Ethical Recognition when applying for Industry Awards with Tameka Smith

Today, we're chatting with Tameka Smith from Tameka Smith Consulting about the real deal with industry awards. Tameka's going to share her personal insights on what these awards really mean—from the excitement and serious vibes they bring, to how they can change your team and help your business grow. It’s not just about getting a shiny trophy; it’s about what happens behind the scenes and the ethics involved in chasing these honors.

Tameka explains how getting nominated for an award can really pump up your team, sparking new ideas and driving everyone to push harder. But it's not all smooth sailing; it's about balancing pride with the pressure of being in the spotlight. Today’s talk isn’t just about winning; it’s about playing the game right and making sure your efforts stand for something bigger.

As we wrap up, Tameka will break down how to pick the awards that truly align with what your company stands for, and how to use these moments as a marketing boost. She’s also got the scoop on what’s next in the world of awards and how these changes could redefine the game. For those of you that have won loads, and those that are still yet to, we hope you enjoy this podcast that highlights the power of recognition and how celebrating success can make a lasting impact on your community.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Welcome to Tameka Smith from Tameka Smith Consulting, who is joining us today. Hi, how are you? Hi, ash, I'm great, thanks, how are you Now? I saw you last week at the REI Awards and as I left I was thinking to myself have we met in person before or not? No, we hadn't actually. It was one, yeah, one of those nights where you felt like you knew everybody. But because we've been so, I suppose, locked down for so long, it was lots of first time actually seeing each other in the skin. It was really good, yeah, excellent, Because I sometimes don't want to say that when I've I've said it before when I've met people and then they say, no, we haven't met before, and then I feel really bad. So I didn't say that to you just in case. No, we definitely hadn't in person. Amazing, it was lovely to see you and I'm really excited.

Speaker 1: 1:21

This podcast recording is so timely and it wasn't done on purpose. It just happened to be that way where we had the REI Awards and then we had already booked in this podcast to talk about the awards industry and reasons why officers sometimes love doing awards, why there's some officers that hate them and all of those things in between. But before we get into it, I'd love to sort of hear a little bit more about you, with your career and your recent move into the consulting role. If you can do a bit of an intro for everybody? Yeah, absolutely. So, those that don't know me, I am Tameka Smith, now of Tameka Smith Consulting, very original I know that. Have been in the industry for 22, coming on 23 years. For all of it, other than the last six months really, it was in property management. So I am a born and bred property manager and I'm now needing to learn a bit more about sales, which has been lots of fun. But worked in property management, had my own property management business that I sold prior to Christmas and then have moved into this consulting space. So it's the the give back era. Now is what I'm calling it. So doing a lot of work with our Real Estate Institute of Tasmania as their head of training here, bringing really cool progressive training to Tassie, and doing a bit of consulting on the side to help small business like mine sort of navigate those pain points that I had lived and breathed for a long time. And, yeah, just really giving back. So you know, the phone rings a bit and emails come in, just people you know, random little things of. Have you experienced this? Have you done that? What would you do? So, yeah, I'm really enjoying the helping, the helping side of it, which is great, and helping our agents. So, still in the industry, but not in the industry, yeah, excellent.

Speaker 1: 3:12

And was the sale of your office something that you had been planning for a while, or was it just the right circumstances at the right time? Yeah, so it wasn't planning at all. So those that know me quite well would know my story. My succession plan was that I wanted to retire at 50 and I've just turned 40. And I had the profit share program in my business that was to enable my team to eventually buy me out of the business. It just so happened that our business manager made me an offer that was really too good to refuse to move along, so sort of 10 years sooner than the plan was. But the timing was right and it felt right and the integrity of my business didn't change and it stayed in-house and yeah, it was just. It was like it was meant to be Amazing, excellent. That's really great to hear. When you said you know, retire when you're 50, in my head I'm quickly thinking she's definitely not 50 yet, definitely not 50. So I've still got some work to do.

