The Role of Administrators

In talking about profit, one of the big differences is the cost base of our business. A big part of that is the number of administrators in each business - particularly the ratio of administrators to salespeople. In some businesses they are one in eight or 10, in others one to two. A big difference.

How important are these people! We've not done enough to aid their development.

What should your expectations be of administrators? How many do you need for your sales team? What efficiencies can be achieved in the administration side of your business?

How can programs such as OSL carve costs out of your business and improve productivity?

What KPIs are reasonable? How does your administrator compare to others? Are you paying them well enough? Too much? Are they doing enough in your business?

So much to learn. We are starting. This year I want to put a lot of effort into coming up with these answers and ensuring we have programs for developing these key people.

I look forward to sharing more with you in the future editions.

OSL will play a big role in this. It is gaining speed. Many of our offices, once critical of the software, are now seeing the benefits. It's a good system and will get better. I am as confident now as I've ever been about it.

Steve Mutton's (our principal at Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast) experience is typical of many of our leaders with OSL.

"Initially I was sceptical, that with all the other changes taking place in my business, the last thing I wanted was to change my IT systems. My initial experience with OSL was pretty average. What I was promised was not delivered, and many of the changes I wanted failed to materialise. My staff resisted the change and I was frustrated.

"A couple of months ago OSL began to listen and they started to fix issues. Indeed they moved from being a company which could not understand why someone wanted to tailor their system to a company that accepted things could be better. We started to get more training and our people have become more familiar with it.

"I'm so excited by the opportunity it presents. Its giving my people better control over their businesses. They now have control over data entry and understand their clients better. With them doing the data entry its taken pressure off my administrators to enter data and print off contact sheets. Its going to keep my costs low.

"I tell my agents that if they ever leave me they can take their data with them (I'll still have my copy as well). It's so valuable in recruitment. It shows that I'm happy to back myself and my ability to deliver value. OSL gives me the opportunity to prove that my people really do run their business and that I'm not trying to handcuff them. I am pushing all of my people to have OSL agent. If they don't get it I'll be charging them a fee for me having to manage the database.

"I know many principals say the same thing about OSL, but I know a number that are either still sceptical or still frustrated. Indeed the current OSL experience reminds me of a role I had in rolling out the Impact system nearly a decade ago. At the time, the challenge of change was massive. How ironic that so many of our teams are now struggling to leave Impact and go to a better solution.

"OSL will be the system that a lot of our administration support and structure will be built around. It's too hard to fracture our resources to cover multiple systems.

"Moreover, OSL enables your customers to load and manipulate their own data rather than wait for an administrator to do it."

Sam White - Ray White Unlimited May 2005