From zero to raking in millions

PropNex high-flier was a weak student but now leads 1,100 property agents

The Sunday Times - July 15, 2012
By: Wong Kim Hoh

 

Together with family members, Mr Kelvin Fong has invested in 10 commercial and residential properties, like The Sail in the Marina Bay area. Rentals of these contribute to his more than $70,000 a month income. -- ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM

One is quite likely to walk right past Mr Kelvin Fong in a crowd.

Slight of build and pleasant-faced, he does not quite possess the self-assured bearing or assertiveness one associates with a leader.

But appearances can deceive.

The 37-year-old heads a team of more than 1,100 real estate agents who chalked up about $41 million in sales commission from private property transactions last year.

For the past few years, Mr Fong has won the Champion Team Leader title at PropNex, the second biggest real estate agency in Singapore. The accolade is the highest given to a team leader in the company.

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Playing the general was something the mild-mannered man never saw himself doing.

'I really didn't have any ambition when I was young. All I wanted was a job where I could wear office attire, you know, a long- sleeved shirt and proper trousers,' he says.

His early years suggested he would end up the ubiquitous Everyman, bound for a life of ordinariness.

He is the only child of a photographer and a waitress. When he was 40 days old, his parents sent him to live with his maternal grandparents in their three-room flat in the Commonwealth area.

'My parents had to work and had no time to take care of me. I only saw them on Sundays when they would come over to my grandparents' home,' says Mr Fong, who moved in with his parents when he was 21.

He recalls a fairly lonely childhood. 'I had no one to play with or talk to. I often talked to myself,' he says. 'I guess I learnt to do things for myself from a very young age but I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing.'

He did not do well in school, and nobody monitored his academic progress.

'There was no one to turn to, even if I failed,' he says. He attended New Town Primary School and his poor grades landed him in the Normal stream at Ghim Moh Secondary School.

'I did okay for my N levels but had to take my O levels twice. My English was terrible. Two of my English teachers gave me extra lessons and I also had private tuition before I passed the subject,' says Mr Fong, who now betrays no sign of his struggles with the language.

He had hoped to study business and marketing but his results got him into an electrical engineering course at Singapore Polytechnic instead. In his third year, in 1997, he signed up with the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF).

What prompted him to do so was the cash incentive of more than $40,000.

'I did my calculations. Although there was a six-year bond, I thought it was a good deal because I would not get that sum of money working elsewhere,' says Mr Fong, who studied part-time for a business degree from Melbourne's La Trobe University while in the RSAF.

Money, he lets on, has always been important to him.

'I started worrying about money from a very young age. I think it stemmed from not having my parents around me to make me feel secure.'

One incident in his childhood added to this anxiety.

Plagued by poor business and his ailing mother's hospitalisation bills, his father asked the 12-year old boy to hand over his savings of $1,500.

'I had saved it by not spending my hongbao money for many years. It was everything I had. At that time, I felt it was really unfair. I told myself I would never let my bank account go empty again,' he says.

But it did, when the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997.

Hoping to grow the $40,000 from the RSAF, he had ploughed it into the stock market. The crisis reduced that dream to rubble.

He even had to borrow $5,000 from his father-in-law as downpayment for a four-room flat in Woodlands when he got married in 2001 to Janet, a former air stewardess.

'Some of our friends who were also getting married were spending $40,000 or $50,000 on renovations. We didn't do anything. We painted the flat ourselves and had to pay for our bedroom furniture in instalments,' he says.

To help pay the bills, he and his wife - who quit flying after marriage - decided to go into part-time telemarketing for real estate agents.

'We'd call to prospect, and ask those we called whether they were keen to sell their property. If they were, we would send marketing managers to see them,' he says. 'We were paid $7 an hour.'

Being an introvert, talking to strangers on the phone did not come naturally to him.

'I was very nervous initially and people could be very rude. But I wanted to learn, and I told myself I had to get at least one or two appointments a day.'

The way he sees it, effective telemarketing is all about timing and consistency.

'It really depends on when you get a person. When you get him in a good mood, he will talk more. So you have to keep at it. The more you call, the higher your chances of securing an appointment,' he says.

It was hard work.

'We realised we were working from Monday to Sunday and the real estate agents were earning a lot more than us.'

Sensing the potential, his wife took the plunge and became an agent herself.

He joined her at Dennis Wee Realty after completing his bond with the air force a year later, in 2003. They specialised in selling Housing Board (HDB) flats.

They made a good team.

Because of their telemarketing experience, both were very conversant with property prices.

He adds: 'My wife's very good in opening and closing deals. I provided the backend support and I'm very good with calculations and other financial-related stuff.'