Speaker 1: 4:14

So then in your office or sorry, in your ex-office you guys did do a lot of awards. What were some of the achievements that you guys had? Yeah, absolutely so. We did lots of awards and we were very fortunate to have a very big trophy cupboard, I suppose. So we won numerous things. So innovation awards, community service awards, property management team awards, property manager of the year awards, small agency, medium agency, and both on a local and also a national scale. So I don't think that there is probably an award that we didn't win at some stage. And how we navigated that I'm sure we're probably going to talk about that a bit more and what we did when we won and what we did when we lost, because it's not all roses. But yeah, it was really quite humbling and you know, particularly, I suppose, the Community Service Awards and we won the Exceptional Workplace for our local Chamber of Commerce and that was a really special award. Whilst the individual ones are lovely, you know that for me it's very much about community and they were certainly the highlights of those glass trophies in the cupboard. Yeah, I was just going to ask that question whether they were certainly the highlights of those glass trophies in the cupboard. Yeah, I was just going to ask that question whether they were all like REI awards or whether you did step out into the Chamber of Commerce and other areas like that. So the answer would be yes, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, you know, we always have held the most weight and respect on the REIs because they're our governing body, that you know that obviously the most valuable. But, yeah, absolutely, the Chamber of Commerce, the REBs, we sort of entered. We had a bit of a spree there for a bit where we sort of entered everything and then, as we got further into business, we did scale it back and really just focus on the REI awards where we felt that was the most trusted and valued piece for us. Yeah, excellent.

Speaker 1: 6:13

And how long did you have your business for? So, just on eight years, eight years, how long we had our business? And so were you always award focused or did that only come in as something that you did halfway through business or at the end? Yeah, so look, we started entering awards our first year in business and it wasn't that we were reward focused. You know, I came from the LJ Hooker network, so I was familiar with you know Night in the Stars and the collaborative awards within that network. But when we started our business we entered the awards for two things.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Firstly, obviously, that marketing piece that if we could become a finalist, that's marketing, and if we could win something, you know, that's more marketing, it's leverage for the market we wanted to work in and we worked in a pretty exclusive market. So that kind of validation was really important. But more so, really, for me and personally, and why we kept entering, was that self-reflection piece. Because when, as a business owner or an employee, do you actually sit down and you look at all of your achievements across 12 months, like, really it doesn't happen enough and and you, you don't probably celebrate all those little wins and you don't probably look back at everything you've done in the community for 12 months and go, wow, okay, hang on, you know we've. We've supported these events, we've been at these charity days, we've, you know, made Christmas hampers, we've delivered food, all those things. You just do it in your stride as you're going in business and it's a really nice feeling to sit down once a year and look over everything you've done and put it together and then it also it sets a bit of a business plan of okay, so we've done this this year, what do we want to do next year? Where do we want to go? Do we want to grow? Do we want to get more diverse in the community? What is it that we want to do? So we really used it a lot around that culture piece in our business of how we wanted to be seen in community, how we wanted particular property management team, how we wanted to focus our energies on making that continually better every year and making us the attraction agent for people to want to work with us and people to want to stay.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Yeah, so I, reflecting sort of on my sort of award story, I like we've had the business for 20 odd years and never entered awards before and I don't know what made our office decide to or what made me want to put our team forward. Um, I, to be honest, if I'm completely honest, I think I just happened to have time when the nominations came out and I was like I've got time, I might actually focus on doing it, when in the past I maybe, you know, had too much on to focus on it because I knew that the application process is quite a lot. And do you know what was a game changer for me? And I didn't know this and I told someone the other day who also didn't know this. So I'm going to ask you the same question. I didn't know that people can sometimes get their applications written for them, never knew that that was a thing. And I told someone and she was like, oh my god, is that what happens? I was like, yes, that's what happens. So, but what I will say is that you still have to put all you still have to do the application, you still have to write everything. But where you get support for getting the application written is getting it put into the right format, answering it within that number of word count, making sure that it's articulated the right way. So, yes, you still have to put, you know, all your information in, but you get a little bit of help for the copywriting of it.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Have you used a professional service to do that with your awards and how did that look? Yeah, absolutely so. Actually, the first year that we entered the awards, we got a copywriter to help us because we were pretty new in business. We're pretty time poor. We wanted to have a crack at it, never didn't expect we would win and we didn't in our first year either. But, um, yeah, we paid a really great lady, jane, to help us put it together because, like you say, it's a really big piece of work when you're pretty new in business. You haven't got the time or the smarts probably to figure out how that all works. So, yeah, we certainly got a lady to help us at the start, jane. She was amazing. And then it became a designated job each year after that for our office manager, because once we've been through the process once of understanding how it worked and how it should look and the layout, it gave us an understanding of how to do that. And then we had to just collect all the raw data and then she would normally spend like probably about two weeks in real terms actually doing it. So it's a pretty labour-intensive job, particularly if you're entering multiple awards.

