We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
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We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
The Agents Focus Plan for 2023 with Danny Grant
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We dive deep into creating a focused plan for real estate success in 2023 with industry experts Danny Grant from McGrath and Adam Imbringham from Image Property, sharing 20 essential tips to elevate your business.
• Start planning before the new year begins to hit the ground running in January
• Lock in your marketing calendar for the entire year, pre-ordering materials to save money and maintain consistency
• Understand your true cost of sale by factoring in all business expenses divided by number of transactions
• Separate market assessments from listing presentations to accurately measure your conversion at the listing table
• Track both physical connects (calls, door knocks) and digital connects (price updates, EDMs) to measure true activity
• Align your work schedule with your natural energy patterns rather than forcing yourself into a conventional routine
• Focus on your own trajectory rather than comparing yourself to others in the industry
• Know exactly how many appraisals you need weekly to achieve your desired income
• Monitor repeat and referral business as these are your most valuable lead sources
• Calculate your list-to-sell ratio to understand your stock bank requirements
• Saturate your market with digital marketing in January when portal traffic peaks
• Treat your business like a proper enterprise by paying yourself a base salary and bonuses
The greatest gift you can give yourself is taking time now to reflect on what went well this year, what needs refinement, and creating a clear, actionable plan for 2023 that focuses on gradual improvement rather than wholesale change.
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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 program is an extended version of our normal program. As building your 2023 focus plan will take 20 tips and three brilliant minds. The New Year festivities are just around the corner, approaching us in between this important time of Christmas and New Year. As we record today, one eye on the future is on everyone's mind. We've calmed down from that Christmas break, and we're now looking at what's ahead and what we can do, and that's where this audio has been perfectly recorded for you. Your learning of today's content and 20 tips is your opportunity to take the pressure off yourself and profit from this knowledge. And I have some excellent special guests. Danny Grant, head of education at McGraw Australia, is going to join us on what he not only did as a sales professional, but how he's coaching and helping some of our best performing real estate people in the country. And from Brisbane, Director of Sales of Image Property is Adam Imbringham. And our job today as sales coaching specialist is to give you a real estate focused plan. And with the wonders of technology, I have both gentlemen in different locations. Joining me first is Mr. Danny Grant. Danny, welcome to the program.
Danny Grant:Hello, Lee. Hello, everybody.
Lee Woodward:Danny, we are talking about the agents focused plan for 2023. A lot of people get lost in too much. They go too wide and don't do it. You're coaching a lot of people at the moment. You've been a leading agent, you've been a real estate sales coach as well. What do you think are the key things people need to consider at this time of year to have their focus and their plan and alignment for 2023?
Danny Grant:Well, first thing is lock yourself away before you go on holidays this year. I think, you know, already having a plan in place to what you want to do in 2023 is a lot better than starting 2023 and then sitting back and going, okay, well, what do we do now? You need to hit the ground running early. I think, you know, go away for a long lunch and and and talk about things like what are our goals? What do we want to do? Do we want to go on a holiday at the end of the year? Do we want to get a new car? Um, I think those those things, goals are kind of nice, nice to have. You know, why are we doing this? And then think about what sort of gross commission that you want to do. So if you did half a million this year and you want to do a million, then great to have the goal, but you know, you you you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And it's wonderful saying you want to do a million dollars, but if you don't have the system in place to get there, then you're never going to do it. So you need to sort of reverse engineer and work out how many appraisals do I need. You know, if I did two or three appraisals last year, then I need to up that to about six appraisals a week. That might mean I need to make, you know, a hundred more calls. It it it might mean a lot of things. But I think what what agents do wrong is they try and do too much. You know, they could they're you know, if you didn't make you know, you could make a hundred calls last year or you could make twenty calls last year, but you're not gonna do a hundred now. So I think that you've got to think about what gradual improvement can I do each month to get there. And if you've never done a business plan before, simplify it. Try and do it in one page if you can, because otherwise you're never gonna look at it.
Lee Woodward:Let's look at a couple of the key numbers and areas and we talk about the year in review. And Danny, I did my year in review today. I went through all my bookings, events, and all the demonstrations and training sessions I did. Because you think you know, but until you go through your calendar, and the calendar is the source of truth, you don't know. And if an agent was to go back through their year in review now, it's going to be there in their calendar, they did the appraisal or not, or how many sales they did. What what would the what would be the key things you'd be looking at to count those real numbers in your year in review?
