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LESLIE BENCZIK
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Coaches Notes Coach Ken's message to our valued readers
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Leslie Benczik Leslie and Coach Ken have worked closely over the past few years. Leslie is a top performer and realized that to continue to grow his business he needed to make changes.
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Next issue We will be interviewing another top team in the industry!
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New Website Coach Ken previews his new website and brand
Welcome to the third issue for 2020 of Coaching Magazine.
COACHES NOTES
Coach Ken
2020 - Well this is certainly no ordinary year and remarkably the year is actually turning out well for many real estate teams. Those that had great foundations, had relationships with their clients and those that weren't afraid or timid to slash costs, are now reaping the benefits.
We want to tell their stories. These are phenomenal people. People who are hyper-dedicated, with powerful mindsets. Nothing gets in their way. There is no stopping them. These are their stories.
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SPECIAL EDITION
Leslie Benczik When I think of great leaders in the real estate industry, I can't help but think about Leslie Benczik
Leslie is an icon in York Region & the City of Markham. I was privileged to coach Leslie many years ago and we have worked closely again for the past several years.
I interviewed Leslie earlier this year and only my clients were offered the opportunity to view the interview. I felt the content compelling and informative so enjoy this interview with the amazing Leslie Bencizk
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all you need is love. but a powerful coach, doesn't hurt.Â
"Leslie Benczik just doesn't get out of bed in the mornings, he jumps out of bed motivated to make a positive difference in people's lives." “
Coach Ken : I love that quote above because that's who Leslie is. That's what Leslie does and I'm proud
to personally coach him. Over the last few years, it's really been great to see the progression and the positive things that he does with his business. So, Leslie. Welcome.. Leslie Benczik : Thank you, Ken. Great to be here. It's an absolute honour. Coach Ken: Why don't you start off telling us a little bit about your team and your business, when did
you start, how long have you been in it and where are you right now in your business? Leslie Benczik : I've been in business 28 plus years. Actually, it's going to be 29 years in March, a little
bit of a scary number. 1990 and I'll never forget. For the first six years, I was in real estate. I worked in a declining market for six straight years. So if anybody thinks we're having a tough market right now, they don't know what a tough market is, because we're actually in a pretty decent market right now. I have a team of eight presently, myself as a team leader. I have also five salespeople on the team and we have an administrator and a gentleman that works in marketing on our team. So we have a small and very, very efficient team. I'm going to say the team probably started in operation around 2000. So about 18 years I've worked on developing the team that I have, prior to that, I experimented with having administrative help, having the odd agent on the team. But I don't think it was until around 2000 that I formed kind of the basis of a team with an administrative assistant, as well as a licensed agent on the team. Coach Ken: So what made you start a team? Leslie Benczik: That's a good question. I guess I always wanted to do more. I wasn't satisfied with just
the production I was doing on my own. I wanted to build, I wanted to grow, I listened to a lot of great speakers. I read a lot of awesome authors and it was always conversations around building a business, developing a business. I saw different models out in the industry of actually different businesses. Whether it be a lawyer or a doctor or a dentist, small practices, they have a set up generally with a few people to a lot larger groups. So it was readily out there to see and to kind of observe. Coach Ken: In team building, as in the real estate industry, there's always ups and downs. What would
you say would be two or three things that have helped you build your team, build your business successfully? Leslie Benczik: I think one of them is really creating a long term mindset. So I use the term, build a
business. I think it's something that we've always communicated around the team is that we're building a business and even our salespeople within the team are building their own micro-business within the team. So as they build their micro-business, we build the overall business, it grows. I think just having that long term perspective is really, really important. We're not in it just to get the deal done. We're in it to do a great job and to do many transactions with a family over the years and really serve them as their advocate. I think that's one of the important things I've learned with a team.
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Leslie Benczik: I think the second one really is just leverage. Leveraging through people as well as leveraging through systems, leveraging through marketing. That has allowed me to build the business and build the team. There are a couple of things there.
