The new edition of the prestigious forum took place between September 29 and October 1 in the resort town of Cascais, Portugal and once again brought together the best professionals in the field from around the world. We meet with Ilonka Stoyanova, partner, team manager and “Overseas markets” business development manager, and Zara Koteva, manager of “Luxury and corporate rentals”, to tell us more about the company's participation in the global elite network symposium.
Interview by Sylvana Vassileva
S.V.: Ilonka, you are one of the established professionals on the local real estate market, part of the Unique Estates team for 15 years. What do you think the company's membership in Luxury Portfolio International and Leading Real Estate Companies of the world gives to the people from the team?
I.S.: Unique Estates has been a member of the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® and its luxury face - Luxury Portfolio International network since 2016. It is the largest international network of the world's leading real estate companies, with more than 550 members from 70 different countries and more than $55.8 billion in listed properties.
First of all, this membership gives us a feeling of prestige and pride in belonging to this elite club that not everyone can be invited to join. For us, the contact with companies that are members of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® and Luxury Portfolio International is an opportunity to learn from the experience of some of the most prominent specialists in the field of real estate worldwide and to implement their successful practices in our business. An opportunity to continue to learn and upgrade our skills and knowledge. I consider the LPI’s educational academy particularly valuable. It offers the teams of the member companies different training activities, concerning current and interesting topics from the world of luxury real estate, on a weekly basis. This includes access to information on market analysis, consumer behaviour, trends in the field of luxury properties, goods and services, interesting marketing strategies and new approaches in working with clients, etc. I consider the access to all this
an exceptional advantage for each of the member companies and the teams working in them, as it is a source of useful information, ideas and inspiration. I believe that in order to continue to be market leaders in our country, we must constantly improve and upgrade, and in this case we have the chance to learn from the best. Working with my team, I constantly insist that we maintain and uphold these high standards and image that Unique Estates has established itself with on the market.
S.V.: Unique Estates took part in the Global Symposium of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® and Luxury Portfolio International in Portugal. What makes such conferences so important and what was the focus of the forum now?
I.S.: The LeadingRE Global Symposium is a one-of-a-kind event that brings together the world's top real estate professionals from leading companies around the world. The purpose of these meetings is to create new contacts and support the business of each member in the network. The event took place in the fantastic resort town of Cascais, Portugal. More than 200 owners and high-level managers of companies from all over the world attended. We had the opportunity to exchange experience and useful practices, share stories and impressions from our work and learn about the latest trends in the industry. The program was very intense and interesting. It covered topics such as: the trends defining the modern luxury home; the global situation of the luxury real estate market; successful practices in working with high class clients; trends in marketing, branding, digital solutions; training and management of teams.
The direct contact with representatives of the companies - members of this "elite club", during the conference gave us the opportunity to discuss in detail the possibilities for partnership and specific projects to work on together in the future. The high standards we all maintain in our work gives us a peace of mind that by exchanging clients between us, they will be well served, and this feeling is mutual.
S.V.: The Unique Estates team was invited to participate in the conference program with two speakers. Please, tell us more about it.
I.S.: It was an honor for us to be among the panelists in the global symposium. I believe that the invitation to be among the speakers in the program is not at all accidental, as LPI colleagues constantly monitor all the steps in the presentation of their member companies and are very satisfied with what they observe as activities here.
Vesela Ilieva, managing partner of Unique Estates, was one of the speakers in the “Develop a Winning Culture” panel, alongside owners and CEOs of three major real estate companies from the US, Barbados and Spain. She had the opportunity to share our successful practices in building the corporate culture of Unique Estates, applying an individual approach to each of the team’s members, so that employees feel as an important part of the professional family, motivated to develop and be successful. It was interesting for the attendees to learn about the way the company is bringing people back to the office after the pandemic and how we have organized our office spaces so that we can communicate and work better in a refined environment, in the terms of “the new reality”.
I myself had the pleasure of presenting the strong branding activities of Unique Estates in the panel “Branding Strategies: Telling Your Global Story”, together with owners and CEOs of leading companies from Mauritius and France. Being among the panelists at the conference was an extremely responsible and exciting experience for me. In my presentation, I talked about the company's successful branding strategy, giving all the examples of how we present our membership in the prestigious network in our market positioning and communication with customers. As examples I gave our corporate website, all the events we organize or participate in, as well as our social media activities, the company's YouTube channel, the various campaigns we run with the participation of celebrities, all of which are proudly branded both with our logo and that of LPI and LRE. For us, this membership provides exceptional added value to our relations with clients who show even greater confidence in us being a member company of this elite network.
Our luxury real estate boutique magazine Global View Unique Estates Life Magazine also made a great impression, standing out as one of the best examples of a corporate magazine representing the luxury segment and the partnership with the international network. The magazine is actually another example of how we present the company as part of the largest international network uniting the leading real estate companies in the world. It features market analysis from our LPI partners as well as global real estate trends.
S.V.: Zara, you have many years of experience in working with foreign clients and diplomats, as well as impeccable expertise in the real estate sector in Bulgaria and abroad. What are your personal impressions of the Global Luxury Portfolio International Symposium and the participation of Unique Estates?
Z.K.: Such international forums are especially useful with the information they provide and the live contact with professionals at such a high level. There have been discussions about current topics affecting the luxury real estate business around the world. We received the latest data from global market analysis, and shared information about the best practices in the field, innovation trends, marketing strategies, and analysis of the changing consumer behaviour. Experts in the industry from around the world discussed the changes in the state of the world economy, the political environment, the financial markets and their impact on the real estate market, which was quite useful. It was interesting to learn about the measures taken at a government level in the other countries - members of the network, in regards to attracting foreign investors to the real estate market. There are many successful practices that should be implemented in our country as well.
With its impressive participation in the program of the forum, Unique Estates managed to present Bulgaria properly. The attendees asked questions about our country, the market, the company's customers, our positioning in the market and our successful practices here. The properties whose doors were open to the guests of the conference were also interesting to see. The program and our entire stay there was a truly enjoyable and rewarding experience.
Unique Estates' LPI membership is a gateway to the international market for all our clients who would like to invest in properties abroad. Partnering with market leaders from around the world, we can be sure that our clients will be served properly both in our country and on the international luxury real estate market. As we say: "We are local, we are global!"
S.V.: What was the most impressive thing you learned during this forum that you plan to implement in your work at Unique Estates?
Z.K.: All of the things discussed in the program of the symposium were interesting to me. What particularly impressed me were the topics of employee motivation, how to face adversity and what makes leaders successful today. The pandemic has taught us many things, it has changed the way we work and communicate, it has changed people's priorities. As a team manager, I always try to lead my colleagues forward, support them, stimulate them to develop and prove themselves in their profession, feeling satisfied with their work.
The topic of cultural differences and specifics when working with people from different parts of the world is also among the interesting things for me that were discussed during the forum. Our company works with foreigners from all over the world and the team must be prepared for these rules of business protocol when communicating with people from different cultures and communities.
Unique Estates continues to invest in upgrading the skills of the company's employees and I think this would be an interesting topic for one of our next training sessions.
In this regard, one of the things that I plan to introduce as a practice for my team is to actively participate in the training that the LPI academy does every week. This is a real asset to all members of the network and I believe will be very useful to us.