What Lights You Up with Dane Atherton

This podcast episode features Dane Atherton, Managing Director of Harcourts Coastal. Dane shares insights into the real estate market during the holiday season, particularly addressing the different mindsets of agents as the year comes to a close. The podcast provides valuable insights into the real estate industry's year-end dynamics, effective planning for the upcoming year, and the importance of maintaining a positive and energetic mindset in the business. A great listen for those who need a boost across the line for the end of the year.

Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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Discover more:

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Transcript

Lee Woodward: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling. Brought to you by RealTare, the home of Pitch, Sign and Sell. My name's Lee Woodward, the creator of the Complete Salesperson Course. Last week we featured Daniel Capell of the incredible Harcourts Coastal. Today we have the Chief himself, Mr. Dane Atherton, joining us. Dane, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_01: 0:31

Great to be with you, Lee, as always.

Lee Woodward: 0:33

Dane, what a time of year. What are you seeing out there with your 91 agents and your number one in the world right now? So good time to have you on the show. But we've got this run before Christmas. What are you seeing? What are you getting your agents to do?

SPEAKER_01: 0:49

Great question. And it comes up every year this time, doesn't it? I'm seeing three categories. And it's a great opportunity to do an energy check-in on where you're at, because you're probably going to be one of these three categories, which is where all of my guys fit into one of these. Number one, I've had a massive year and I'm done. And I'm pushing away business, either consciously or subconsciously. You know, there's that part where you can actually already start to see people subconsciously put push and and even actually say, Oh, I'm not taking any more on, I've got campaigns, and that kind of approach, which the opportunity there is that you you can actually have a breakthrough because I do believe that people who are at that level have have started to exceed a capacity of business that you know almost beyond what they thought they were going to do. They've they've had a really successful year, and what they don't know is that they're almost sabotaging their own growth by pushing away business. So that's the first part. Uh the second part is I've actually I've actually had a quiet year, and I you know I'm I'm I'm now getting to the point where if I don't rip in, I'm gonna be having spam for Christmas. So you've got you've got a bit of you've got a bit of that. Um and then you've got people who are actually in really great energy who you know who are open to every opportunity and they're staying really hungry and agile because they actually know that you know the work they're doing now is setting up their 2024. And that's where that's where we all need to get to, really, because don't fall into the trap of of winding down too early. So the big thing we're we're saying to our team is pick a date that you know you're gonna be going on holidays, because everyone wants to know they're that they're on a break, and work and be as productive as you possibly can up until that point. Because if you don't do that, you know you're gonna you're gonna let yourself off the hook and you're probably gonna start to actually wind down and not get the best out of yourself.

Lee Woodward: 2:42

Do you know it's just fascinating that Christmas changes everything for everyone? If it was the middle of the year and you're going away for three or four weeks, it's just I'll be back soon and we'll get back into it. Whereas this is it, this is the grand finale, it's it's like having ten months off or something. Whereas you're not, it's just three or four weeks, and I think being a little bit more continuous, enjoying the break, definitely, but also realizing this is your profession, this is what you do. You don't want it all to just go away, and there's so many great deals that are available before Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 3:13

There is, and look, if you look at it right now, time of recording, where five working weekends till Christmas, uh, by the time someone listens to this, there might be four working weekends till Christmas. You can do a campaign in one week, two weeks, three weeks, four, four weeks. You can do you can do campaigns. So I think the keeping an open mind that you can meet someone at an openness weekend, you can claim doors, you can go out there and sitting in someone's living room this evening, you can have them on the market in days, and you can be sold before Christmas. Properties that aren't even in your in your pipeline yet that you can meet in the coming weeks can be sold before Christmas. You've got to keep that up and up you know up and running because I do believe that there is definitely what happens, I think, with a lot of um with our stock base anyway is I see it every year where as as sellers get closer to Christmas that are they're unsold, they get more and more motivated to get a result because they want to know, they want to start making plans. You can't make plans if you're not sold. So I think you'll find that having those check-ins with your current stock now, just to make sure price is right, marketing's right, everything's aligned to give yourself the best chance of sale, don't underestimate how motivated some of our owners can be to get a result prior to Christmas.

