The Development Exponent: A Leadership Perspective
Bruce Holoubek
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How An Upstart Australian Real Estate Tech Company is Storming the U.S.—Part 1 with Peter Schravemade
Real Estate is an industry that everyone understands on a basic level, but very few know about the highly specialized niche businesses that serve the industry. These organizations keep the real estate machine humming along smoothly for the benefit of both buyers and sellers. Some of them enhance the process to provide greater value for everyone involved. Peter Schravemade serves as Strategic Relationships Manager at BoxBrownie.com, one of those highly specialized real estate tech companies I referred to. BoxBrownie.com takes average-looking photos of properties and makes them pop — resulting in faster sales and higher sales prices (Peter cites that claim during our conversation). Peter is the type of person you can talk with all day, and we almost did. Thus, this conversation will be split into two episodes. Watch your podcast player for the next installment. Learn how the leadership at BoxBrownie.com started the company in Australia, the challenges they faced branching out to the U.S. market, and how they are handling the pains of massive growth as the company’s services continue to grow in demand. You can’t fix blurry When asked about the most challenging parts of what the BoxBrownie.com team does, Peter was quick to say that though they work with many stellar real estate professionals, there are some who make him scratch his head. He’s had situations where agents provide blurry property photos and expect the BoxBrownie.com magic to make the image clear. Others may upload a picture of a door, half-opened, and ask the BB team to “create” the rest of the room that can’t be seen. From those examples, Peter is quick to point out that it’s incumbent upon the BoxBrownie.com team to educate its customers — and potential customers — about what is and isn’t possible in photography and why good quality original photos will benefit the seller, the buyer, and the real estate agent in the end. When they do this well, everyone wins. Are there ways as a top decision-maker your organization could take a page from the BoxBrownie.com approach to amplify your customer’s results by educating them about what you do, how you do it, and why it is done that way? The BoxBrownie.com team does so through blog content. How could you educate your customers better? How you act and react to a situation dictates the person you are. A painful turning point in Peter’s life was the passing of his mother. She struggled with sickness for many years and finally succumbed to death when he was 21 years old. Her example of serving her family faithfully despite her daily suffering is an inspiration to Peter to this day. Her loss forced Peter to seriously consider who he wanted to be and what he was going to do with his life. That’s when he chose to get into the real estate industry. It was during that season that a comment his mother often said to him came back to him. “How you act and react to a situation dictates the person you are.” He realized the wisdom of her words — that in every situation he has a responsibility to be the person he truly wants to be, the one who responds rightly, maturely, and with patience and wisdom toward others involved in the situation. What might happen in the lives of leaders and their teams if leaders adopted this sort of responsibility for their responses and actions? Beyond that, what could happen to the bottom line of their customers if that attitude permeated the organization resulting in customers being served better? How $1.60 sells houses faster and for more The base product BoxBrownie.com sells is a photo service that enhances property photos to make them more appealing and revealing for potential property buyers. This enables the buyer to see the property with greater clarity so they better understand the features and qualities of the property purchase they are considering. The BB team knows this is important because industry statistics say that 84% of purchasers want to see good
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