Okay, I know that's a long title, but I wanted it to be as descriptive as possible. Yeah, I've been quiet for some time, and I feel bad about not updating my blog, so here I am again. This time around, I'm going to rant about the 4 months I've spent with Alveo Land (subsidiary of the famed Ayala Land Inc. here in the Philippines). Well, rant may be too strong a word. It's really more about my thoughts, my experiences, my insights as an in-house property investment consultant (PIC) with Alveo Land. PIC is a glorified title given to sales agents in Alveo Land. And while licensed real estate consultants aren't too happy with it, there's really no law against using the word 'consultant' unless they copyright it, which is impossible. As a licensed real estate broker myself, I understand where they're coming from, but like I said, this is a losing battle. Now on to my official rants!
Allowance
Lest I be misunderstood, I will state beforehand that I am happy we're given an allowance. An allowance enables us to go to work, eat, commute, and invest in our individual and collective sales efforts. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means enough, but it never was supposed to be in the first place. If all you lived off on was the allowance, you'd never be able to marry and have kids, buy a house and retire later on. There's just no way that's going to be enough. This is one critical lesson I learned being an in-house agent: you gotta give your agents an allowance. As a licensed broker, I am allowed to have sales people under me, and prior to joining Alveo Land, I did try to recruit sales people, with dismal results (should I say ZERO results?). It was because I didn't offer an allowance. Even for their seminar I didn't say I was going to shoulder it. Now I know better. Have allowance, will have sales people. Trouble was, I was broke (still am). Plan for later: save money to have enough to offer as an allowance to at least 3 sales people for at least 12 months.
Manning
What can I say? I've never really thought I had the guts to approach people and hand them a flyer. I guess I was always too proud of a bast@rd. I have to admit though, I thoroughly enjoy manning our booths. It gives me the chance to observe people while not being stuck in an office. Add to that, it's almost like I'm just spending my day in the mall while actually improving my chances of putting myself in front of an interested prospect. An important lesson I learned is that flyering without getting a prospect's information is a waste of time. The real function of flyering is to get contact information to follow-up on. One thing I can say about Alveo Land (and other subsidiaries of Ayala Land), is that having Ayala as a parent company is a definite godsend. Without Ayala malls, where would we be? We'd be on the sidewalks or parking lots, playing hide and seek with guards. Yup, Ayala's the best. However, I have to be honest, on the downside, Alveo's marketing department leaves something (actually, a lot of things) to be desired. Our booths pale in comparison to even Avida and Amaia (our middle-class and most affordable-class brethren). In some cases, aside from a table and some chairs, we don't even a scale model to show off. If you've seen Avida's booths, you know what I'm talking about. Still, it's all good, I'm not gonna bite the hand that feeds me.
Projects
Alveo Land's projects are... hard to classify. We're not middle-income, yet not exactly top of the line (that would be Ayala Land Premier). I'll just say that I think there's a little blurring of the lines between Ayala Land Premier and Alveo Land. Our target market are those people who can afford and have the means for Ayala Land Premier but are more... practical... for lack of a better word.
Terms of Service
As with all other sales outfits, sales agents are only given 3 months (or 1 quarter) to hit sales quotas, or you're out (more specifically, out of payroll or OP). Aside from that, we are required to submit 15 (or more) customer contacts via customer info sheet (CIS) weekly, at least 2 site trips (viewing of model units) every week, and at least 4 guests during events. Of course, the real measure is closing a sale or sales, but if you hit most of the targets, your team lead would be more inclined to give you an extra month if you haven't closed a sale yet in 3 months. Sales is a numbers game, so if you contact more people, there's a better chance of actually finding a prospect who's motivated, interested and has the means. Cold calling was recently introduced to me, an activity that I didn't think I could do. It's like making prank calls, which is fun in a way, once you warm up to it. Lately, I've taken a liking to coming up with scripts to raise my success rate of setting appointments. No appointments yet so far, but I'm sure it's just around the corner. Suffice to say, if you keep at it for 6 months or more, your chances of closing a sale and succeeding in sales increase. I'm pushing 4 months without a sale yet, so I'm really really looking forward to that sale happening soon.
Parting Words
I really like working for Ayala, and I will take it hard if I'm unable to sell before I have to work without an allowance... Worse comes to worst, I'll have to go back to working in the call center industry again and giving up sales for the meantime. I hope that doesn't happen. Unfortunately, a lot of financial considerations are already clamoring for my attention, and a temporary failure in sales will seriously tie my hands behind my back in terms of continuing with this endeavor. I can use all the help I can get. So if you know somebody who's interested to invest in real estate and can afford an Alveo, please refer me. I will share the good karma, promise!