Speaker 1: 11:19

But it's a really great thing to do and you know the celebration. You know watching you guys and also all of the teams there, because it was different for me this year not being up for award, being there just as a spectator, and it was like the pure enjoyment of watching each team celebrate each other Like that's. You can't put a price on that. No, no, and that's something that I absolutely have learned from this. So last year we won the REI WA and we won three categories, which was really great. But, to be honest, I was so excited to actually be a finalist because in WA I heard that there was a lot of nominations and I had a lot of good friends who said they didn't even make it to the finalist. So that's like your first step, that was like really special um and then um. Winning three categories was was really amazing for some, for a business that hasn't actually applied before.

Speaker 1: 12:17

But what I did learn is that I've been depriving my team of the award process for 20 years and I didn't realize. And so my um, my, my words to business owners that are listening to this it's not about you. You are depriving your team of the opportunity to experience that experience. I would highly recommend that you don't underestimate the importance of that and now that the team have got a bit of a taste for it, I think that it's definitely going to be something that I do every single year. Yeah, absolutely, and, like you say, it's sort of it sets their belly on fire as well of, oh, how do we get better and what can we do to improve. And it creates also, I feel, like that big collaboration network that, like all of the people particularly that were in that property management team category they're all mates across all the states, like, and that's a really lovely thing to see that, you know, there's that really big collaboration piece of everyone selling, celebrating each other being there and it's it's such a great reward for your team and, and again, particularly property management, because you know we do it tough day in, day out, and so to get propped up and go to a national event like that it's it's really exciting and it's really rewarding.

Speaker 1: 13:43

And, like you mentioned before as well, like about reflecting on your business, now that I sort of know what the questions are, it does I do change my thought process when we are implementing things into the business and I'm constantly thinking, oh, this would actually be something that I could use in an application. So for me this year, like I'm quite keen in doing, like the Innovation Award or the Community Service Award, and I know that we've been doing things in the business that are going to be helpful for that, because I know the questions that are being asked. So that's another great thing. Like exactly what you said. It helps you working on the business when you know what they're going to be looking for as well.

Speaker 1: 14:26

Um, one thing that I want to, um and I sort of hate mentioning it, but I feel like I need to as well, um, for anyone that's listening. But I think the other thing is to be really respectful of the awards that you put in for. So I have seen officers that put in an award where it should have been a team award and not a personal award and, like for me personally, like, just as an example, it would be like me putting in a BDM award nomination but I've got a BDM and so, yes, I could have put me forward a BDM award nomination, but I've got a BDM and so, yes, I could have put me forward, but I felt like that would be a real dog act towards my wonderful BDM and taking that away from her and sort of thinking about, well, how would she feel if I had nominated myself? And it's definitely not appropriate for us to both be nominated. And I think that that happens sometimes in property management, where we have people that put in property manager of the year but really there's a big team behind, and maybe think about putting property management team instead of you personally, if you're the business owner. Have you seen that as well, or is that just me that's seen those situations? Yeah, look, I have absolutely seen it, and that is also a very big piece of advice.

Speaker 1: 16:27

When entering awards, yes, you're entering to win, but you need to still remain ethical on this. Yeah, like um, and so you know, for our business, for example, I could have continued to win the property manager of the year. You know, I have no doubt. But is that ethical? No, like, I moved out of property management into business ownership. Would that be right with my team? Absolutely not. Would it be right for the rest of the industry? Absolutely not. Would it be another piece of glass on the shelf? Yeah, of course, but at what cost? And I think that's what people need to look at.

