Welcome Aboard!
 
As we set sail into this new and exciting decade, we must be mindful of our ship's navigation. As a business, we should always be sailing towards our North Star. We must have clarity about our destination and our purpose, and yet be prepared to correct our course when necessary. Afterall... no journey is travelled in a straight line.

The past year has been especially challenging for us as a team. Although we managed to keep everything moving forward and headed in the right direction, we certainly had our share of deviations from the plan. Destinations can be fixed... but plans change!

In the first two episodes of our blog, I laid the foundations and provided the history and back-story which has lead us to where we find ourselves today. In nautical terms... we weathered a storm, and are happy to find ourselves once again in calmer waters. I wrote about the importance of having the support of my crew members, and how every hand on deck contributes to the overall success of any voyage.

This week, we'd like to introduce two more characters that have become vital members of our team: Lucas Germain, and Sherry Tu.

Important to note that when our team split up in early 2019, we retained one of the administrative staff members who had been supporting us all in the back office. Our admin staff play a key role in assisting the sales team with many of the behind-the-scenes tasks that are necessary for any real estate business to thrive. This includes things like preparing contracts, conducting research, creating reports, expense & revenue tracking, budgeting, communicating with clients, organizing files for closings, and even some level of marketing, event planning, and publicity. It's a huge job that carries a ton of responsibility!

However, due to the turmoil of the changes we were going through - this put added pressure on our entire team. We had to adjust some of the roles and responsibilities of our staff in order to adapt to the changes in our team dynamic. Workloads were heavy, hours were long, and stress-levels were high. This meant that Catherine and I both found ourselves with less time on our hands to devote to managing and guiding our team. We were too busy focusing on sales and servicing our clients. Unfortunately, this resulted in an environment of overwhelm and confusion for our one and only administrative employee - doing the absolute best she could with the tools she had at her disposal. 

In hind-sight, my First-Commander (Catherine) and I failed to recognize those problems early on. Perhaps we lacked the experience or the awareness to realize that one of our crew members was being battered by the waves, and that we risked losing a man-overboard. Despite the warning signs and the repeated cries for help... we continued with our heads down, focusing too intently on the storm ahead, and not enough on our crew members on deck... whom we so greatly depended on.

We ended up losing our team coordinator in September. She resigned with the utmost professionalism and grace, leaving Catherine and I with a great deal to think about and a hard, but valuable lesson to learn from it all. 

Fortunately, it didn't take us long for the sheer gravity of that set-back to sink in. We knew that we had to learn from our mistakes, and that failure is often the greatest teacher. Many discussions and meetings took place in the weeks that followed as we figured out what went wrong, and how we could prevent the same mistakes from happening again in the future. We set to work re-defining the job descriptions of our administrative staff, and came to the conclusion that we had not one, but two positions that would need to be filled. 

Our problem became obvious. What we lacked was not necessarily man-power, but operational systems. We needed someone who could help us streamline our operations, and maximize efficiency. The position we created was that of Operations Manager, and the man we found for the job was Lucas Germain. 

Lucas has a background with the Canadian Forces, having worked in operations at one of the country's largest, most active naval bases in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His experience in the military taught him how to manage what he described as "Organized Chaos". In other words, working in a volatile and unpredictable environment, yet operating within the confines of a highly organized and systematic structure. It sounded a lot like real estate to us! After going through a series of interviews and tests, we had no doubt that we had found the right man for the job. Lucas has been with the team for three months now, and we can already see some dramatic improvements since he came aboard. 

Once we had Lucas in place, we then scouted for someone who was not only highly organized, but who could also execute multiple tasks with precision. During our busy seasons in real estate, it's not uncommon for our transaction coordinator to be handling up to 10 or 12 files simultaneously. It takes a special kind of sailor to be able to handle those tides! 

Enter Sherry Tu. An energetic mother of two, with a background in the fashion industry. She has held positions as a purchaser and sales manager for various luxury fashion retailers, wholesalers, and distributors. She also recently worked as an office administrator with Royal LePage, which meant that Sherry not only has a strong corporate background, but also a solid understanding of the back-end side of real estate transactions. Oh... and did we mention she speaks three languages including French, English, and Mandarin!! We would have been crazy not to invite her onboard to join us.

Our ship is once again sailing at full speed ahead, with all hands on deck eager to take on the next challenge that awaits. With the New Year upon us, we're already sensing the waves coming. Our phones haven't stopped ringing with many homeowners getting prepared to sell their properties this winter and spring. We're busy with market evaluations, walk-through appointments and consultations, and several pre-listing building inspections are already underway. 

We finally feel settled in our new office space in Pointe-Claire, and we're all excited for the mystery and the promise of the open sea.
 
Signing off...
Capt'n Mark