Danny Grant:Yeah, you need to do a really honest self-assessment with it, because I think that can be hard. And and that's not just on the numbers, that could be on is my listing presentation up to scratch? You know, do I have too many prospecting activities? Um, what's my negotiation like? Maybe I need to do more training. Yeah, the real numbers are I think how many face-to-face appointments are you doing, how many phone calls are you making, how many door knocks are you making, um, and then looking at your week in terms of what's your energy like during the week. You know, if you're not if you're not great, not getting great traction on on prospecting calls in the morning, well maybe you're just not a morning person. You know, you need to look at something like I'm a big fan of chronotypes, which is measuring what sort of chronotype you are during the day, what's your sleep patterns like, what's your energy like during the day, and and you know, we all hear as agents from trainers sometimes, you know, you gotta get up at 5 a.m., you've got to exercise, you've got to do this, you've got to get into the office early. But you know what? Some people are just good in the evening. I was, you know, I always used to do listing presentations in the evening because my energy was better. So thinking about planning out your week and being true to yourself, you know, you calculate your numbers and how many appraisals you're doing each month, and then also looking at the months on where you slowed down, that's a really good honest assessment on well, geez, I really slowed in that, you know, after the first quarter because I was reactive, I was selling stuff and my prospecting drops. So then you can be aware that next year, don't do that. I need to be pre-prepared, I need to have deal cards ready to go, I need to have my prospecting letters ready to go, so I don't have those those um peaks and drops in my business.
Lee Woodward:Danny, you were very, very good at your marketing calendar and your promotions and you know how much you would spend for the year. When you're building your marketing calendar, and let's not go for Danny Grant top level, if you're trying to do your first marketing calendar and number of promotions, what would be your advice?
Danny Grant:I think I think um try and book out your year. So pre-buy your DL cards, for instance, um, you know, get all your prospecting letters ready so every single month it's ready to go. Because what happens is that you get to the end of the quarter and you're busy and you go, oh, she's now going to do a new prospecting plan, and it takes you about a month to get it together, and then suddenly it's two months before you get it out and and you're falling behind again. So we would always pre-plan a budget, and it's a certain percentage of your business, you know. For some agents it's 10%, some agents it's 20%. Our top agent in McGraw, who's doing circa 10 million, you know, spends over 100,000 in collateral that he gets in letterboxes. So it's got to be relevant to your to your business. But I think I think the better that you're planned on that and ready to go and pre-spend, it actually saves you too. Because if we buy all these things in bulk, a lot of the a lot of the um printing businesses will do deals for you. So it just helps that you've got stock levels of things that just go out constantly.
Lee Woodward:Danny, cost of sale is a conversation a lot of our listeners aren't familiar with. Could you explain cost of sale and how you arrive at that figure to understand your numbers and what fee you should be charging?
Danny Grant:Yeah, so it's a funny thing that we, you know, our industry, we just talk about gross commission and and we're really the only business in the world that does that, because it's pretty meaningless if you're not making profit. Um and if you look at let's just say your average commission is 20,000 and you know you're a 60% split, well, you've got to you've got to suddenly take 40% off that, so you're not you're not making that 20,000 anymore, then you've got to look at what you pay yourself as a as a base salary, what your car lease is, uh, any um administration costs, any support costs that you have. So petrol costs, everything that it's cost you to to sell that property. So most businesses are doing very, very well if they're making a 20% margin on their sales, but when you look at that per sale, you're not actually making as much as you as you thought you were. So that kind of helps you think, no, I need to charge a little bit more, I need to really look at my team, and if I put another person on, I you know, I I can't just make an extra sale a month, I might need to make two sales a month to be able to pay for that. So, same as any business, they buy a product and they buy it wholesale and they've got to pay a shop lease, they've got to pay support, you know, people or um uh people to sell the products. It's what does it cost that product for you to sell? What is your net profit? So work back like that, uh that'll kind of help you set other parameters in your business plan.
Lee Woodward:And Danny, a great way of looking at that, and I'm just so pleased how you explained that then. If you're gonna pay yourself, so this is your real estate business, real estate practice, and you work for you. Well, if someone's gonna turn up and do the phone calls, do the appraisals, do the appointments and make the sales, and it wasn't you, what would that base salary be? And obviously it is the same person, but you've got to treat it as you were engaging somebody else. Danny, what would you recommend or what did you do for your base salary to do the job and then the leftover is obviously the profit, but what would you recommend to an agent to say this is your base?