Coach Ken:
You're doing all kinds of different things to grow wealth and to grow your business. But you said
one of the things you liked, was people having a kind of a business within the business. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Leslie Benczik: If you look at our database, we use a program called IXACT Contact. We just actually switched over from Top Producer. We find its capabilities a little more advanced, but each team member has their own set up within the exact contact information of people that they've worked with over the years. So I think a good example is we just held a client appreciation event last weekend, and each team member prior to that, I think the last three to four weeks, we've been diligently overhauling our database and inviting people to attend this event while obviously cleaning up the database, correcting any issues. If we have a wrong email address, things like that, we like keeping the data up to date. So I think the core of any business or any practice really is the client and the database. That's what gets built. Those are the relationships we develop, and each individual on the team does that themselves, at a micro-level.
Coach Ken:
One of the things that I noticed working with you is that you are a big believer in systems.
You're always working at redoing your systems and making sure that things are in place. So I think this goes along with what you were talking about, having these great systems, so you can use the leverage and help people continue to grow.
Leslie Benczik Absolutely. Yes. Once you've created a great system and people start utilizing it, you can tweak it along the way, but it's the leverage of the system as well as the people that create consistency.
Coach Ken: In business, like everything, there's ups and downs. Markets that are up and down, there are agents who leave. There's a whole pile of dynamics that happen when you have a team. Can you talk to a couple of instances that you found difficult as you were building your team? Things you had to look at and revisit?
Leslie Benczik: I think some of the big stuff is really having like-minded people on a team. One of the big things for me is, where I have found challenges is, in the area of leadership and developing my leadership as a team. I think a lot of times we bring people on, salespeople, maybe not as administrative as much, but mainly salespeople. I think sometimes we may have an individualistic mentality because perhaps they worked on their own, or perhaps they integrate with other agents, that they work on their own. The choice has to be either you are on a team, or you're an individual agent. Sometimes when that gets blurred, I think issues can arise. I think it's really important for the team leader to develop their leadership to spot things like that, to ensure everybody is a team player because let's face it, if one team member struggles, then everybody is affected by that struggle.
THE CHOICE HAS TO BE EITHER, YOU ARE ON A TEAM OR YOU'RE AN INDIVIDUAL AGENT. SOMETIMES WHEN THAT GETS BLURRED, I THINK ISSUES CAN ARISE. I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT FOR THE TEAM LEADER TO DEVELOP THEIR LEADERSHIP TO SPOT THINGS LIKE THAT, TO ENSURE EVERYBODY IS A TEAM PLAYER BECAUSE LET'S FACE IT, IF ONE TEAM MEMBERS STRUGGLES, THEN EVERYONE IS AFFECTED BY THAT STRUGGLE. LESLIE BENCZIK
COACHING 2020
Leslie Benczik:Â Â So it's incumbent on us to pull that individual up. It's important that we realize it's all our responsibility. It's not just the responsibility of the individual or perhaps the team leader. It's the entire team's responsibility because we're all affected by any issues that can happen within the team. That leads me to another thing, how do you empower your team members? So communication is a big thing but another big thing is empowering your team members to be able to call one another out because the team leader can't see everything. How do you create a high enough trust level? So we can call one another out and not take it personally or upset each other, while we're all fighting for the team to win, not little individualistic battles. So these are some of the challenges I've dealt with.
Coach Ken:
Yes, that's a great point. So let's kind of just carry this on a little bit. I think the other part of being a
great leader is acting on what you need to do, rather than kind of hoping it gets better. My hats off to you, by the way, because since our in-office, there's a tremendous change in your company, everything from culture to people, to whatever. You've been in business for a long time - 28 years.
Leslie Benczik:
And people on my team are here a long, long time. I have one team member here, 18 plus years,
another one 16 years. I had a team member that was with us for 10 years that left because of the changes we implemented from the within the office. But frankly, they needed to leave because we were just not jelling. We weren't in the same mindset.