Speaker 1: 17:04

And you know we made the decision when property management team award was released a few years ago four years ago now that we wouldn't enter property manager, we would enter team, because we were about the team and same we didn't. You know, we weren't vying for BDM or anything like that. We were all about the team. We were about community service, we were about innovation. We moved into a bigger picture sort of awards entering, I suppose and I think you know there's so many categories of awards now of really reading the category and really making sure that what you do aligns to that within your business. So you know, operational leadership and operational support two really different things. Both fabulous awards, but making sure we're putting the right people against the right categories, not only for business but for industry as well, I think is really super important. Yeah so, um, I like that because I we did property management team.

Speaker 1: 18:07

I haven't thought of doing property manager of the year, but have you got any experience in how offices manage that? Like, hypothetically, if I've got 10 property managers, um, and we've like applied for property management team, are there offices that that put, like their one of their, their property managers forward? Or is it more that you give the opportunity to the property managers and then say who would like to put themselves forward? Like, what are officers doing when it comes to individual awards and making sure that they're not putting forward? Um, you know only one person, not the other. Yeah, so, look, I think everybody putting forward. You know only one person, not the other, yeah. So look, I think everybody's different and you know from what I've seen, everyone's doing a bit of both. You know, and you'll certainly see the good operators and they were definitely the ones that were finalists at the Nationals for PM team.

Speaker 1: 18:56

It's about their team and it's a really cohesive work environment. It's about culture, it's the bigger picture. The property managers generally seem to be the smaller operators, I suppose, or in offices, where you have that inter-office competition I suppose, and I'm not a fan of that, but lots of offices have that and it does work well in offices. So I think what I've seen for property managers, you know, if they're in a big team, it is generally the lead property manager. So whoever's been winning their quarterly awards or whatever it might look like in that inter-competition space is generally who they're putting forward.

Speaker 1: 19:37

But but for me, we were, yes, we had our own portfolio within the business, but we all worked for the business. So it was the team, not the individual, and you know that's what made a really great culture and and I think you know you guys are the same and you know the property collective that took it out nationally. That is absolutely their philosophy, it is about the team and that is, that is why the, the teams, are successful and the business, I, I suppose, is probably a little bit more successful. And you know, I definitely don't want to take anything away from the individual awards, because that was me, but I suppose it's a different point.

Speaker 1: 20:14

In your career and within your business, every award serves its purpose. Yeah, it's about how you plan to use it for marketing really important, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely about how you plan to use it for marketing really in content, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely, yep, 100%. So with the recent awards, so we had the three nominations and we didn't win either of or any of them at the REI National Awards.

Speaker 1: 20:35

And I remember saying to the girls prior to listen, like, at the end of the day, for me it's, it is a content opportunity, um, in terms of the consumer, um perception, um, our consumers obviously are in wa. So, um, whether we've won the wa award or won the national award, it doesn't make too much of a difference. Um, from from that, from, you know what I'm set up, setting out to achieve. So I mean, of course everyone likes to win. I'm not degrading that by any means, but I was just sort of saying to them it doesn't really matter how we go, because we're so lucky to be put into this position already. And it's funny because even though I was like totally like I was prepped, I was cool with it.

Speaker 1: 21:21

I feel like there was a lot of people around me in the industry that were probably more pissed off for me than what I was for me about not winning sort of any of the awards, and that's lovely, but it was a good, humbling experience to win um, because in a way, it drives you to that next level. So for me, I feel like if we did win, it'd be a bit of a check box and then we probably wouldn't do it again, and so I feel like this is uh, I'm really really quite happy and grateful because it just makes me want to do it again and try for different awards and all of that. So, but I do get why people and I hope that my BDM and my team are not feeling low about it but I can see why people, if they don't win, they would go. You know what I need a few years break before doing it again.

Speaker 1: 22:25

What advice do you give to people that are feeling quite disheartened at not winning, like emotionally? I mean it's probably just better just to say toughen up and, you know, move on. But what would be your advice? Yeah, look, it's just a bit like that and I sort of refer it to me like I'd been in industry for 16 years before I won an award. Do you know, like? And, and I feel like that whole time I'd had a really successful career, but you've got to keep innovating and evolving and changing and you've got to look at what you're doing and that's that self-reflection piece, you know. So we entered for three years, I think, before we won an award, and then, you know, we had a flurry over a short period of time where we just seemed to clean up everything, you know, which was lovely. But every year again, it was that reflection and it's not yeah, it's not, or like.