Danny Grant:Where the tax thresholds are is probably the best answer, and and maybe try and pay yourself dividends along the way. You know, on average you kind of want to be, you know, for what you're doing in the hours that you're working, you want to be sort of putting yourself circa around 150,000 or 180,000, and then paying yourself, you know, profit on top of that in terms of bonuses, but but not but not just taking the commission every month, you know, that's got to be put aside, and then you've got to look at each quarter and go, well, have I earned a bonus, you know, and then draw down on a $20,000 bonus. But you'd be surprised when you look back on it at each quarter and go, well, actually, no, I can't pay myself a bonus because the business can't afford it. So look at where you can be as lean as you can, but you're not paying too much tax, and then look at it from a bonus structure and talk with your accountant about whether you draw a dividend or not, or maybe you need to have another expense at the end of the year or something to offset it. But you look at most small businesses, they're even leaner than that sometimes, um, when they when they get going. It's only you know, real big businesses that can afford to pay you know themselves half a million salaries or CEOs half a million salaries, but I think sometimes as agents we just pull it out straight away and then we get to a quarter where we're really lean and stressed and um you know got for bid that you have to sell assets off because you you can't afford to um keep going as you are.
Lee Woodward:Yeah, what a great point. So for our listener, another great little equation is to say what is the total expenses of running the business? And as you said, Danny, car promotion, agency fees, meaning, you know, if you're working in a business as you are, and people think I give that away. No, that's your cost recovery, so you don't have to have all those bills. That's why you plug into something. It's better than paying it yourself. But if you look at your total costs, divide it by the number of sales you made last year, that gives you your cost of sale. What would be the cost of sale on a for you and yourself and I because your wife was working alongside you as well? What was the cost of sale?
Danny Grant:Yeah, I think we sat it was it was always sort of between twelve and fourteen thousand. So I think we averaged out at around twelve thousand per sale. Uh I mean that I think we went, you know, uh up to about thirty-seven thousand average com there for towards the latter end of my career as well, and um, and that cost of sale crept up a little bit the more we'd sort of put into marketing, but not much, you know. We might we might adjust by another one or two thousand, but um, but always sort of kept fairly stable at that level.
Lee Woodward:Danny, there's so much noise in our industry, and I think you've got to benchmark yourself on your own goals. From working with you for so many years, you know, you were very good at that of you know, is that real or is that just people saying things and you know they've put on five PAs, but do they is there any money left over? And you were very good at monitoring that, hence you're on the program today. What's your advice in that area of industry noise?
Danny Grant:Yeah, you've got to be more concerned about your trajectory than um where you're currently at. That helps. You know, comparison's a thief of joy. Because the problem in our industry is we don't just compare ourselves to one person, we kind of see somebody doing really well over to the left, and then we leave them and we look at the person on the right and go, Oh now they're doing really well, and you know, says how bad they're doing on on Instagram. You know, they're all it's all a good highlight rule about how great I am. But they could actually not be doing so well. So you've got to kind of it's like it's like, you know, not not watching the news all the time, you know, that negativity can can get to you and you're just comparing to the wrong people. Um and maybe they're not doing as well, you know. There's so many agents out there that that are pretending how great they're doing, but they're doing things at really low fees and you know, th and there's not much behind them, you know, because they're spending everything rather than than saving, spend and pretend, as I call it. Yeah, I think if you just focus on what's your trajectory, are you getting there, are you growing, focus on your systems and um the rest will the rest will come. You know, it'll it'll will come to you. I mean I I got to that point early in my career and I'm I remember ringing you in my first couple of years, and it's like I'm doing all these calls, I'm doing all these appraisals, and I'm just getting nowhere. And then you just said to me it'll come. Um then I think I listened to an audio with you and and um Matt Steinweight. He said he went through the same thing and he was doing really well at that point, and I went, okay, well it will come. And it's true, you know, if you just do do the actions, stop comparing, it'll come. And you know, generally those people that you I think are doing really well, you'll go past them.
Lee Woodward:Danny, on a weekly basis, if you were back selling real estate today and you wanted to just have a simple check-in with yourself each month, and obviously weekly is a good way to look at well, it's a great point. What does a great week look like? What does a great week look like to count up to say the month went well? What would be the key metrics or numbers you'd look at without overloading it?
