everywhere”. And I thought, actually, that’s not too bad.

Stephanie W.: I said to Mom, “What do you think of this name?”, And she said, “Actually, I really like it. I think it’s quite different and unique, and we don’t want to be like everybody else. So let’s roll with it.”

Kevin: Yes, I guess the mere fact that you had to look it up to find out what it meant was probably a red flag.

Stephanie W.: Should have been a red flag, yeah.

Kevin: Yeah, should have been.

Stephanie W.: And I guess that’s where, with Mark, he turned around and said, “Well, did you actually go to the market? Did you actually ask people what they thought of the name, and whether or not it would be a good name? Or did you just decide that that suited you and off you went?”

Stephanie W.: And yeah, we didn’t ask too many people before we’d committed to it. So I definitely think if anyone wants to start their own real estate, or any business, for that matter, that market research, going to the consumer and asking them, “Do you like this name? Does this resonate with you? Would you work with a company like that? What would that name mean to you?”, I think is so important.

Kevin: Yeah, it goes a lot deeper than just the name and logo, too, doesn’t it? It goes down to how you actually work with people, ask them, to find out what they really want, rather than making up your mind about how you think they should be handled or dealt with.

Stephanie W.: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So it’s just one of those things that I think when you’re starting up a business, you get so excited and so worked up on the final little intricate details, that you just miss how simple and easy it should be. You just over-complicate everything.

Kevin: Yeah, I guess running around in a circle, trying to find a name and a logo and then trying to work out how the business should be structured, you tend to work in a very small environment, don’t you? And you probably end up with the wrong view on a lot of things, Stephanie.

Stephanie W.: Yeah, yeah. Or probably not the view that maybe matches up with your clientele. But it’s even finding out what sort of clients do you want to be working with, the majority of the time? And creating that sort of structure as well, and asking them, and saying, “How do you want to be handled?”

Kevin: Yeah. That probably pushes us into the topic I want to raise with you tomorrow, and that is about creating systems, and no doubt, we’re gonna learn a lot from what Mark Bouris went through with you on that, so Stephanie will be back again tomorrow morning.

Kevin: We’ll talk about creating systems and structures for absolutely everything in the business, and we’ll dig into a few of those.

Kevin: Stephanie, thanks for your time today. We’ll talk to you again tomorrow morning.

Stephanie W.: Excellent. Thanks, Kevin.