Speaker 1: 23:25

For me, it wasn't always about winning, it was about how do we continue to make our business better, how do we continue to deliver to our consumers, how do we deliver to our industry, our community, and that's what it needs to be about. Like it doesn't. Yes, it's lovely to win, but, like you said, you got your team to a national finalist and if, I suppose, if you're not winning, and so for me, for those first couple of years I'm it's like, oh, like, why am I not winning? And you know, I I lost to a couple of people, particularly in the PM space, like that surprised me early on, that I just didn't walk away with that and I was like, are you joking? Like you know, there's that ego. But instead of getting pissy about it, I was like, okay, so who won that? What are they doing that I'm not doing? Um, can I connect with them? Can I have lunch with them? Can I have a coffee with them? Can I find out what are they doing? Like, like, I want to be that person.

Speaker 1: 24:23

So, and then you know, when they brought in PM team of the year award, I'm like, right, I want to win this, I want to win this first year. What have we got to do in our department to make that happen? Or what? What is what's happening in the industry? What better can we be doing? Um, so I don't know.

Speaker 1: 24:39

For me it's, it's a motivator about how do we get better, how do we collaborate better? How do we collaborate better? Who can we learn from? And that's the real thing. I think it's a real learning opportunity that if you for awards, if you're entering something and you didn't win, it's not a bad thing. It's a massive learning opportunity of what more can you be doing, what can you tweak, what can you learn? What can you learn, what can you be giving back, particularly in that community service space.

Speaker 1: 25:07

You know we entered that quite a few years and then we won it locally and then won it on a national and you know we'd had a big campaign about what are we going to do in our community, like, we want everyone to know who we are. We want to be seen to be giving back and we had a really big piece around that. You know we had a volunteer day program where you could pick a day, paid work and go and volunteer at any charity you wanted. We had the random act of kindness and and obviously all of our local sponsorship and sporting things. But it's that, it's that extra one percent that I think when you see the people get up on the stage and collect those awards, you're like, okay, yeah, I know what you're doing and you're doing it really well and I want to be like you. How do I do that? And everyone that wins I'm guaranteed more than happy to share what they're doing. Absolutely, they want everyone to be awesome. Yeah, and the.

Speaker 1: 25:58

That was the one that the feedback I gave to you on the night was. The only thing that I felt that the event was missing was just that little bit of blurb at the start when they were announcing the winner about that person and something that stood out in their application, because I felt like that would have been, especially because it is a national award you don't know everyone, like we're all in our own little doubles in our own states, and that's exactly what I said to the girls. I said you know, we all think we're all in our own little doubles in our own states. And that's exactly what I said to the girls. I said you know, we all think we're wonderful in WA, but we don't know what's going on in all the rest of the state.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Yeah, absolutely, and I would have liked to sort of hear just that little bit of blurb too and that bit of point of difference, just to get to know that person a little bit more, as opposed to just saying the winner is this person. Yes, question a little bit more, as opposed to just saying the winner is this person. Um, yes, that's my only feedback and but I think you mentioned that sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. It's sort of a bit yeah, yeah, I've been to some that haven't and after you said that, I was like, oh, that's interesting that they haven't. Um, yeah, they didn't do it this year for some reason. So that's certainly feedback we'll pass on, because I agree, um, you know, it's really nice when you go to awards and if you're not familiar with someone, if you're relatively new to the industry and you're like, oh, who are these people? Um, it's nice to hear a little bit about their business, and then then you sort of makes you think about oh okay, I could probably align with them. I'm going to talk to those people and they go on the list of how do we connect with them? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Um, my last question for you is have you ever been a judge? Yes, so last year, I had the pleasure of being a judge for the Telstra Business Women's Awards actually, so I I entered that back in 2017 and came down to the final three, which was a really good um challenge, because if you really want to be challenged entering an award, that is the award to go for. Um, it is grueling and intensive, um, but it is fabulous. The whole process it is. It's a really, really big process but it is a fabulous process. So, um, yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of being a finalist, so I put my hand up to be a judge last year and it was a huge piece of work but super rewarding. And, yeah, being a judge is yeah, it's really exciting, because Can you talk about the process Like, is it purely just on an application or do you have to do any extra research as well?