Danny Grant:What was your target, I guess? You know, how does the how does your month compare or your quarter compare to what you did last year? Or maybe the year before, if and the year before that? If you've had a goal that you wanted to increase, you know, by you know, 20% or 30%, then are you on track with that or are you off track? I think um and how many calls that you made. So if you look at it and you haven't performed, guarantee you'll look back in the last 90 days, you just haven't made enough calls, done enough to kind of get to those numbers. But also you've got to kind of try and work out what things like what your competitors charge, because you you might kind of be aiming at a market share and then and someone else is ahead of you, but that they might have outsold you by 20%. But if you kind of know that they charge, you know, maybe half a percent less than you, then you might actually be ahead of them. So that always that always sort of used to help me that that I knew that that my competitors are just going in cheaper all the time, that that eventually that will wear down and I'll go past them. But if you just look at your figures and oh, well, yeah, I sold two less, but I actually earned $20,000 more than them, that helps.
Lee Woodward:Well, Danny, final question for you, and it's been great having you on the program. Always got a humble mind to a situation like this, and I think that's welcomed in today's world. But my last question is what would be your prospecting tips for 2023?
Danny Grant:So the first thing I'd be doing now is I'd be making sure that that if you're using RealTare, that you're sending out price updates to every potential seller that you're gonna have in the next 12 months. And if you get it out now, what's gonna happen is that you'll get to that first or second week of January and it'll send you an alert that they've actually opened it. So automatically it's gonna tell you who's thinking you're doing something at the beginning of the year. That's gonna be really helpful to you. So try and get as everyone on your database if you can, so it just alerts you. The other thing is that we know from realestate.com and domain that the highest amount of traffic that they get on their sites is the first week of January. Um, New Year's Day afternoon and Newsday is the number one day. So it makes sense to have a plan to own the digital space in your area. So find a company that can kind of get some promotions out there for you online. It just makes sense if everybody's online looking in portals and there's not enough stock on there that the you can then follow them around and and get a call in. The other is have letterbox drops ready to go, you know, saturate and own, you know, own the letterbox in in January, you know, just get it out there. Um and find some buyers that you can prospect off. So people that haven't bought this year, you know, get some letters out ready, find people and say, look, I've got this buyer that's looking. They can actually uh you know help you get into doors uh early. So I think if you sort of aim at doing all that in your first quarter, you're gonna set up set off the year pretty well.
Lee Woodward:Danny Grant, fantastic information alongside the full show today. Thank you for all your efforts this year, and we look forward to seeing you back on the programme next year. Thank you for joining us. Thanks, Lee. Let's cross to Brisbane. Joining me now is Adam Imbringham. Adam, welcome to the programme.
Adam Imbringham:Thanks for having me, Lee.
Lee Woodward:Adam, great to have you with us. Just for our listener, what do you do for a gig?
Adam Imbringham:Mate, I'm the sales director at Image Property. So really fortunate, mate, um, to have been in this industry for a very long time, mate. May not look it, but it's probably 19 years now. And mate, my my role is either coach and mentor to the sales team of what we have is 92 within the group now, mate. And then in addition to that as well, uh my responsibility for growth and performance of the company as well.
Lee Woodward:Adam, I'm currently doing the super coaching session for your salespeople, and I couldn't help notice the wide range of people we have. Great business people joining real estate, and then we've got right to the other end of the scale of real estate principals who've actually sold their business, plugged into yours, plug and play, which is pretty amazing. Was it always meant to be that way or did it just happen?
Adam Imbringham:Mate, that was actually by design, um not by default in our business, mate. We we sort of forecast that, we saw that with um a lot of business owners out there with small portfolios that were a lot of time, energy, and effort were going into for not a great deal of reward. And that was taking away from their capacity and ability in in selling and uh and in growing their their own sales team and sales business as well. So mate, that hasn't happened by by surprise. Um it's happened by design, but we're so pleased to see that those that have plugged in that are doing it are exceptionally doing exceptionally well and mate, so body happy as well is the other key thing. Like they've just got one focus, and if they're not listing and selling and and working with their team, they're at leisure, mate, taking it easy as they should, because for a lot of them they work bloody hard for a very long time.
