Special Feature

Millionaire agent turned boss: Shanel Liew Division

June 1, 2023 3:00 PM SGT

Liew and her husband holding a lego portrait of their family as a special gift from an agent within her division, Shanel Liew Division

Shanel Liew is a born visionary leader with nearly two decades of experience as a real estate agent under her belt. Since starting out at just 23 years old, Liew has consistently ranked as one of the top agents of her cohort — clinching awards like the top 20 award at her former agency, and industry awards such as the Singapore Estates Agents Association Diamond Salesperson Award, PropNex Top 10 Achievers, Champion Exclusive Lister and Champion Private Property Transactor Award. Liew’s forte? Cold market expansion. Something not everyone is good at, but Liew excels in.

Sitting in her luxurious 43rd floor apartment with a stunning view overlooking the vast sea, Liew’s warm demeanour shines through. It’s no wonder she’s been so successful in her career, particularly in building up relationships with clients with no prior relations. To stay winning, one must be interpersonal, but it also needs to come from within, says Liew.

“I love people. If I can make them happy, it makes me happy,” she says, with a bubbly smile across her face. “I get a lot of satisfaction from my job.”

Liew’s natural talent and genuine love for being with people led her to become a mentor to others. Reflecting on her achievements, Liew realised that instead of simply reaping the benefits of her own hard work, she wanted to go the extra mile and do more for society and the people in her life.

Naturally, she started Shanel Liew Division (SLD), which has grown to a 120 strong team at PropNex Realty today, offering specially curated programs by Shanel herself.

As a five times consecutive millionaire, her aim is to create a legacy of agents who can find happiness for themselves and their families through this fulfilling career, while helping families build their networth through asset programs. Liew is financially self-sufficient, and pledges her overrides from her team sales back to the division.

Helping agents through SLD programmes

Liew recounts when she first started out as a young agent. After passing her examinations, she barely had any mentorship or guidance to carry out her first sales. But through her sheer determination of going through rounds of direct cold calls and trying out online marketing, she clinched her first commission.

Such on the ground experience is exactly what Liew identified was missing from the training agents are required to go through before clinching their first sales, and is incidentally, often the hardest part of the job.

“You must be a good salesperson, and you must have a great personality,” says Liew, who recognises that this does not come as easily or naturally to others.

In addition, some of the existing training programmes available only served as in-class lectures for agents, in which Liew realised makes for difficult knowledge retention. “We realised the market agents are getting fatigued from just listening and not doing anything after,” she adds.

SLD sets out to help agents across all levels of experience tackle this, with hands-on classes. SLD has five uniquely curated courses that are carried out across the year. Each course approaches a different challenge specially designed with material that agents can use on the job.

For example, her Real Estate Active Prospecting (REAP) programme which is carried out over seven weeks, helps newcomers in the industry get a kickstart. Agents are trained to handle every aspect of the business, from working out budget and finances, to developing the soft skills required in serving clients, and even hitting the ground with a mentor to guide them through.

“It’s not just level one training, this is level three training,” Liew says.

Shanel Liew Division has specially curated programs carried out across the year that approach different challenges specially designed with material that agents can use on the job

The best part? All agents under SLD have access to the years of documented experiences Liew has, which she describes as a “cheat sheet”. Liew shares a sneak peek at her documents, which are prepped with slides and even video tutorials.

Liew herself is committed to seeing her agents succeed — beyond carrying out her own sales, she spends three days a week with her agents to conduct her programmes.

“Most important at the end of the day, the agents must have a positive experience from this thing,” says Liew, who’s success from her programmes speak for itself with a 95% agent retention rate within her division.

Agents who are part of SLD, are also given cash incentives when they participate in these programs, a touch Liew added not only to incentivise more people to join her, but also to motivate them to want to excel in her programme.