Speaker 1: 28:25

Yeah, so with the Telstra Business Awards, they're different to our industry awards. So our industry awards is judged just off the submission, and I would like to see that change a little bit and I've flagged that I'd like to see the agents being interviewed as part of their process, because I feel like I don't know, you can't mix your words when you're talking to someone, if that makes sense. But the Telstra Business Awards, it is a written application to start with that is about five times as big as what we have to do for industry, so that alone is massive. And then it's a three stage interview process. So you do an interview with the first lot of judges on a criteria that builds back into the application. Then you're given another round of applications that have been through the first. So you end up interviewing three times and then you meet with all the co-judges at the end and look back over all the applications and you come to a judgement on the scoring process. So it's a really it's a a great process.

Speaker 1: 29:30

I think it's fabulous and and the chamber of commerce awards are similar to that and I'll certainly be putting my hand up to help out with with those moving forward, because the same thing you know, it's really good to speak to people about what they're doing, because sometimes the word count on your written applications is just not enough, like you just want to get a bit more information in and there's no room for it, so you can't. So I think that interview process would be really valuable. I feel like I've got the opposite problem. I'm trying to find it hard to fill the word count and not having enough room. Yeah, and look, some categories are a bit like that. Some you're like, wow, this is, you need 500 words and I've got about 50. And then other categories, particularly community service one.

Speaker 1: 30:12

I sort of always found that to be a bit of a problem, that it was really hard to put everything in that you were doing because it just wasn't enough room, whereas some of the other categories you know, like marketing and communication, you can only put so much in that yeah, so it'd be safe to say, like with the judging process. Um, again, correct me if I've got this wrong, but there'll be like points and it'll be based on um, obviously like the content of the application, but like would it be even things like like spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes, is that held with a certain points? Or um, yes and no, so um with yeah, so, look, it is all part of it. Obviously, if you're you're reading an application about marketing communication and then all the the spelling is wrong, that's, that's a big part of that. Like, that doesn't make a great deal of sense. Um, so, look, it does all certainly form part of of the award submission and particularly with the Telstra Business Women's Award, it, it certainly does that. That is a very big part of that.

Speaker 1: 31:15

You know, yeah, yeah, any, any tips on how to stand out? Um, be really honest, don't put fluff in there. No one really gives a shit about the fluff, like you know. Make it, make it real and reflective and, you know, when you do something really good, note it down so you've got it for your awards. So, just being really authentic about what you're doing, um, and why it's awesome, you know, like our pay it forward program, it was really awesome because, you know, we were paying for groceries for people that couldn't afford it. We were helping homeless people.

Speaker 1: 31:55

Like, why is it exceptional? That's that's really what we want to know. Yes, everyone's doing good stuff, but why is it exceptional? Why? Why is it really great? And the innovation everyone's innovating, yeah, but why is it exceptional? Why? Why is it really great? And the innovation everyone's innovating? Yeah, but why is what you're doing exceptional? That that's yeah, yeah. What's the difference that you're making in people's lives? That that's what it's got to be about, and it's got to be about the consumers and the community and and culture is a big thing. You know that's. You know, why is your property management team culture so much better than everyone else? What are you doing for your team? That's making it Super awesome? What are your team doing for each other? That is, you know, is Australian award winning. Yeah, now, I know I keep on saying last question, but I promise this is my last question. No, that's all right.

Speaker 1: 32:43

What do you reckon is the appropriate timeframe to market awards after you've won. So forever, forever. But so if I won, like a 2022 award, like two years ago, do you think that, like you can still market it, or once there's been another round and you missed out, like you can still market it, or once there's been another round and you missed out, then you shouldn't market it anymore because it's too old? Like is there is yeah. Can it be too old to advertise? Um, yes and no, I suppose it depends on how you're doing it. Yeah, you know. So if you're running online ads about you're the best in the country, you're the best in the country for a period. Yes, like you know, I was national property manager for a year. You know, luckily, I was actually for two years, so I got a lot of life out of that.