Lee Woodward:I loved what you just said. Let them have just one focus. If we're going to have one focus and we can super glue ourselves to those actions, we can have one focus plan and declutter that messy noise that goes on in everyone's head. Just a great way of doing it. Now, Adam, Danny Grant has been on the program. We've been going through the agent's focus plan. Let's get stuck into it from your perspective. perspective at this very important time of year, what is it that you're communicating through to your agents of what you think they should focus on?
Adam Imbringham:Yeah, mate, it it is a a really important time of the year to to be able to do that. And and firstly, mate, my approach is not a one size fits all. The first thing that we do, mate, as a group if I'm sitting down with a with one of my team members is firstly we want to reflect on what went right for the year. Because I think a lot of us at times forget about everything that's going well and acknowledging that and then going, all right, how can I repeat that performance, refine it and improve it, rather than wholesale changes. So it's really, really important to take that moment to reflect and review. Look at the business in a number of different areas to go, okay, where did I go right? What went well? What can I then repeat? And what can I refine? Then while we're doing that, we're certainly going to find some areas where things didn't go according to plan and we're going to identify why didn't they go according to plan and then what do we need to do to ensure that that doesn't happen again. So mate that's normally where we start first and foremost. Then after that mate it comes down to what do I want to achieve for the next year and this is where it really does become at an individual level to get full engagement from the agent to go right what do we want to achieve next year personally and professionally. So we're really drilling down to their goals in all areas of life when we look at their business then we look at them as an individual and what they want to achieve. So in their business it can be their core market focus on where are they ranking in the market at the moment where do they want to be in the market total volume of business written all of those components then personally we really want to look at okay in all areas of life what do I want to achieve for myself? What do I want to achieve in my wealth creation, in my health, in my relationship all categories made a really really important we run by just a simple smart goal principle where we document all of that and make sure that it's very specific and it's all broken down into those categories.
Lee Woodward:Love it. In the previous interview Adam we discussed about doing your year in review but from your perspective what are the key things that you're looking at with your team and identifying from that review but what went right or wrong that can be in our focus plan for this year?
Adam Imbringham:Yeah real estate there's two things that we're doing on a daily basis and one is what we're physically doing by way of actions but then the other is what are we doing in the market passively as well? So what's our promotion plan to core market? What have we got out there from a lead gen point of view? Are there is there anybody else in the business working with us to generate lead opportunity as well? So we we really look at all areas of that but if we look at the key fundamentals Lee we've got connects now connects need to be either physically by way physical I mean door knock or it's a phone call and then we've got digital connects as well which is going to be your price updates and reviewing your EDMs. So it might be something's gone out through ActivePipe it was a newsletter what was the engagement and what's our follow-up list off the back of that. So then that funnels through to of course market assessments so how many market assessments do we require then based on an agent's conversion ratio we don't use averages we have a group average but because we've got such great reporting and analytics behind the system the agent can generate their own performance as far as that ratio is concerned. So based on their market assessment appraisal ratio and listing presentation we look at those in two separate categories market assessments one thing listing presentation which is they're they're listing the home for sale in the next seven to thirty days. It's either with you or someone else. So we we really look at that category separately we don't want them getting all muddled up in the market assessments then we've got two clear ratios so from there once we've got that then of course it's how many listings do we need to write the business that we need the next ratio we look at is the list to sell and again that's specific to the individual so based on their stock bank how much what's the percentage of that's going to clear annually for them to write what they want to write. And then once it's sold mate the other thing that we want to track really clearly is the repeat referral and the testimonial as well so how many of these people had we worked for previously and when we've worked for them and we've got a successful outcome how many of them are we getting a written or a video testimonial from absolutely fantastic.
Lee Woodward:And for our listener you can just hear the clarity around that. And I love how we're separating out what a connect is Adam I was super coaching your team yesterday and we had a discussion which is what coaching's about it's not about slides. And that discussion allowed your agents to understand they're doing more connects in a day than they think. So for example some people thought if I make a phone call and they answer that call that's a connect it is and if you're eyeball to eyeball door knocking that's a connect. If you're showing a property that's a connect. If you're at the shops with your name tag on and someone asks you a question that's a connect. But the most important one that people underestimated is let's say six months ago I got 20 price updates out for the day. And I come in today and the system says these are the 20 that need to go out today we've done the same search and algorithm the surrounding sales are in there send send send send send send and then on the other end of that within five ten minutes open open open open open there is 20 connects in your day that you've already done without even moving your lips on a phone at this point and it's a digital connection which falls in line with the foundation of our coaching claiming doors finding doors and Adam your team is one of our best realtor price update users and we can go under that dashboard and see 865 claim doors and the quality property assessments that your team's achieving. Isn't it interesting that we used to talk about how many people do you have in your database? Whereas today it's more important of how many properties are on a price update connected to the person you originally spoke to. But just want to go back into something I love how you separated the market assessments from the listing appointments as the agents had that a little bit foggy. Adam just go back into that for me.
