We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
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We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
Agent Accountability with Michael Murray
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This week's podcast features Michael Murray.
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Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling. Brought to you by RealTare, the home of Pitch, Sign and Sell. And now the digital sale. Last week we covered the Vendor Management Plan. Thank you for everyone's feedback and the suggestions that are coming through to the program. And on that note, if you'd like to put a request in of a topic to be covered on the program we are selling, just email Lee at LWTS.au. That was Lee at LWTS.au and I'll perform that request on air. Today's topic is one that's been on my mind for my entire career, as so many agents will speak or want help in the area of accountability. And accountability is a very interesting topic, and one of the people in the country doing this incredibly well is Mr. Michael Murray. Mr. Mick Murray joins us on the program. Welcome aboard. Thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me on the show again. My pleasure. Now, Mike, just for our people, especially overseas that may not know who you are and what you've done, give us your quick background.
SPEAKER_01:Lee, I uh I just finished a seven-year uh uh career stint with um McGraw uh Corporate, so McGraw Limited, where I um I started off as a sales manager, moved forward to regional sales manager, which potentially basically we were just we were coaching agents, that was the main function of that those two roles. And then moved on to the head of sales role or director of sales role, and uh did that for close to the last three years, which uh you don't get to do very often across 27 offices anywhere in Australia. So it was a great experience.
Lee Woodward:Share with us your observations of what you've learnt from watching people that don't have accountability, and then what you're coaching into the industry now to help those agents who want to progress.
SPEAKER_01:I think the first thing first is that accountability is very much a self-accountability thing that's got to be trained into them, if you like, or they it becomes second nature for them, but you've got to get them started, right? So so what I do is I I always work on the fact that because when I first walk into an office, the immediate reaction is like sales management 101, he's here just to look at my numbers, and the minute they think that the defensive walls immediately come up. So the first thing you want to do is you always want to get their buy-in, yeah. So, and what we want to do is we know once they start forming the habit, they are they will develop more accountability to themselves. So, what I do from a structure point of view, Lee, is um, and and leaning off something that you've talked about in training over many years, is the weekly review, which I call the Monday review. And what that looks like, that that's a calendar entry uh for them, yeah, into their calendar. I like about eight o'clock Monday morning. And what they do is they look at last week and they look at their results, um, and they look at their this week, what they've got to do or focus on this week. And and the reason I'm a massive believer in the weekly is because in in in the real estate business it it's really easy to lose a week, a month, a quarter, a year. And what I find is if people run down the wrong way for too long, it takes you about 90 days to come back. So that's why I love the weekly. So that's one of the first things that we put in place, Riley.
Lee Woodward:Just with that one, Michael, give me an example, because some people overtrack things, and one thing you're good at is really simple, uh stripping it back so it's simple, and we've mentioned on the program before, simple's difficult. If someone's doing a review right now, what are they looking at in the basic review numbers or agenda?
SPEAKER_01:So, what I did is I I re reverse engineered um the process a little bit. So we think about it this way, right? So first of all, let's start, we all want the sale, right? Then the next thing we need before that is the listing, and before that's the market appraisal, which quite often the market appraisal and the listing appointment are blurred into one now because there's not a lot of lead time sometimes when they call an agent in before they go on the market. So I just I'm just more concerned about whether they've got face-to-face with a seller. Um prior to that, there's a radar seller list, yeah, and then there's also a data point, yes. In other words, do we obtain data? And then of course there's the agent activity. So so what I like to see, and the reason I've got so many in there, and and it doesn't come up as a lot when it when you're looking on a on a sheet, right? But the reason is if if you're a sales associate or a leverage agent, whatever you um the whatever you call them, or an agent, it doesn't really matter, is that they've got to create