Coach Ken: You have a tremendous business, by the way. What would be some of the changes that you made since I came to your office? Changes that you've made that have made a difference in your team?
Leslie Benczik: A lot has been around walking the talk and communicating. What I call, not stepping over things. So if there are issues, they get dealt with. I've always been of the mindset to pound sales, always be out there selling, listing, and things would happen within the team. There just wasn't always time to deal with all the interpersonal issues, and that's where issues can fester. Negativity can creep in. And so what I've learned through your coaching, training, and leadership development is I need to deal with that stuff head-on. I can't step over anything. Things can't get swept under the carpet. A silly example is every team member has to have an email address with the company URL in it. They can't be using a personal email address and sometimes use the company email address, it all has to be a uniform team effort. That's one example. Another example is if somebody is not doing that or not buying into that, then deal with it, address it, stuff like that. I used to resist because I didn't always like it. And I'd focus my energy on listing and selling, which I liked.
LESLIE BENCZIK “what I've learned through your coaching and training and leadership development is I need to deal with that stuff head on"
Coach Ken:Â
One of the things I've really noticed you
Every week we'd review a magazine just to work on
doing in the last three or four months is spending
her wording until it got better. So that's really worked
concentrated time, with each individual on the team
very well to deal with that on a consistent basis. And
to help them get better at what they're doing. Spending time working on scripts, helping them call, going on appointments with them, doing whatever it takes and having them be accountable. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Leslie Benczik:Â A
lot of it started with working on
culture, but the big one really was accountability. We didn't have accountability per se. I allowed
then with my marketing guy, very, very similar. We have a weekly meeting and even with him, I probably even meet informally a few other times throughout the week as well, with things that we're working on. Definitely, accountability is a big, big thing because my marketing guy is working on a lot of projects. He's got a lot of moving parts and deadlines can be a challenge.
autonomy within the team. We call it a team but it's
So really keeping him focused on the deadlines, on
a bunch of individuals working together that call
the commitments made and how to deal with that. If
themselves a team. I developed accountability
you're not going to meet a deadline, how do you
structures. I have meetings. It started with admin
communicate that? It might sound really simple but I
because that is the easy area to start it. For the last
think it's obvious. I never realized that you've got to
few years I've been having a reporting meeting or
teach people how to communicate. If you can't hit a
just a weekly meeting with my administrator, just going over, what are the weekly things that you're doing. What are the projects, what are the listings that are rolling out? What are you struggling with? What's working well? Some of the areas she had issues with, were just writing in our magazines on a property, just writing the free form information, describing it really well. What we did was, we went and bought a bunch of magazines like Home & Garden, enhance your home publications, which had a lot of that descriptive type of wording in it.
deadline, well, then you need to let me know and you need to request an alternative deadline that you can meet. You need to work hard to achieve the new deadline once you get my okay.
“One thing I noticed with you Leslie, is no matter what's happening, you really focus on the positive," Ken Leslie :
If you're going to put your word out there that you're going to do
something by a certain period of time, you need to do it, because as a team we lose trust in one another, if we cannot live up to the things we say we're going to do. With salespeople, our accountability slowly started in our team meetings. We've done business planning this year we've looked at, okay, what is your number one and your number two? What do you need to work on to achieve your goals this year? Everybody identified that. We look at that every week to see how they're doing, in their number one and in their number two areas. I can't say my accountability levels are very high with the salespeople, but they're definitely higher. Even for example, with our database prospecting for this event that we just had, we had three listing opportunities come out of that in the last few weeks. The focus on that weekly focus has started generating better results
Coach Ken:Â
One of the things I always think about when I hang up
from doing a coaching call with you, is you're always trying to find the positive. I mean, we're all human. There are things that you're not too happy about some days, but I really noticed that no matter what's happening, you really focus on the positive, that's a mindset thing. Right?
