We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

How to Nurture New Agents in a High-Performing Team with Ben Spackman

• Season 1 • Episode 31

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We break down the process of building a high-performing, scalable real estate team on the Northern Beaches.

• team structure emphasizes staged career development: new agents start as sales associates and campaign managers to learn the full process
• lead generation and appraisal exposure integrated early to build confidence, skill, and market knowledge
• performance milestones (e.g., $300k GCI) trigger progression to independent farming areas and eventually managing an Executive Assistant (EA)
• young, energetic team selected to match industry demands, with training to maintain brand reputation and service quality
• ongoing client communication and trust-building emphasized as core to consistent marketplace success
• leadership focus on internal foundations and support tools ensures agents have the resources to grow, succeed, and sustain long-term results

A practical guide to structuring a real estate team for growth, combining hands-on mentorship, clear career pathways, and operational systems to maximize agent performance and client satisfaction.



Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

Brought to you by The Complete Salesperson Course & Super Coaching Program

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Lee Woodward:

Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward of Realtair. Realtair is the one platform of choice of real estate professionals, allowing you to pitch, sign, and sell real estate. Today's tip is around structuring your winning real estate team. Today we are going to the Northern Beaches, a very old stomping ground for myself, and we're gonna interview the leader of one of the best Rain and Horn officers that have actually done number one in their numbers in quite a few of their suburbs. He joins me today, Ben Speckman. Ben, welcome aboard. Hey Lou, thanks, Todd. Great to have you with us. Where's the team today? And I've heard some incredible results that the brand's having within the area. How many have you got, and what have you achieving there?

Ben Spackman:

Yeah, so we've got twenty-two currently in office. I've got eight sales agents currently. I run a team of well, two sales agents and two sales associates. So my two guys basically run as campaign managers. So they're basically giving me leads from OFI callbacks. I go out and do those appraisals and um that they then go on to a hot seller list if they are a seller within the next three to six months, and then it's just follow-up communication from there. I've also got a lead generator that calls constantly, so we're we're never shy of listings.

Lee Woodward:

And what type of properties are you selling mainly and how are you going uh in the areas that you're servicing?

Ben Spackman:

Yeah, quite good. I've got 30% market share in Motovale. Typically around the area, we've got around 10 to 15% market share from suburb to suburb on the skirts. All my current agents are uh are either in the top one or two of those suburbs in those outer skirts. Very good. And what would be the average sale price for yourself? Average sale price for me comes in at around 2.83.

Lee Woodward:

Okay, that's healthy? And you've obviously gone through that stabilization at the moment. How's the change of market been for you been?

Ben Spackman:

Yeah, it's been interesting. So we we were carrying a lot, a lot of property when the interest rate started to increase in May. Um that's now all starting to dwindle and sell, and we're finding there's less sellers interested right now. But I've still got a hot seller list of my next 50 to 100 sellers, so we're working through expediting their plan.

Lee Woodward:

And then if we look at client fulfillment, the properties on the market, for you guys who do as well as you've done in a very competitive marketplace, you've got some serious players around you there, which keeps you fit, keeps your match fit. How do you feel the customer experience? What are you doing there or working on there that you feel's giving you that consistency in a marketplace to be recalled and build the advocates that you have?

Ben Spackman:

Yeah, I think it's just constant communication. Like in any market, whether it be upswinging or downswinging, if you're in contact with the client all the time, it's just a trust relationship. When we do give advice, they know that they're getting the advice for the right reasons, and that's to get more money at the end.

Lee Woodward:

In your marketplace, we've seen such a an introduction of new techniques of sale, not methods of sale, still for sale or auction in most areas. Yep. But time sales and timed auctions. Have you had that impacted your area and have you had much success with those?

Ben Spackman:

Yeah, absolutely. So definitely auctions, it's not what it was late last year as far as campaigns running all the way into auction and them actually proceeding. We're still auctioning everything that we list basically, unless there's an avid non-auction oriented vendor. We want end dates on campaigns to push interest so we can beat the next interest rate rise. Most of them are either selling prior or on an extension of an auction campaign, but that is actually helping us filter through more interested parties in a time frame. So there's definitely a change in properties actually getting to the auction pose to this time last year, but we are uh we're more inclined to be selling them prior right now.