wins, and sometimes those wins are finding someone uh you know, claiming a door, getting a relationship first time with someone, getting that opportunity or right to communicate with them, or maybe they find someone that's gonna sell them the next 90 days. That that's a win. Whereas if you're just looking at the MA result, it'd be very easy to crawl crawl in the corner, right? If you're not getting results. So I try and find some easy wins for agents and associates, yeah. And what they do essentially, to keep it super simple, which I do like doing, um, I just I run a Google Sheet, which can be shared. Yeah. It's their sheet. I've designed it, but it's their sheet. They've got access to it, they can change it. And what what they do is they put those numbers in on a Monday for the week before. And what I do is I actually call that their run rate, right? So what I'm looking for is I'm looking for their run rate. So what I tell them is I'm comparing you to you, not you to someone else. So if example, if you work a low volume market, you're not gonna do as many MAs as a high volume market. So a low volume market person could think they're going backwards because they're not doing 10 MAs a week, but maybe they've only got to do one. Do you know what I mean? So I compare them back to their run rate. What I'm looking for is if they if they come off, yeah, because if and like if they've had a hold or a break or something, fine, but if they've come off, that's usually the sign that there's something else is not right. Yeah, it could be the market, maybe it's them, maybe they've got a few personal drama. So to me, the run rate's pretty critical. And um, and Lee, what I what I look at as well is uh because I look at that. So say I was coaching a sales manager or a uh principal, it would be to look at that on a Monday as well, because I I look at anyone I'm coaching, so I know what their numbers are, right? And then what I do is monthly and quarterly, I look at their GCI results, yeah, and I compare it back to business plan. And what I'm doing is I'm I'm trying to keep them on track. And the other thing I find is a lot of agents get very demotivated during the financial year, right? So what happens is they start off first quarter, second quarter, they're not gonna get to the million dollars because everyone wants to be a million dollar agent. So then they what they I think in their brain they go, well, I'm just gonna start again. But all they've got to really do if they want to be a million dollar agent is put together two fifty quarters. So if we can get them focused on trying to do two fifty quarters, do enough for those who will be a million dollar agent, and you don't have to worry too much about the thin year, is my thinking behind that. And I think always back to the business plan is important because a lot of people when they do a business plan, they open it up never, whereas I like to bring them back to it. Yeah. So that that's that's pretty much what I do from an accountability point of view. The the last two pieces or the last couple of pieces to talk about probably are routine is critical in any high performance, discipline to execute that. But I was reading a book last year and I always forget which book I'm reading, but one thing I read was and they talked about um this high performance athletic team, and they said we've got to do what we can not to demotivate our people. So what I see is that a lot of officers they create a lot of rules and a lot of structure, and they actually demotivate their high performers, and that's when they start getting a bit of resentment. So, you know, if we if we stick to the fact that we don't want to denotiv demotivate them, we want them to be accountable themselves, but we're gonna check in while they form the habit, build a routine, build the discipline, but have the roots when in business. So if I'm a principal or a sales manager to come back and actually look at it. Yeah, and the only way you can do that is actually create a calendar invite or a schedule, you'll never do it. So pretty much works like that way.
Lee Woodward:Yeah, what isn't booked isn't gonna happen. Recently I was actually on the audio with Charles Tarby for his leadership audio, and his whole year is planned in advance by the calendar booking and the diary entries. Now, diary entry meaning um those big events go in as those big moments, and it's a to-do list mental to brain writing down that the diary is used for, nothing more than a detailed document of actions, but the calendar itself does set up that whole structure. Michael, we're seeing agents hit the fork in the road where they decide, okay, we're gonna I need a routine, we get that, I need patents for my week, and I'm gonna have bookings. And a lot of our agents have gone for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, two, four, or six, and they're trying to fill those spaces, and if they don't fill those spaces, that's okay, they can default to something else. What are you seeing on that part? Two part question, how many appraisals a week are they targeting and are they running set play times for them?