Leslie Benczik :
It's been tough the last couple years since we did the
onsite because we really needed to reinvent ourselves. I've got to say to any of your clients out there, who haven't done it, who haven't done a full reinvention of their business, I would say do it ASAP. Because a lot of practices that we did got outdated and it's about your business practices, your structures or strategies, your team members, your culture, so many things. I would really, really recommend it. Getting back to your point about holding a powerful mindset. That's really key because we're going to attract to us what we've put out there in the world. If we're putting out negative stuff, then it's going to come back.
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are you ready? Â KEN@COACHKEN.COM
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"A powerful mindset. That's really key because we're going to attract to us what we've put out there in the world. If we're putting out negative stuff, then it's going to come back." Leslie Benczik
It's amazing how much more successful he is when we do that, as opposed to worrying about the details of the CMA and what this property sold for and what that property sold for because he's very adept at that already. It's that mindset that is, I think really, really critical for salespeople, for all of us, really.
Coach Ken: Let's talk about lead generation. What would be some successful lead generation activities you are doing?
Leslie Benczik:
Consistently prospecting. I've got to say
is a great leverage point when the entire team does it. Just leaning on the example I shared earlier, we've gotten three, four listing opportunities just from reaching out to our database. So when I look back at working with the salespeople, the number one or the number two thing a lot of our salespeople have identified, is lead follow-up, as either their number one or their number two. I work with them to be consistent in that area of I've really had to work hard at that daily on some days. It's been tough. As we've seen progression, it's definitely gotten easier. One of the really cool things that I've done is I've looked at every one of my team members, and I looked at what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses are. I've documented this in my own personal notes. I really work hard at helping them in both of those areas. Just as an example, one of my salespeople has a tough time with mindset. I know when he's going on an appointment, he's diligent, he's thorough. He knows what he's doing. We don't need to worry about the details. We need to focus on the mindset. So what I always do is create for him a mindset. If I'm going on the appointment with him. I create it in advance before we go in. To focus on building rapport, have fun, get to know these people build the relationship.
lead follow-up, because that's a huge business generator, and a business conversion tool. For us, I'm going to say we have a lot of good marketing systems that are out there. So for generating new business, I got to say our postcard and our flyer system is very, very strong. It's consistently executed on a monthly basis. There's a certain amount of postcards that we have and our administrator runs the system. So simply, she just emails our printer who holds them in stock there. She just lets them know how many we need. They arrive at our office, they get labeled through Canada Post, and then our administrator couriers them off to Canada Post. Prior to all of that, she asked me, okay, what day do you want them to physically be distributed to the households?
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I pick the day and that's the target she aims for. They literally land on that day! I know, because I check my own postbox. It's the consistency of the marketing but it's also, the consistency of the system that is huge.
Coach Ken: Do you do much online marketing? Leslie Benczik: We do some. Right now we're in the process of developing a new website. In the past, we've utilized SEO on our site that we're using right now. Once we get our new site, we're going to go back to you utilizing pay-per-click, re-targeting and SEO. That's going to be part of our camp once our new site launches, but we've used that a fair bit in the past too.
Coach Ken: I've always said in the industry that the industry's problem is not lead generation it's lead conversion. Do leads come into the salespeople? How does that work?
Leslie Benczik: We have a couple of different ways we handle it. It depends on how the lead comes into the office. If they come through the website then we have somebody handling web leads for the weekend and the salespeople are on a rotation for that. If they come in via a phone call, then the lead is provided to me on a lead sheet that is fully filled out . A lot of questions are asked of the individual via administrator and then I'll distribute the lead to the team member that I think is most suitable or has the strength to work with that particular individual. The leads are transitioned in a way to help the individual when they call the prospect back. We've struggled with follow up. I think the mindset for the team was okay, give me more leads, give me more leads, go on the appointment, you get it or you don't, follow up sporadically. Our conversion hasn't been at a level, I would like to see it at. So again identifying the number one and two issues that each salesperson needs to work on this year has really helped because a lot of them are working on the lead follow-up. I've led by example in the area myself. What I do every day, the first thing I do, is the lead follow-up. I go through my leads, I call whomever needs to be called. I check whatever needs to be checked so that they can be provided with information. They can be provided with updated sales. I've got reasons to reach out to them on a consistent basis.