Adam Imbringham:Yeah they certainly did mate and and what it does is it doesn't give you a true number on your ability at the listing table. So I sort of I believe that mate out of eight out of ten, eighty percent conversion of someone selling the house in seven to thirty days and they're listing with you that's world class. They only run at 55-60% conversion. So eighty percent conversion is is absolutely world class. So when you throw them all together and they include market assessments you get that number skewed and you don't really know what's your performance when you're in front of someone because if you've qualified this prospect to the point where you know they're selling mate it's a different it's a different game it's a different consultation. You're not just going out there flying the flag and here's the CMA see you later like this is an opportunity to be able to win that business.
Lee Woodward:Adam when you look at performance of an agent and this is difficult because you've got agents in New South Wales you've got agents in Queensland at 92 agents on the ground you're a perfect person to appear on this audio because you're passionate about training but you are in that metrics of performance you mentioned behind the scenes in the platform that you built and we'll discuss that in a little bit more detail in a moment how's that performance measurement being measured in the background to give them a guide of how they're performing really beautifully because it doesn't require any more work.
Adam Imbringham:So whenever one of our team members make a request for a um for a Form 6 then they do so off the basis that okay this is a listing consultation that's why I'm making that request and then of course we've got that address and we know so then when it comes through as a as a um listing processing request then all of hey breast mate there we go we got it and that starts to help us build that ratio so that level of reporting the agents don't even track we do that for them through the system.
Lee Woodward:That was one thing I was absolutely blown away with with your platform was you've moved away from agents having to learn all this technology and get it out themselves to it's a request and then your essential services team creates the Form 6 and for the rest of the nation that's an agency agreement. If the agency agreement gets converted you're measuring that to say this was your performance versus them thinking oh I think it was this but I'm not really sure. It's digital accuracy.
Adam Imbringham:Oh mate not only that it's the source that the business came from too is so critical because again in in performance coaching if we can identify three to five sources that agents are absolute ninjas at well I just encourage them to continue to do that. And don't worry about the things that you just don't enjoy or don't engage with or just not willing to do because they're just kidding themselves by saying yeah you know what I'm going to go and do this door knock. And if they're not going to do the door knocking there's no point of being in their plan.
Lee Woodward:Couldn't agree more. Adam we talk about the health and wealth and the mental health of our people out there. Again you've got agents who are at the peak of their career they're a young agent come through and they're going to be that corporate athlete over the next five, ten years, then you've got other people that have lived a life in real estate and just want to run a book of business. There's no exact number for anyone out there. But if we look at the the middle range of all the agents that you're looking after and look at some sort of average number from top to bottom what's a good performing agent in your view that you can say that person's doing well? Not exceptionally well that that that's another level again but if we look at that middle of the range working person who's dedicated to doing well where do you feel their numbers are for a good performance?
Adam Imbringham:If I look inside our business model the a a good average performer is writing about half a million to six hundred in GCI. But they are a they are a good performer fortunately for them being a part of our business their owning telephone book numbers when they're doing that based on our model as well so then in life they they can do very well. So their wealth creation is most certainly surging forward in a positive way and their debt reduction inclusive of that too. So it's not just about acquisition it's also about getting themselves in a strong position as far as a net is concerned and then due to the model that's provided as well they've really got good balance too from a lifestyle perspective. So they're being able to continue to do the things that they're passionate enthusiastic about outside of their profession. And that's one thing that's so pleasing to see because as you and I've discussed in the past mate like they they literally got a PA in their pocket. They just pull the phone out bang there it is and off they go so from that they're saving so much time and are so much more efficient which then leads to the additional area of benefit which is their mental health as well because the performance is there, the progressions there and the balance is there typically mate they're just walking around with a smile on their face which is what it's all about. Couldn't agree more.
Lee Woodward:And let's just look at some backup to that. If someone's writing five hundred thousand in fees what would be the average sale price of property in that one Adam for this example?