On weekends, the couple would wake up at 6am to put advertisements on lift landings in HDB blocks. 'We could do between 50 and 80 blocks. After that, we would go home and arrange viewings when the calls came.'

The hours were long, and the work exacting.

'We spent many nights talking to aunties and uncles, sometimes staying up until 2am,' he says. 'With HDB transactions, there are lots of policies to remember. You also have to remember every single client, and when they need to shift out or move in because you do not want them stranded with no place to live.'

Their hard work paid off.

In the first nine months, they earned a combined income of $150,000. 'To us, that was fantastic. We started setting higher targets,' he says.

They joined PropNex shortly after and saw their income more than double to $350,000 a year.

'Subsequently, we earned between $400,000 and $500,000,' says Mr Fong, adding that they were closing more than 10 deals a month.

At PropNex, he started building a team.

'I told myself I needed to have a dual career path. I thought it'd be good if I could still have a good passive income from managing a team if I stopped selling one day.'

He started with just a few friends and relatives, but the team soon ballooned to nearly 300 people.

He laughs nervously when asked why so many people chose to join him. 'I really don't know how I built the team. Many people lead by commanding and controlling. But I told myself that people would choose to follow me if I could add value,' he says simply.

He did that by emphasising teamwork and the open sharing of information and experiences, which went against the self-protecting, to-each-his-own nature of the industry.

'I've never been afraid of giving or sharing and I'm not afraid of people copying me. I figured if the head were like this, everyone would be like this too.'

He was right. Within one year, his team became one of the top teams at PropNex.

In 2007, Mr Fong decided to venture into the private property market which had fewer restrictions and was more lucrative.

'It was a stressful decision because it was new to all of us and if we didn't do it well, our sales would come down.'

He introduced new systems and practices to help his team members make the transition.

'We met once a week to discuss problems and issues and share ways to improve. The practice then was not to share and reveal data such as units on sale but I introduced an internal system which allowed everyone to do just that.

'We were not afraid of people undercutting us. I told my guys, 'Let's just focus on closing the deal, not undercutting. If others want to do that, let them.' The openness made everyone sing the same tune and that's when our sales jumped.'

He proudly reels off the numbers.

'We went from $2 million in sales commissions doing HDB flats to more than $10 million when we switched to private property in 2007. In 2008, when the market was bad, we did $13 million.

'In 2009, we did $28 million; in 2010, we did $38 million. And last year, we chalked up $41 million.'

Mr Fong believes that real estate agents today need to evolve to stay relevant.

'It's not all about sales any more. You can't go to someone and say, 'You want to sell your property? I can sell it for you.'

'It's about restructuring and helping people understand how they can make property work for them, how they can use their assets to grow their wealth. It's not telling people to speculate; it's teaching them to invest.'

His approach, he says, probably explains his own success.

He is not your typical salesman, glib and slick.

'But I know how to make a person feel good by thinking for them. I make them secure because I tell them how they should be buying and selling, and I can explain how the right financing can work for them.'

There is something very modest and grounded about Mr Fong, probably because he's always had to work hard to perfect skills - teaching, leading and explaining - which come naturally to many people.

PropNex's chief executive Mohamad Ismail, 48, says: 'I've had team leaders whose feet quickly outgrew their shoes. But Kelvin's never tried to throw his weight around.

'He is a quiet worker, very down to earth and humble. He joined as a nobody but he learnt, he applied and he grew. In fact, I'm amazed at how entrepreneurial he has become.'

Two years ago, Mr Fong set up Zest Academy with three partners to offer professional training for

real estate agents. It now boasts five trainers, including Mr Fong, and three administrative staff.

Turnover exceeded $1 million last year.

'The margins are not huge but we have benefited so much, honing our public speaking skills and learning how to run a business.'

In the pipeline are plans to set up companies to develop social media software and applications for the real estate and other industries.

For a man once resigned to being ordinary, the father of two young girls, aged three and six, has done very well for himself.

Together with family members, he has invested in about 10 residential and commercial properties in Malaysia and Singapore, including condominiums in the upscale Balmoral and the Marina Bay areas.

Each month, he rakes in more than $70,000 from rental as well as sales and overriding commissions from his team. His wife, who continues to be a top agent, hauls in an extremely handsome income too.

Although he has no reason to, he sheepishly confesses he still worries about money.

'I guess I don't want my children to go through what I did. But if you asked my daughters, I'm sure they would prefer me to work less and to spend a lot more time with them.'

He adds: 'Technically, I can slow down a lot. But I'm only 37, I am not stopping.'