SPEAKER_01:Well, what they're doing, um I'm finding what they're doing is they default typically to the AM prospecting scenario, yeah, with PM appointments. Ones that get really busy, I find that they so say some of your super teams, they'll they will dedicate days to no appointments and prospecting. So I guess what I'm saying is they're all a little bit different because what I find is, and even if you're inside of the same brand, and sometimes sometimes inside the same office, is um this industry is a little bit custom, everyone does it a little bit differently, but I always look for common threads. So what I find generally speaking is you know yourself that because of the distractions with your telephone, like your mobile phone and the social media, is that our attention span is is very it's very affected by this. So if I look at common threads, what we're looking for is we're looking for um you know dedicated time. So I'm always about can you get that 45 minutes to an hour worth of calls in? And you know, like you've always talked about in your training, is try and keep those calls in the same genre as well. Like don't make 10 just listed calls and then call one pipeline in the middle and spend 20 minutes talking to a pipeline person. So try and keep the calls together so you get in that rhythm. But I think if we if we look at routine and discipline, it's really um about just blocks of time, uh, is probably the thread that I see. And some people are very stringent about their calendar, but other people are very stringent about their blocks. And I've got some agents who are very good at their own accountability where on a Sunday, I know this particular agent puts it on a Sunday, you know, just say I've done 10 blocks this week, which he knows he's done 10 hours with the prospecting. Um, in regard to MAs, um that that on the geographical area, uh, high volume, low volume. Um sometimes with the digital age, and especially like, you know, if you're using the realtor products as well, where you're actually seeing when they're clicking on them, um, what you find is that some of the MAs are actually done now where they've you know might have popped out seen the property, they've chased them up digitally, and then they've closed they've basically closed them out on the phone, and then they've signed the agency agreements using the product. So um it is kind of that that's changing a little bit now, Lee. It's because people are busy, like you know, agents are busy, but customers are busy, people are busy, super busy, and they just don't have time. So sometimes I remember you used to talk about was it quote to sell Lee or something like that years ago?
Lee Woodward:The quote pay close.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, that so that right if you look at that, that that that same thing is kind of working. Like I know when I was an agent um and I had a lot of external owners, uh absent owners, I just send them the paperwork so quick. Sometimes they chose me because no one else had got back to them, and their expectation because they lived out of the well, I was on the central coast, their expectation in Sydney was happened faster. And I said, Oh, what'd you choose me? And they're like, You got back to us so far. So, you know, people do like that old-fashioned service. But as far as an MA number goes, if they're solo agent, I'd like to see, you know, probably five five to six a week, depending on the calibre of those MAs. And most teams, if they're not doing ten, they're not going to hit their numbers at all. Um, but that that's kind of the you know, if I think about back in the day to Matt Steinway, it was always, you know, quality buyer appointment, quality listing appointment, uh, quality market appraisal of the day. It's not too far from that.
Lee Woodward:And you're so right, Michael, and there's so many great little tips in this tip about accountability. But it was only, I don't know, three weeks ago I presented for Matt's team for the Central Coast of McGrath and Trevor, who's also the partner in that team, you know, they're running that business together. But one thing I love about that team is the consistency. They're not looking for the next thing, the next app to overcomplicate what it is that they do, but they're very good at keeping to the strip-backed way of working. And it's like anyone, if if you've got a you've got to know what a great day looks like. So I know myself, I've got certain commitments I have to do in in the week. One of those is recording, I'm doing it right now, so I'm on top of my game, I'm in a commitment, and then I've got to present, and then I've got to do research, and then I've got to do studies, I'm always studying video clips of technology that I have to use or whatever it is. But if I'm not doing one of those things, I'm pretty much lost. And I think having a commitment list, so in in agent world, when you're getting when you're claiming a door and getting on a price update, you you you you've you've hit one of your commitments. When that leads to that appraisal, grand final moment, another commitment's been done. And then we've got that buyer side, the buyer management process that a lot of people let go of, and the vendor management process. But if you could even listen to this audio today and say, right, when I do my