Adam Imbringham:At that at that level the average fee within the group's about sixteen and a half so when they're doing that mate they're they're sort of selling anywhere between twenty-six to thirty-two properties per annum.
Lee Woodward:Okay. So when they're doing twenty-six to thirty-six properties per annum that gives a number for our listener of where am I now to where it could be and when the agent's doing the year in review I love the concept of before we strategize and forecast what we could do, what did you do? And when you look at how many price updates you got out in a year, how many market assessments you did in a year how many listing presentations you did in a year how many repeat referrals you got in a year how many testimonials how much time off you had in the year is an interesting part of that as well and I don't think people look at that but that comes under that health and wealth and and then their own personal ranking in those numbers that's it there's nothing more you would have to give focus to from this audio to listen go back, listen through it and note those things to do your review and then say how did I feel about this year and do I want to just retain that or do I want to double that which everyone talks about 2xing all that sort of stuff that's not for everyone. Your view on that Adam if someone's had a consistent year what's the stretch or non-stretch or what advice are you giving for performance coaching for 2023?
Adam Imbringham:Well again Lee it comes back to the individual and where they're at in life. So if they're if if they're in a position in life where they're incredibly ambitious and they do want to double down, triple, quad we've we've had people 5x their business within our business as well. So it gets down to catering to that individual it's not just that broadcast message of you should do this or you should do this because this person did that. It really gets down to what's important to them because from my point of view mate if they've had a phenomenal year and they've ticked off all their personal and professional goals that's what it's all about. I really don't care what the GCI number was that they wrote. If they generate the income to facilitate their goals and they're happy and they're in a really good spot for me that's success. So if we look at the following the year to come in 2023 it's okay well how do we replicate that? How do we make that better and what what's next? And that's a really important thing that you've always got to have something to jump out of bed for. Something that you're really passionate enthusiastic about and the thing that's really going to make a difference in your true purpose and what you're trying to create. For me it's really identifying that with the person and making sure that we can attach tangible actions and numbers around what it is to make that their reality.
Lee Woodward:And I've actually caught you on the perfect day today, Adam. Not that you knew you were recording with me for two days ago but your retreat was yesterday. Yeah you had 130 people you also had your offshore team partying when you guys party what happened at the retreat what were you most proud about what happens on retreat stays on retreat so I can't talk about that too much.
Adam Imbringham:No mate retreat for us is is just our opportunity as a leadership group and as a brand to give back to our guys to say thanks for the level of effort that they put in to creating opportunities for everyone to have a home out there mate like that's the the mission of the group and what we're here to do and while they're doing that they're providing the best experience in property and we really want to find a way to be able to thank them and this is just one of those ways where we uh make it there, have a little bit of fun and it's generally just a a chill out session. That's that's what the retreat's all about and then we get some great guest speakers in to um have a chat to everyone mate and off we go.
Lee Woodward:And and in this year congratulations to you it was a big year of growth how many new agents joined the group this year?
Adam Imbringham:Yeah what's funny Lee you did your review so did I I did my little sitting sitting down on the beach with the schooner and uh and pull out the numbers mate and and really have a look at what we achieved and we brought forty five um year to date what are we now the twenty twenty-fourth of November year to date we've brought forty five salespeople into this business. So um so for us that's nearly one a week and and we couldn't be happier with that.
Lee Woodward:And I'm actually uh just for our listeners super coaching about twelve of those at the moment where they're in their private coaching sessions of what they want to do and I did it last year thoroughly enjoyed it plus obviously the event work for yourselves where we do the one day training the complete salesperson course but when I look through the type of people you've attracted a lot of them were doing well anyway yet they were doing well and had lots of more expenses with PAs and admin do you think the big game changer for them was coming over and plugging into the platform the requests and the resources being done for them so they didn't have to manage people versus most of them have definitely boosted their numbers but they're they're working solo.
Adam Imbringham:Yeah well if they're they're not necessarily all working solo some of them have definitely still can't come with their team but what they've been able to do with their team is have people in a position where they're more passionate, enthusiastic and productive and and most people that want to be in sales not too many have got a real ambition or an enjoyment level around administration. So when you've you've seen a fair few of our little our little videos kick around out there mate and I always always ask that question what are your three favourite things and it really does resonate when it comes across every single time support in the right area is always high on the list. The commission model is of course um so the financial reward is is one that's always on the list as well and then the other one that we're so so pleased about is the connectivity to the to the business and the community and the culture of the business and and that's probably one of the things that we're most proud about that in our growth it has been net growth because we're not losing people either which is really really important everyone's sticking so yeah we brought on forty five salespeople but we didn't lose any either mate and that's saying something particularly in our industry where there is a high turnover of people and uh and some that is their business model and and they do well for it. For us it's about a partnership for a long time.