Agents under the Shanel Liew Division go through extensive hands-on training, and are also handsomely rewarded for their successes

This year, Liew brought the winners of her programme on an all expenses paid trip to Japan, entirely sponsored by Liew herself, where she showed them a taste of what success would look like if they worked hard.

“In SLD, team leaders are expected to be top achievers of the company,” says Liew, who works closely with her team leaders to impart crucial knowledge to them.

Liew’s tenacious and warm hearted spirit can be felt by anyone, but especially her agents within her division, who have articulated their gratitude for her help. Most recently, an agent turned friend gave Liew a lego piece photograph of her family, which the agent had spent two weeks piecing together as a gift of thanks.

“In SLD, we are happy for those who win, and we are compassionate towards those who are on their way,” says Liew. “We show them support, help to make things right, and are with them on every step of the journey. We call this the SLD brotherhood.”

Agents in Shanel Liew Division are given cash incentives when they participate in programs as a motivation to excel.

Leading with a big heart

As a leader of SLD, Liew confesses that the bulk of her work is managing people. But her decision to lead her division was an active choice which came from a sincere place.

It is almost as if mentoring came naturally to her, as Liew was also previously a PropNex senior bootcamp facilitator where she touched and transformed the lives of more than 6000 people in the last six years.

In SLD, we are happy for those who win, and compassionate towards those who are on their way. We call this the SLD brotherhood.” says Liew.

“I wanted to help more people attain the same level of success,” she says.

Her journey is not without difficulties, especially as a woman. Liew notes that most mentors leading realtors in the industry are men, and most agents choose to follow a male leader as well.

While the current gender breakdown of her division sits at a comfortable balance of 60% women and 40% men, Liew says that she had to go above and beyond to prove herself as a worthy leader at the beginning.

“I think that women face a lot of challenges these days,” she says. “You need to be a mother, you need to be a career woman, you need to be a leader, and then people usually compare you with male leaders.”

As a mother of two herself, Liew has a lot of trust in herself. Having attained such consistent success in her sales across all these years is testament to her abilities — her robust business model, mental model of knowledge, innate belief system, values and how she incorporates all that to fit into the real-world.

Liew wants to rally the women in the industry, and has a special programme within her division called World of Women, for the ladies on the team to bond through activities. She also volunteers with the Children’s Society of Singapore, where she assists needy families with their property needs.

Liew has spent time volunteering with these families to assist them with buying and selling, without charging them a fee.

At the end of the day, Liew says that she has nothing to gain from putting together all these initiatives and volunteering. Instead, all these demonstrate that she comes from a genuine place as a leader, agent, and a good person.

All about Liew

It’s clear when speaking with Liew to see that she is ambitious, organised and self-motivated.

She recounts that most of her clients have turned into friends — a statement most agents would claim, but Liew walks her talk. Clients from all walks of life turn to her as a friend, sometimes they would even go on shopping trips together.

Liew, who leads a team of 120 agents at Shanel Liew Division, has consistently clinched awards since joining the industry 20 years ago

Liew recalls some special moments with her clients, most of whom have been with her for years, from their first property, all the way to their third or fourth. A Singaporean-French couple who were in a lot of stress from dealing with neighbourly squabbles, quickly sold off their flat thanks to Liew.

Over the years, Liew says that 70% of her clientele are old client-friends, and 30% are new clients made through referrals.

Liew shares that she sometimes has her moments of doubt, something that she believes everyone goes through, no matter how strong they are or how much recognition they get for their work.

But what really keeps Liew going is her community, and the affirmation from them that she is doing the right thing. “The people around me give me strength,” she says.

Liew’s dream is to expand her division, SLD, and to eventually reach an advisory level.

“They call me the 365km/hr person,” Liew laughs. “I’m an energizer, I’m not easily affected, I’m naturally happy with life and the things I’m doing.”

For more information,

Contact Shanel Liew | 81689792

Senior Associate Group District Director (R024647Z)

PropNex Realty Pte. Ltd

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