Speaker 1: 33:38

But if you're advertising you're the best in the country and it's a specific ad about that award, it has a shelf life, yep, but if you are the best PM team, state-based or locally? So we used it locally in our direct suburb marketplace because we were the best PM team and no one else in our marketplace, because Hannah took the trophy from us, you know, we handed it along to her, so no one else and still is a national award winner for property management team in our marketplace. So I think it depends on how you're, how you're using it and you need to keep it tasteful. You know, you don't definitely don't want to be disrespecting the next national property manager when they have won it and you won it a couple of years ago to that broader market. So I think it depends how well you're using it and to keep it tasteful.

Speaker 1: 34:37

Yeah, having it on your email banners, of course, in the end we ended up having that. We were on our email banners REIA winners, reb winners, reit winners and didn't name everything. We just had. We were award winners in those categories and had it listed on our website so people could look at it. So, because you really do, you need to be respectful for those that you hand the baton on to after your turn is up. Yeah, absolutely yeah, and I'm glad you just mentioned that. So, yeah, email signatures is a great place to be advertising in your social media marketing, maybe in your like packs going out to new clients, and then the website, of course, as well. So they're all good places to be putting it on.

Speaker 1: 35:21

I was just thinking like, even if you were happy changing your business cards over all the time. It would be a pretty cool thing to put on a business card like a little gold emblem or whatever like for the you know, for the award that you've won. Absolutely, but you don't have to change them over. All right, amazing. Thank you so much for going through that. I know that's going to be so helpful for a lot of people to listen to who have missed out on recent awards in the last 12 months.

Speaker 1: 35:45

And um, just a reminder. Well, I shall recap the first one. Get a copywriter, get someone to just double check your app, even if it's just a quickly proofread your application to make sure that you've done it all correctly and filled it in appropriately. That would be like the my biggest tip for everyone. Absolutely, yeah, and, and no one tells you about it, but everyone's, a lot of people are doing it, guys, everyone's doing it, everyone's doing it. Um, if you're not sure who to even reach out, to reach out to um Tamika or myself, because whoever it can be nationwide, whoever you use um, so I know that, absolutely, people and I've got a few people that I know that have done it as well. So, um, reach out if you want those details and we'll share them with you.

Speaker 1: 36:24

Um, second thing is being ethical within your team making sure you're applying for the right award that's not going to be dismissive to the rest of your team or make them feel a little bit inferior. So be really conscious of that. And I like what you said about you know, once you become a team, apply for the team awards, maybe more than the personal. And the final tip to me, I think it's like being consistent. You know what, if you're going to do awards, I know for me now, I'm just going to be consistent with them. I'm going to be on the lookout for awards. I've deprived my team of it for too many years, so I'm going to continue just to doing it as a form of content and good office culture as well. So they are the three tips that I want you to all get out of today's listen. And now, if anyone wants to reach out to Tamika for consulting, reach out directly. Just quickly.

Speaker 1: 37:16

Finish off by telling us what would you be specialising in at the moment with your consulting work? Are you doing smaller offices, teams, business owners? What does that look like as your ideal? Yeah, so really working with small offices and business owners. Big teams are not my thing, so I don't want to be dabbling in areas that I can't deliver in. But, yeah, that small office, startup, business, business owners, that's certainly where I'm working. And in the property management space, obviously that's where I know. So you know, particularly those businesses that are thinking they want to get into property management or they have just got into it, that that's a good time to to have me, you know, to try and work through those pain points, um. Or you know growth. You know working with your BDs, um, a lot. It surprises me actually a lot about how many business owners don't know their P&Ls and don't have a budget for P&Ms and so things like that. That's sort of what I'm working in, outside of all the training in TASI for our REIT Excellent.

Speaker 1: 38:17

And next for you might be applying for some awards for, like, mentor of the Year and Coach of the Year. Yeah, yeah, maybe. I actually only said to Michelle the other day that we should enter the tas training awards because we deliver our foreign diploma to our state, that that you know we should be recognizing the industry body for for delivering that to our industry. So I think, um, I'll more look at industry awards of what we're giving back to our community. Yeah, fabulous, watch this space. Thank you so much for sharing your time and I hope this was really helpful for those that are listening to delve a little bit more into the award system. So I appreciate it and I'll see you soon. Great Thanks, ash.