Monday review and I'm looking at my numbers and the expectation of my numbers, but also these are my top five of my commitment list. Looking back last week, did I hit on those commitments or did I get lost in the busyness of doing things for other people for other reasons? And I think staying focused on your commitment list is a huge part of accountability back to yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, and I think what it is, Lee, is you've got to put in that um that routine of actually checking it in the first place. Yeah. And then as you're saying, you've got the checklist there of the most important things that you've got to be focusing on. That actually keeps them on track. Um, the other thing we could talk about uh briefly is the the impact of the one-on-ones. So part of my coaching, and you know, I always believe this when I was working for McGrath is um I I just believe it was just absolutely imperative to do sit down and do one-on-ones with agents, right? And essentially what I find in that one-on-one is we pick we pick up a couple of things that are really common threads here. So just to give you a very brief structure of a one-on-one, I'd always start with healthy body, healthy mind, and that one can take a little bit of time sometimes in our industry, right? Because it's not an easy game to be in. Number two, I always look at their challenges. Um, hopefully we're not getting too bogged down there, but sometimes you can be. Um three, I look at their numbers, all right. And you're seeing already that there's a there's a menu, and the reason there is is if I just do numbers, um, they just think you're sales management from 970. Um, obviously we've got to look at stock. The markets in most capital cities have been so strong for a while now that stock's not a huge thing to sell, but depends on where you are. But that's probably going to come back right now, hence why you're probably doing your vendor management piece the other week. Um, and the the last piece is pipeline. So what I found, Lee, and this is kind of a really interesting one, and I have a really strong software background like you, um, and it is interesting when I look at agents' pipeline, and I always say to them, I say, your pipeline is the list of every single market appraisal you've ever been to with a date next to it. But the problem is you may not know that date, right? And then they kind of look at me. So it's like this perpetual pipeline. Every time I meet someone, they're going to this pipeline. So when I when I sit down with the agent and I say, okay, so because what what I found is there's a there's a lot of software around and everyone's got their own way of doing it. I say, okay, so one thing that one thing that all people usually people who do really well really well are on top of their pipeline. So tell me how do you manage, how do you manage to know when that person's coming on the market, right? And that that's a that's a big blind spot in real estate. I find that all the time. And I find that not only with smaller teams, I find that with teams that are doing plenty of business that could be actually doing that 10 or 20% more. Where, you know, as you know in software, sometimes it's a scheduled task, and we've maybe gone hot, warm, cold, it's an A, B, C seller. Um it is interesting to see how they do it because if they don't if they don't do it well, um the the simplest way I find that agents that do it well do it is either they just put a calendar entry in, they put a calendar entry in, or they're really, really good at following through with those buckets of pipeline. But as I say, the hardest part is when are they coming in the market? So I had a chat the other day with an agent and he was saying, like, he's looking down his pipeline, he's like, Oh, those people came on and they weren't coming on for six months. I I hadn't called them. And I I said, Well, look, you've got to remember is your competition is calling every day, giving them reasons why they should be coming on now. So if you're not doing that, then basically I'm not surprised they've come on the market already and been sold by their number one competitor just down the road. You know what I mean? Because it's probably his strategy of talking opportunity of why you should sell now. So so when when I do those one-on-ones, and it's really, really critical that you when you're doing a one-on-one, this is what I try and teach sales managers or principals, is it's got to be more than just about the numbers, yeah, because otherwise they won't want to do one with you, and then what you do is you'll build better attention in your teams with better one-on-ones. Yeah, and that's hence why a lot of agencies are getting myself in to do these one-on-ones at the moment, because um they don't have time because they're listing and selling, and then their people are having to find their own way. And you know, it's a very competitive landscape we're in, where if your agents aren't seeing the value that their office is giving them or the principal's giving them, um, and you have a bad day or a fight, and one of the competitors rings them that day, that might be the day they move. Because they just had enough. So you're building better relationships with your salespeople by having um regular, routine discipline one-on-ones.