This year our conversion has gone up 14 or 15% already. It's working. You know what it is it's, just having a system and doing it every day. I coupled that with my prospecting because many, many years ago, when I was new in the business, for me, it was just all prospecting marketing. I just didn't have the dollars to market. Now that we're consistently prospecting, doing it first thing in the day with my lead follow up, it's just a habit that gets done daily. So you're not missing it by being busy with an appointment or whatever else. What other urgency comes across your plate.
Thank you. And my absolute pleasure. It's been a blast and I love to contribute. So you have given a lot to me and I hope I can contribute the same back
Coach Ken:Â if
you were doing this all again, Leslie, what would
be a couple of things you would change?
Leslie Benczik:Â
where I'm at, but I guess if I could go back at the same level of growth I'm at right now definitely, a big one is having the right people on your team. Being more involved in the recruiting, the hiring, the interviewing to ensure that I have the right people. Less administrative, perhaps dealing more with attrition and disruption, hiring salespeople with the right mindset or a similar mindset to mine. More on the area of growth development, personal skill, striving to be better and to achieve higher levels of results. Just a mentality of someone who wants to push themselves to just to give their absolute best. Lastly, I think there are two things. When somebody shows up, individualistically, dealing with it immediately because it is a cancer and two, dishonesty. If a team member is dishonest. I've tolerated indiscretions in the past and, those things have absolutely drove me nuts. I do not tolerate them anymore. So it would be dealing with that stuff head-on. If it doesn't change ,changing the team member.
Coach Ken:
How do you keep focused on making money, doing
sales, getting buyers, we're working with the team, keeping the team focused?
Leslie Benczik:
Leslie Benczik
I think the growth of it all allowed me to be
Well, I'm a little more old school. I know with a
lot of his great technology out there, it can really help, it can leverage. There's a lot that it can do, but I've always loved the telephone. When I used to prospect, I used to have two telephones and two headsets and I'd dial one, and then I'd dial the other. And whoever picked up first, I talked to and hang up on the other one. And then I would make 150 contacts a day, speaking to 150 people a day. I'd be prospecting four or five hours a day.
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Each member of the Benczik Team was out in the community brightening the spirits of everyone by handing out cups of hot chocolate. We are very active in our community
Obviously, that is not as effective today because not everybody has a home phone number, and it's harder to reach people but I still believe in communicating with people, building relationships with people. So today, we have to augment voice with text and with email. Where I see salespeople struggle is when they use too much text and email and not enough voice. They never struggle using too much voice. They only struggle when they use too much texting email as you lose your ability to influence... When you have a higher-level call to make, personally, I think it needs to be voice. It's hard to have influence and really get the intonation of the person communicating on the other side through email, and texts. My 2 cents worth.
Coach Ken:
Leslie, we really appreciate you talking
with us today. I know you're really busy right now, and I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for being so candid. I'm really sure it helps a lot of people.
Leslie Benczik: Thank you. And my absolute pleasure. It's been a blast and I love to contribute. So you have given a lot to me and I hope I can contribute the same back.
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We are excited to present our NEW COACHING WEBSITE. New name and fully redesigned content. After 20 years of coaching top performers, it was time for a re-brand with a new look and fresh content that reflects who we are today. Hey, I'm still The Coach Ken you've always known and trusted for progressive real estate team and brokerage coaching. As many of you know I only work with the best and I'm confident our new home reflects our values and our programs better than ever. Have a look and let me know what you think! "