Tall Poppy head of brand, digital and customer performance Heidi Roberts and chief operating officer Michael Cummins.
Tall Poppy head of brand, digital and customer performance Heidi Roberts and chief operating officer Michael Cummins.
Tall Poppy Real Estate has become a finalist in the upcoming Electra Business & Innovation Awards for the second time.
"We were absolutely thrilled and humbled," a delighted chief operating officer Michael Cummins said.
The company is based in Amohia St, Paraparaumu, where 32 support staff work, but has 187agents from 30 franchises working across the country with more joining each month.
The company has come a long way since David Graves started it in 2012 because he wanted to offer New Zealanders a fairer real estate service.
Not surprisingly, its flat fee with no hidden costs gained a lot of attention.
"We wanted to innovate and disrupt from the start and the name showed we are proud to be industry leaders with our fresh take on real estate," said Cummins reflecting on the company's origins.
"We're happy to be tall poppies in New Zealand's real estate industry.
"With Tall Poppy there is more fairness in the way fees are charged, fairness in the exceptional service we provide our customers, and fairness in the way we treat our people.
"We also include our free marketing package, designed in collaboration with industry-leading partners to attract large numbers of potential buyers to create the best platform to sell property.
"Our customers have access to top quality resources including in-house visual content specialists and the most agile salespeople in the business.
"We're an industry leading, home-grown real estate company that has saved New Zealanders more than $72 million in fees so far."
Electra Business & Innovation Awards logo.
Tall Poppy's fresh take on real estate also meant its nationwide team was digitally enabled with independent work environments in place, often paperless.
"Working from home rather than from offices around the country means they are flexible and available anytime, anywhere that suits our clients.
"This shows especially at times like this during Covid-19 where we have almost no disruption to our working day due to already being set up to work remotely and digitally enabled to transact real estate.
"It's our normal."
The company, in which Graves still takes an active role alongside co-owner Michael Seymour and the executive team, has set some big ambitions for the future.
It has embarked on a journey to become New Zealand's first carbon neutral real estate company by 2025, and by extension, only partners with companies that have sustainability goals of their own.
A fleet of electric powered Tesla cars.
"We are always chasing environmental goals in everything we do," Cummins said.
Tall Poppy has also been inducted into the Salesforce Trailblazers (only 20 businesses are chosen globally each year) and is one of only two in New Zealand to be chosen, showing its innovative way in adopting technology in the industry.
"Salesforce is a global customer relationship management service and is helping us grow in a sustainable way while providing an exceptional experience to agents and customers."
Moreover, it was voted first equal for Customer Satisfaction 2021 by Canstar, and Agency of the Year 2021 by RateMyAgent.
Locally it raised $10,000 for Kāpiti Youth Support through a golf fundraiser day and was "committed to continuing to support them as a vital service for our community's youth".