Lee Woodward:Michael, there's so much in what you just said there, and I just want to just go back into that detail about the pipeline. And for me, uh that's always been a theory of when's it gonna drop. So if you and I are chatting today and you say, Lee, we do we do want to go to the market, but we've got a couple of things going on in March. Uh, we get back from London at the end of March, so it's not gonna be till April. If you went into your calendar now and put proposed sale of Michael Murray's property. property which you wouldn't say you'd say one William Street and it's a proposed that's when it should drop. Well in the calendar you actually start seeing all these things that that should drop now whereas the error is when agents use flagging. They call someone flag it for six months, flag it, flag it, flag it, but they're just pushing it out to an unknown date. Yet working out and getting into that conversation of when will it drop, and it's no different in in the speaking world. We have these placeholders where someone's got a conference a year from now and it's going to be overseas and they say Lee can you give me a placeholder for that date? But really they're saying that's when the conference is hoping to be as long as we can get the venue, that's when it's going to drop. But for myself I look forward and think okay there's a lot of stuff coming up here. If they all drop um that's going to be a busy time. So as an agent yes you've got a pipeline but when will it drop? And I think the calendar is so different to the spreadsheet view of all the addresses, all the properties you've got that in your price updates that's all good but when will it drop becomes such a key conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah absolutely and I think as well that um part of knowing when it's going to drop is understanding like the seller psyche, right? So and they might not be an active seller they might be a seller one day seller psyche is that a lot of agents I find when I when I sit down with them and look at their dialogue and listen to their dialogue what what they're doing is they're calling and they're going hey I just want to let you know that 20 Smith Street just sold for you know 1.2 million and it's kind of like you know isn't that great for your your area or something like that. So they're they're a bit too information based whereas the agents that are very opportunity based, yeah, who would be like it's just sold but that we've got five people that want to buy in fact one of them I've got two of the underbidders that want to be in this street I know I looked at your place three months ago and I know you're going to sell in January however I've actually got two people now that if your place is right that that they could buy it. Yeah and it's and that's that's called temptation and when you move your dialogue to opportunity and temptation but legitimate we're not trying to get um sued for misleading people legitimate temptation you get people's attention the other thing it does as well is it creates points of difference because they're now not looking whether you're the top agent on realestate.com for argument's sake are you the number one on real estate because if they're getting you if they were getting you in the top three agents you're number 10 how do you beat number one is you know bringing the buyer that's going to pay the premium price will will jump the queue significantly so so a lot of a lot of a lot of because people are busy and they hear from agents because I you know as you know Lee 20 years ago agents never called anyone back now they're calling in some areas f four or five eight different offices are calling calling calling so you've got to find your reason your genuine point of difference of why they should be using you and perhaps the opportunity today that they might want to do something because people just change their um plans at a drop of a heart mate like and you can't assume that they are going to sell in January. They get a great offer in November and they're gone and they're off to Queensland.
Lee Woodward:Yeah and this is where that stickability actually comes into it and two examples come to mind here. During the thick of the pandemic the incredible Michael Dowling was not only doing the online auctions where we had the digital sale platform but if he had a Kraken property with 15 bidders registered and that property was going to the market and the auction's going to time out or it's a hybrid auction, he was sending out thirty or forty invites to his pipeline to say you should watch this. This one's gonna attract the same style of purchase of your own what this sells for is going to have an impact on you. So they'd be watching the online auction and they see the bid is going up he was texting them saying I'm gonna have 14 people left over here I'm gonna shoot you the agency agreement I need your authority to start speaking and just amazing how the temptation kicks in where they're one the stickability is they're watching the result and when you're watching an online auction of the buyer who could be your buyer because only one of them can buy that particular property and you're in the same area with a similar style home with the same agent temptation kicks in. And then the other one that is obviously very personal to me but Michael Madison my daughter as you know is doing the renovations to properties before selling them. And her team Chris Henry and Madison and the team there right now they'd have about sixteen or seventeen properties under renovation that are coming onto the market getting their repairs done they're using that incredible service from SaleFunder where you get the funds and it's going to be paid on settlement. But the average owner and we're talking about Maitland here in the Hunter Valley is spending anywhere from six to twelve thousand dollars in repairs and it won't drop for two months because of getting trades and how difficult it is and so forth but it's another prediction temptation moment to say okay if we've got fifteen listings under renovation and we're facilitating the trades and they they're paying that sort of money to come on the market we've got fifteen definite sales here because people aren't mucking round when they when they've got that commitment fee before the performance fee to get the property on the market. Yeah no that's right that's exactly right Lee. Well Mr Michael Murray it's been absolutely wonderful having you back on the program and for those that don't know you used to proof all the real estate hot topics audios of John and I prior to them going out so you actually learnt a hell of a lot of learning in those days as well. How are you enjoying the coaching side?
SPEAKER_01:Um very much so Lee I I um it is my favorite thing to do in real estate so um and I'm I am very passionate about um about growth so for me it's uh it really doesn't feel like work waking up every day and uh going to coach uh whether it be an agent their team a principal or a sales manager just doesn't feel like work anymore it's fantastic.
