Team Approach Proves A Winner For Harveys Administrator Of The Year
Manurewa’s Melissa Bell, who was recognised as ‘Administrator of the Year’ at the 2010 Harveys Annual Real Estate
Awards, fully subscribes to the often expressed view ‘there is no I in the word team…’
The 31-year-old mother of one says the support all the staff at the Harveys Manurewa and Papakura branches get from
co-owners Darren Brady and Colin Varney “is amazing. If you support them, they support you, which makes it a pleasure to
work with such great people.”
Melissa, who began her career as an administrator at Southern Suburbs Realty 14 years ago and has left several times
during that period, says she always returned because of the inclusive ‘team’ approach encouraged by her two bosses.
“Darren and Colin are always very approachable, extremely supportive and their doors are always open.”
After being nominated on several occasions for the award during her fourteen years in real estate, Melissa acknowledges
“it was great to finally get one!”
According to Darren, every time Melissa left “we simply created another position to get her back. Her in-depth knowledge
of the business makes her a huge asset and this award acknowledges that,” he says.
While he accepts that their market “was hit harder than most this year,” he says “it was even more pleasing to see four
of our team named in the National Residential ‘Top 20’ list,’ and as well as picking up ‘Administrator of the Year, we
also scored ‘Project Office of the Year.”
This went to Papakura for their work surrounding the Addison Development project, an innovative, intensive residential
development located just north of the Papakura town centre. It is a large-scale, high-quality, greenfields residential
development and is already adding considerable social, economic and environmental value to Takanini. Developer McConnell
Properties’ decision to commit to Harveys Papakura as their preferred agent has been the making of the South Auckland
Projects Division.
Phil Axten for Papakura also picked up four individual awards, as a top ten salesperson in ‘Number of Sales,’ ‘Gross
Commissions Received in Residential Sales’ and ‘Value of Property Sold’ and was also placed in the ‘Top 20’ list.
Peter Belcher from Manurewa also had three top ten places and along with Graham Clark and Venita Attrill, was among the
national residential ‘Top 20’ list.
Harveys Director Ross Hunter believes the South Auckland achievements are a reflection of Darren and Colin’s success as
leaders. “They work well together, have developed a great team culture and go out of their way to nurture and train
their people.”
However Darren is quick to acknowledge that “our greatest resource is our people and we take the view that they don’t
work for us, we work for them. So if our staff do well and succeed, then we do as well.”
Darren and Colin also own the Parnell office where Cherry Kilgour excelled by joining the ‘$12 Million Club,’ coming
third in ‘Number of Sales,’ second in ‘Sales Value,’ and ‘Gross Commission,’ and first in ‘Number of Auctions.’ Cherry
also won the Harveys Director Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in the Auction Arena,’ for the second year in a row.
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