Recently we had the privilege of chatting to Steve Carroll, Founder of Digital Live, Real estate influencer, regular speaker on the international stage and fundraising force to be reckoned with.
Steve has been recognised in Australia’s top 50 most influential leaders in real estate for his contribution to the industry, and for his work for the charity Hands Across the Water through his Digital Live Bike Rides.
Over the course of the conversation, Steve shares his insights from over 20 years working in the education space in the Real Estate industry, reveals 3 tips for improving your digital profile, and talks about the concept of the “human upgrade”.
Key Takeaways
Career
Steve has over 20 years of experience in real estate education and digital transformation, starting in the UK with EMAP, moving to NewsCorp in Australia, and eventually founding his consulting company to help agents build their digital profiles.
Tips for Improving a Digital Profile
Steve emphasizes creating a compelling "Netflix trailer"-style introduction, reducing generic claims ("white noise"), and ensuring profiles are consistent and up-to-date across platforms.
Fundraising Achievements with Hands Across the Water (HATW)
Through the Digital Live Bike Rides, Steve has raised nearly $2 million since 2019, supporting orphanages in Thailand by providing education, technology, and resources for children.
Importance of Balance and Self-Care
Steve advocates for work-life balance, regular exercise, and setting boundaries like turning off devices outside of work hours to maintain well-being and perspective.
Collaborative Culture in Real Estate
Steve encourages fostering mutual understanding between property managers and sales teams by creating a unified company culture, using initiatives like the Digital Live Bike Ride as an example of teamwork and shared purpose.
1. You seem to spend a lot of time travelling and sharing your insights at events worldwide. How long have you been in the Real Estate Industry and what pathway did you take to get to where you are now?
Back in the early 2000s I worked for a big media company called EMAP in the UK. They were the largest publishers of magazines and papers, they ran radio stations and expos and I was working in the print division. One of our big verticals was real estate ads which appeared in hundreds of papers around the UK. That was back in the time when if you went to any UK town the local paper would be jam-packed with real-estate ads.
One of my jobs was to figure out this new thing called the internet and the impact it would have on print real estate advertising.
One of my jobs was to work within a group of people trying to figure out this new thing called the internet and the impact it would have on print real estate advertising. At that time the internet was on dial up and not many people really accessed it in their everyday lives. It was all pretty new - think pre facebook, pre instagram if you can. I had to speak to massive real-estate groups to educate them on how they would need to shift their thinking in order to make the transition into a digital world (you can imagine the cynicism I faced!).
In 2006 I was headhunted by Newscorp in Australia - they faced the same challenge with the Courier Mail, Herald Sun etc still featuring massive real estate sections. They were trying to figure out how they could keep hold of this huge revenue source, whilst also accepting the inevitable shift to online. So I arrived in Australia on a 4 year contract to help navigate this change.
From there I was offered a job as Sales Director at Newscorp-owned Realestate.com.au, where I led the sales team up until 2019 when an opportunity arose in a similar organisation in Dubai called Property Finder.
Then Covid hit, ruined everything, and I flew back to Australia on one of the final flights before planes were grounded. It was at that point that I set up my own consulting company helping real-estate offices and agents build digital profiles and presences to get noticed.
2. One topic you talk about is the importance of an agent’s online profile, describing it as a "Digital Shop Window”. What would your top 3 tips be for a property manager looking to improve their digital profile?
Think about a Saturday night in front of the TV when you’re scrolling through Netflix at fast pace looking for something to watch - something to stand out. When a landlord is searching for a Property Manager or a seller is searching for agent, their behaviour is similar - identical really.
A digital profile needs to grab the attention of the customer... just like that perfect Netflix movie that stops you scrolling.
So a digital profile needs to grab the attention of the customer by the throat to stop them from scrolling past, just like that perfect Netflix movie that stops you in your tracks. With a movie it might be an actor’s name, the movie title or maybe the category that makes you want to pause and read more. The key is figuring out what the equivalent stop is in the real estate world.
One big thing is grabbing the reader’s interest in the first 10-15 words that describe you as an individual - think of it like your “Netflix Trailer”.
3 good real-life examples I’ve picked up in my travels illustrate the point:
A female agent in the UK selling property to females - “The Go To real estate agent who specialises in finding first investment properties for female investors” - says it all.
My accountant friend tells me that if she’s at a BBQ whenever she says she is an accountant she sees people’s eyes glaze over. So she’s crafted the Netflix trailer “Experienced Accountant, works only with CEOs to keep them out of jail”
When my Dad passed away he still had boxes of slides - so I googled photography shops in Brisbane to see how I could digitise them and got a list of companies - the one that stood out was the one that said “We rescue memories.”
So here are my tips:
Stop a potential customer in their tracks with your own compelling and engaging Netflix trailer that makes them want to find out more.
Reduce the white noise. I know from my time at realestate.com.au that for landlords, finding a Property Manager is stressful because they all look the same, sound the same, make the same claims etc… Sounding the same doesn’t help people to make a decision. I call it “white noise”. For example “passionate about people”, “good negotiator”, “property enthusiast”... So tip #2 is to reduce the white noise as much as you can - if you’re making a claim but every one else can make the same claim, then it’s white noise.
Get the basics right. Make sure that every platform your profile appears on is up to date with no missing fields. And make sure you’ve got an up to date profile picture. If you were to arrange to meet someone on a dating site and you find they’re 10 years older, 10 kgs heavier than their profile picture what goes through your mind? How about “How do I get out of this?” or “I don’t like this person already, they’ve mislead me”? It works the same way in business. Starting a relationship with a new customer on a wrong footing is very hard to rectify.
3. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges you see Property Managers facing in the next 5 years?
The biggest challenge I think is the fact that as consumers we’re becoming more demanding, more impatient, less tolerant and I think that PMs feel the brunt of all that. Managing a client base that is wanting more and more and more and faster and in many cases cheaper is the problem. The opportunity is embracing technology and AI to meet that increasing demand.
4. You are an incredible fundraising force and through your Digital Live Bike Rides have raised over $1.5million for the charity Hands Across The Water. How did your fundraising journey start and why HATW? (And is it true you didn’t actually own a bike before you started the rides??)
Back in 2017 I decided to use my digital knowledge to raise money for kids charities. I kicked that off by running events across the country and we made money for a number of charities and helped real estate agents get more savvy with digital trends and tech. Then I met 2 people who changed the narrative completely.
First I met Claire Baines. Claire was married to Peter Baines who’d led the Australian response team to the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. Peter’s job was to get any injured Aussies back to Australia, relocate any Australian remains back to Australia, and also help Thai authorities respond to this huge human tragedy. Claire said to me “I want you to meet Pete as I feel you can really help him with his work in Hands Across the Water”. After the tsunami clean up operation Pete decided he would quit the AFP and set up Hands Across The Water. At the beginning he set up a home for orphaned kids. We are now 20 years on from the tsunami, and in that time Pete and various fundraising organisations have built 6 orphanages in Thailand. Today homelessness rates in Thailand are still very high especially after Covid put a stop to tourism so the work needed now is as big as it was in 2004.
This year we’ll complete ride 6 and ride 7 and we’ll have raised $2million.
Then I met Grant Turner from realestate.com.au. He said, “You know this money you make from events and seminars? Why don't you actually deliver the money to the kids in Thailand by cycling from the airport to the orphanage?” I thought it was stupid - but that started the Digital Live Bike Ride. This year we’ll complete ride 6 and ride 7 and we’ll have raised $2million. That’s $2million to help the orphanages keep going. We focus on education, buying kids computers, access to technology, giving them a better chance of getting a job when they leave the orphanage. That’s $2million since 2019 from 7 rides (and without being able to ride all through Covid).
5. What is the most fulfilling part of your involvement with HATW?
Giving the kids a life of choice instead of a life of chance is the obvious one.
But also fulfilling is seeing Real estate agents and PMs all come together for a great cause. It’s fascinating to watch people drop their egos, their competitiveness and actually blend as one team trying to do one thing - when I see that, it is really fulfilling.
One Real estate agency owner described doing the ride as a “human upgrade”. It stops these agents, puts their lives on pause, gives them a new sense of gratitude for their lives, and a gratefulness of things they’d taken for granted. Knowing that I’ve helped make that happen is a huge thing for me.
One Real estate agency owner described doing the ride as a “human upgrade”.
I’ve only had to recruit riders for the first ride - from that point on it has all been word of mouth.
6. In the real estate industry it can be hard to find a good work / life balance. How have you managed to carve out time for your fundraising endeavours and how has it impacted your perspective on your work? Do you have any tips for managing stress levels and introducing some calm into your working week?
My wife actually thinks I’m a nicer person since I left REA Group. So based on that feedback from my wife, when I reflect on that I think to myself, you’ve got make sure that when you’ve got a busy work life you’re very disciplined about time for yourself. It’s easy to let work overtake what you’re about , and what my wife was saying was that I allowed that to happen when I was at REA Group. If I had my time again I’d be more disciplined - I’d turn my mobile phone off after hours, I’d not look at emails over the weekend etc.
The other thing that has really worked for me over the years is finding time for exercise. The bike ride keeps me driven to keep going to the gym - fitness is a really big thing, and too many people allow that to be sidelined.
I really have to try hard to get this point over to people in the industry - the Digital Live Bike Ride is for people who are inexperienced, or even have no experience at all, and they just want to get out of their comfort zone and do a little something extraordinary for themselves and for others. It’s not for the hard core lycra clad cyclists. If you’re an agent or PM and don’t go to the gym as much as you should, the ride gives you a goal and a purpose. First time I’d ever worn lycra in my life was for the first bike ride - which is also typical of the average rider on the Digital Live Bike Ride.
Out of the 60 riders, we’ll probably have 10 riders who are faster and more experienced, but they have to adjust to the rest of the group, not the other way round.
Rather than saying we’ll cycle 100kms a day (which we do), we say we’ll cycle 20kms, 5 times every day. We all leave together in the morning, we all regroup after every 20kms and have a break, and for the last 20km we all ride together so we arrive as one.
7. What advice would you give Property Managers to better leverage their relationship internally with their Sales Team in order to make it mutually beneficial?
It’s hard to say, they are such different roles. My advice would be aimed at the business leader to create a culture where you bring the whole company together for a purpose.
The Bike Ride is a great example of this - we have PMs, owners, agents, riders in their 60s, riders in their 20s, but we all come together for one common goal - to finish safely and raise money for the kids. We all want to achieve those 2 outcomes and it brings a really nice culture together on the ride. It all starts with the principal - accept that PMs are one type of personality, agents are another, so bring them together to create a better understanding of each other’s problems.
8. If you could give someone starting out in property management a single piece of advice what would it be?
Every single one of us has something really special about ourselves, something unique that can make a business a better business, a family a better family, a culture a better culture, the world a better world.
I would say, every single one of us has something really special about ourselves, something unique that can make a business a better business, a family a better family, a culture a better culture, the world a better world. For many of us it’s not obvious, but there IS something. That would be my biggest advice. We’re all special in some way, but for some it’s more difficult to find - ask the right people, and if you can find what that thing is, then milk it as much as you can!