Real-estate marketing in Thailand from a female perspective
Irina Kirsanova is a twenty-five year old Russian woman who is an international sales manager for Kingdom Property and specifically their newest project in Pattaya: Southpoint.
Irina has worked in the real-estate business in Thailand for over 3 years in sales & marketing and prior to joining Kingdom Property she previously worked with property management company CBRE Richard Ellis.
Irina Kirsanova – international sales manager for Kingdom Property.
The decision to move to the development side of the real estate sector, and to choose Kingdom Property as her employer, comes from the excitement she has for the company’s new project Southpoint and also for the chance to work alongside Kingdom CEO, Nigel Cornick, whom she respects as having a distinguished and pioneering reputation in the real-estate industry.
Being involved in the sales side of things, Irina was asked if she felt there was a difference in the way potential investors approached her as opposed to her male colleagues. While she recognizes that a large majority of investors are men, being that they are traditionally the main source of income for a family, she sees her female instincts and perspective as providing a district advantage when it comes talking with wives and mothers and can relate to their needs when it comes to decisions about buying a property.
She is also very much against trying to give buyers the ‘hard sell’.
“I prefer to concentrate on customer service and providing friendly and professional advice to potential buyers and help them to make the correct investment choices that suit their lifestyle,” she said.
Irina sees the Russian market in Thailand, and Pattaya in particular, as prospering in the future, with an increasing number of her 250 million compatriots set to take the relatively short flight here either for a vacation or to invest in real-estate.
“For Russian investors Thailand offers a relatively inexpensive and safe place to buy into real estate and the prospective returns from rental or resale are higher than could be expected at home or elsewhere in Europe,” she said.
Other attractions she feels play a part include the year-round warm weather (giving a chance to escape the fierce Russian winters), the friendly people here and the range of facilities including theme and water parks plus Russian kindergartens and schools, making it a very attractive place to live.
When it comes to Russian buyers, Irina says they generally always prefer to deal with a native Russian speaker, someone who has the same mentality and background and can relate to them clearly when explaining project features and purchasing details.
Common language aside however, Irina says the main skill in her line of work is building a level of trust with her customers. She related to us a story about one Chinese client who couldn’t speak English. “I had to explain everything to him with only hand gestures, but we managed to gain a level of understanding and we were able to seal the deal that way,” she said.
In her spare time Irina studies business technologies and enjoys wake boarding, yoga, cooking and has a passion for collecting semi-precious stones, but she adds, “No hobby gives us as much energy and happiness as the time we spend with our family, relatives and friends.”
The young sales executive’s personal philosophy is: “Whenever we choose the right path, and we can always tell, life suddenly becomes uncomplicated and quite simple, really.”
In the future she says she would like to help make the world a better place in any way she can, perhaps in the form of her own social non-profit project. Today though, Irina is happy to help make her fellow Russians “dreams come true” by assisting them to make the correct investment decisions here in Pattaya, and for now that means her focus is purely on the job at hand.
As the high season approaches, Irina is looking forward to working with Nigel Cornick and his team at Kingdom property.