Lee Woodward:Now Adam later on not later on this year, early next year you're appearing on our complete sales manager series where you're showcasing how you've been able to create the probably the greatest to-do list and to don't list of the real estate industry I've ever seen but just for our listener now who's wondering what I'm even talking about and for our sales managers listening to this right now who also have teams this platform where you've got one login, the requests all your apps are in the one place, just explain what you've been able to achieve there and how, you know, achieve that bring it all together for a salesperson in one place at one in one space.
Adam Imbringham:The best analogy the simple the easiest under solution I can give to what it what it is is for for all of us out there and a lot of us are Apple users and iOS is the firmware that drives an iPhone. So all we've done is create iOS for a real estate agent. There's their firmware and then like all of us with our iPhones we'll download apps which are the things that we find useful or the things that we want to use and then it's one click you're in and off you go. So we've done the exact same thing for an agent. We've given the firmware and the platform and then with all of the technology out there which is quite overwhelming for an agent these days there's a bucket load of it. We've just simply brought it in to one spot where they can click in and off they go. But more importantly, we've got it to talk to one another. And communicate with one another. Like of course the iPhone does for us with the connectivity of apps to the firmware. And then that's how it all works, mate.
Lee Woodward:Absolutely amazing. And Adam, the agents have just loved someone sorting that out and you're sort of the problem solving engineering, bring the right people at the right time person, the the conductor of the group. Just myself, I thoroughly enjoyed training there with the team. And that's my final question for you. What's our focus in professional development for 2023? What are we going to be doing and where's the team heading?
Adam Imbringham:Yeah, mate, our focus is evolution. So the theme of our retreat that we just uh that we just conducted over the last couple of days um everyone was walking around with a t-shirt on them and and and on the back of it it's got evolve. This industry right now is in evolution. For those that haven't recognised yet or aware of it, I think 2023 is going to be the year where they absolutely must be willing to adapt and change and grow and evolve. So for us Mode it's about how do we continue to get better? How do we continue to evolve to improve the customer experience. And for me there's two customers to take care of first and foremost it's my team and our agents and then secondly it's providing them the tools that they need to provide an excellent customer experience to our consumer.
Lee Woodward:Adam, thank you for joining us.
Adam Imbringham:Thanks Lee thanks for having me mate cheers.
Lee Woodward:And there you have it the agents focus plan. Today's programme was an extended version of we are selling as this is the most important topic. In summary take the time to plan and reflect what went well what can you repeat? What can you refine? What will you do this year for goals and rewards? What's your appraisals per week? What's your connects per week? Rate your presentation out of 10. What are your visuals like? What's your digital pitch presentation like rate those out of ten. Confirm your promotions plan for the year pre-order those. Claiming doors counting doors very important we understand that 900 gives us 46 transactions. And when Danny Grant went through the cost of sales treat yourself as that little miniature business where you've got your salary, your car, your promotions, your leverage agent, income you're going to pay yourself whatever that is and put funds aside to keep it going and then plug and play divide your total number of sales by your expenses and you will have your cost of sales. Get your price updates out there great DLs and powerful letters are still getting results in the marketplace. Do the actions and stop competing or comparing yourself to others. Know those numbers and learn from Kinex physical could be a door knock it could be a call it could be a showing in digital you've got your price updates and those great links that you're sending out and your videos and direct messaging understand how many market appraisals that you're going to require a week if it's a five is it ten what is that number and separate the listing presentations as they're different to the market assessments. But knowing how many listings you're going to need to fulfill your plan also requires you to know your list to sell ratio. Know how many you need in your stock bank at any given time do you need to be carrying 10 15 five only your number counts to you. And also I loved when Adam mentioned about monitor the repeat and referral that's your recurring revenue as an agent. And that gets you into that peak state. And my final point here for you is get a good listed to settled prospecting program as you are getting better referrals in a peak state at that time. Well that concludes the program thank you for listening brought to you by Realtair we are selling I'm Lee Woodward thank you for listening see you next week