Lee Woodward:

Now, Ben, you're definitely a hands-on leader. Your agents that you have now, you're a person who's not afraid of taking on the young talent and developing that talent. What sort of agents are in there? Is it a wide range or have you gone for a younger team?

Ben Spackman:

I think our oldest agent's about 41, but typically from there they're kind of mid-20s to 41 is the age demograph. Like I said to you earlier, I feel it's a real young man's game, this industry, where you need a lot of energy to kind of keep up with the top riders, and we're very conscious of that. So like the amount of hours put in and responsibility that you've got when you've got so many owners on on market, it doesn't lend itself to people that have a whole lot of responsibility with kids and families, and it makes it a very hard life when you've when you've got extras on board. But I've found that for us the younger demograph works because they hustle and they chase it and they're hungry. We're just very conscious of training them and making sure it's done the right way, so we have a good brand in the community and it's not being tarnished with about Apple doing the wrong thing.

Lee Woodward:

Fantastic. Is the setup that they are leverage agents, assistant agents? How do you see that? Because it's quite an interesting topic out there in the market at the moment. And to give some context to the question, you know, a leverage agent is an extension of you, they're generating opportunities, they're even listing some opportunities where you say, look, you can take on that two-bedroom apartment, all good, red brick looks beautiful, all yours. How do you run your team that way?

Ben Spackman:

No, you bang on, bud. So when we kind of started this whole growth phase, that's exactly what how it started is like I've got a really good young guy right now. He's coming from a local competitor, and he was basically a sales associate under me. Almost to a point they're like a lead generator in your team, but go out on every appraisal so they can see the listing and presentation process and then the follow-up all the way through from list to sell or expediting a seller from early stage thinking of selling to bringing them forward and selling sooner. And then once they get to a certain amount, so the target for them and my team is 300,000 and GCI. Once they get to that point and I feel that they're confident to run their own gig, we then push them into their own farming area. From that farming area, if they're writing those kind of numbers 300 to 450 a year, we train them to take on an EA and start building an EBU around them. My lead guy right now is writing 1.5 with a sales associate and one EA. I've got two other guys that are on track to write 500 this year. They'll be taking on their own EA shortly. But literally, you're right, so early stages, when they first come on, they usually come in into my team and they'll act as sales associates, campaign managers, and lead generation until they get themselves to a point where they're actually making money that validates the being in real estate, and then from there we push them into a farming area and they should know how to operate at that point.

Lee Woodward:

Man, that is absolutely brilliant what you've just explained on a leadership level. And for everyone listening to this, a staged approach to a career that it's there's clarity. When you hit 300, this will happen. But to hit 300, you would have learned all these roles, and the fact they come into your team first is like the incubator of okay, it's fast in here, it looks easy, not as easy as it looks, but hang on. Gives them that work ethic also that it doesn't it's not simple. Simple is difficult. You there's a lot of effort and time that goes in to skill up to hit 300, but then from there, that the support to have your own leverage agent or EA around you let you progress again. Means anyone joining you has a career path, and I think that's just beautifully explained. And for everyone out there who asks us questions about how do you build teams and so forth, that was your answer. Final, final question. What's one thing you are passionate about that you'd like to implement into the business in the next six months?

Ben Spackman:

We really want to get the foundations set internally. So how I look at the internal business is different to income streams in the actual off like income streams coming into the business. So I think for us there needs to be a hub that we can actually offer support to our agents and tools to build their career. So we want to make sure that all those foundations are set so as we add income arms and obviously um more employees into the business, they have the tools for success and they can rely on us to g for for anything that they need.

Lee Woodward:

Excellent. Good essential services. And uh again, we were talking about tech that provides opportunity. And I'm very happy to announce I'm coming into the office there to do a session with the team. Yeah, I'd love to take them through what we're doing in our sequence. We've got this 10-step sequence for digital prospecting. But with a foundation like yours and a team like that, it's a great way of activating not something new, but a uh a progressive way of getting more return out of the data you've got. But Ben, thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to meeting the team. For everyone listening, what a great interview. We'll see you next time. Thank you, Ben. Thanks, Lee. That concludes another edition of We Are Selling. For anyone out there who needs any advice regarding our agents, our stories, the Realtair products and services, you can call Realtair on 1300 367 412 or visit our website at realtair.com. I'm Lee Woodward, thank you for listening.