Lee Woodward:And the hardest question of it all where do you see the agents moving in the future? And we've all got our views on this but you've got the solo agent we've got the team base the leverage agent coming into a team what do you see working best out there from your perspective look I I think um I I think definitely we we saw it we saw it sort of through 2016-2017 where you know I you could call it the rise of the super team was really coming into its own um I I really do think the teams have have really taken on the smaller office of the past yeah they're kind of like they genuinely are an office in the office and they they run at their own pace.
SPEAKER_01:So I do see that um you know that EBU super team model uh will continue just to get stronger and stronger. I think that franchisors are going to have to really look at the way they structure and the way they do their offerings for agencies when they do look at the fact that sometimes the teams are writing more than the agency. I think that's uh that's definitely something that they're gonna have to overcome in the future but I think that um the EBU super teams are going to get stronger and stronger.
Lee Woodward:Yeah I agree with you. My only point to add to that would be I've seen a transition in the effective business units over the last ten years where it used to be you get a gig in an EBU because you want to be the lister and do your own thing. Whereas now we're seeing people want to be a buyer specialist or they want to be marketing renovation and vendor management. So they're applying for the role to stay in the role and again you know Team Henry Madison's right in that g um space where she could have just done her own thing but she's doing her own thing within that unit and that unit's got four personalities that stick together rather than we're just gonna go go it alone and you know you can never get away, you can never take that time off and I think that shifting of the weight has been interesting and people okay saying I don't need to be the lister. I'm more than happy to be an incredible biomagement servicer who provides most of the leads to this unit because I'm ninja level at biomanagement.
SPEAKER_01:Well I think too Lee that I mean what you're really saying there is that specialization creates more business because it's like you know one one player taking on a team of soccer players it's it's it's it's sort of like that right so the other thing I find as well is the the style of people really um matters here because see a lot it can be pretty lonely real estate as you've you know you've said this for many years it can be a lonely place right um and and I think that's the gravitation towards teams because you know it it sometimes selling can be a solo sport but it's lonely so then if you can find the right people that like to be part of that team and I I won't say they're just followers because they're not necessarily just followers um but they see that they're really good at that component. Yeah because a lot of good listing agents actually don't like being the buyer specialist. You know like I mean I must admit when I was listing property it wasn't my favorite thing to do. So I'd much prefer to prospect and get the deal than I did to go and spend time with all the buyers. So look I think and definitely administration wasn't my favorite thing either and still not so I think um that doing what you love and also getting the leverage. Because when I when I work with teams always about leveragely like how when you put someone on are you leveraging time or are you leveraging results? Because at the moment you you're leveraging time but you're trying to leverage results so you need to bring up people too so like that's that's that's what I see with different teams you know all over the all Avenue New South Wales at the moment. Yeah.
Lee Woodward:And that brings us back beautifully to this accountability of in our Monday review we're looking at what happened and what's forecast ahead we can add in there our commitment list and you'd be amazed how many people think what would you put on a commitment list? Well you're gonna commit to at least getting through ten established client calls per week. Oh but you know they I've already sold and listed those still the most gaping hole out there Michael as you would know is to fail in that area of love the one you're with and keep that established client which is still a that's reclaiming doors. I think a lot of people you know claiming doors have been so famous in the last two years but reclaiming doors is all some of our aides listening to this audio has to do. Then you've got your commitment to how many appraisals, how many buyer appointments, some time off you know i it's pretty powerful to say I can get away because I plan to get away and that could be two hours in the middle of the day whatever you're doing and that follows up with your numbers you are now accountable. Yes absolutely well Mr Michael Murray absolutely amazing to have you on the program will you join us again in the future yeah love to be on there again Lee well as all our listeners and we've got a great uh listening crowd in the UK and New York the States and our wonderful Australian agents as well we get some wild requests so Michael I would love to bring you back on in the future but for any of our listeners that need to get hold of you how do they get hold of you?
SPEAKER_01:Oh they can just simply give me a call um 043284 894.
Lee Woodward:Can't be easier than that. Mr Michael Murray thank you for joining us thanks Lee