Lee Woodward: 4:29

Yeah, and everyone's timing is the same at a different time. So for example, there's people that sold the house five weeks ago and didn't think they were gonna sell before Christmas, and they're like, Well, we're supercharged, we're ready to go. Um, let's go out and find something. There's nothing stopping them making an instantaneous decision. They've already released their asset, they've got the funds or the commitment of the funds to buy another property. That's the person who's walking through the house that you spoke to this week and they go, Oh, no one's gonna be out looking now. The people outlooking now are desperate to find a home, and that great Australian spirit will say, Ah, stuff it, let's increase the offer or or stuff it, let's accept the offer. Some great things can happen in the thinking this close to Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 5:15

Oh, that's right. And look, my I'm bidding on a property myself, um, not not a main residence, but and I can tell you now it's coming up in a week or two, and my goal is to settle that before Christmas, because I have this idea of having Christmas. And I think I I'm not like uh unlike anyone that it is definitely a milestone to get a decision done before then. The other point is, Lee, I think we've got to understand too, you're right, there's this big chasm of time mentally that Christmas you know finishes and 2024 is just another inadverted commas a year away, but it's really only a week after Christmas. It's a week after Christmas. And I think the thing to remember is setting up your 2024 is being active and visible in 2023 with future sellers. So, you know, those who choose to run campaigns right until the end, right until the finish line, the marathon is one in the last five kilometers. It's not run in the first 35. And I think that's the thing that you've got to keep in mind is that you if you if you can stay active and you can keep doing opens and you can you can keep following up and keep building your, not to mention selling your properties, but building your future seller pipeline, those 2024 sellers are interviewing in 2023. They might even get a price check now, they might get, you know, start who deciding who their agent's going to be. So that but that sheds a new light on how active we need to be because we don't want to wake up in 2024 and not have any you know confirmed listings ready to go to market. I think setting a goal for how many active properties you want signed up to go live in in January, I think that's another great thing to do, is that once you've sold your current stock and and that that process is out of the way, keep focused on that. But let's make sure we've got a goal to actually wake up in 2024 with some some listings that you're actually excited about rather than an anxiety feeling of where's my next listing coming from.

Lee Woodward: 7:07

Yeah, and I like when you said that in the first part of the interview. We've all got this energy, this business energy. Last week we had Daniel Capel on the program and that brilliant Brazilian voice and energy out there, he's out claiming doors, three hundred and forty-nine was the number. But you chat with him and think, you know what, he seems like he wants to get stuck into this, and we could be sold by Christmas. And I think be aware of your business energy is very important.

SPEAKER_01: 7:32

Well, that's a very good point because I I can tell you now, there are some agents out there that if they interviewed a vendor in the first week of December, they're actually advising clients to wait till January or February. Now that client might be ready to go now, and you could have that sold and you could have that sold before Christmas. You could do a campaign before Christmas. It's not rushed. Or at least you can straddle Christmas. So that's the other point, is that you don't necessarily have to get everything done before Christmas, but you can be on the market before Christmas. We do that a lot on the Gold Coast in our region because obviously, you know, we have a we have a marketplace that doesn't necessarily disappear. Um, you know, they come here during during this season. So we're very fortunate. And I know other I know other cities do this as well, where you can actually start a campaign to first two weeks of the campaign pre-Christmas, have a break for Christmas, come back and start again in the first of you know, first week of Jan, have your auction in the middle of Jan. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no reason why you can't actually straddle that period as well. If you find that you meet a vendor who's ready to go to market now, don't necessarily push it back. Why not bring it to market now and keep your you'll keep your momentum? Because as you know, Lee, um the portals are flooded with Christmas Day wines and people cru people cruising and working out their next their next move, they're strolling through through the internet, they're they're making decisions, they're in a relaxed mode. So you want to be visible during that period as much as you can.

Lee Woodward: 9:00

Yeah, you know, over that Christmas break, people have got time where they think, okay, maybe we will move up to the Gold Coast. Well, what's available? Well, let's have a look. And it's not that people have to actively go and see it, but if they've got an asset to release or an urge to move and that opportunity's there, they're gonna take it. Dane, another question for you, in sort of like a double tip here today. Uh I was very fortunate, I think it was four or five weeks ago, I got to come in and do the complete salesperson course to the team and feel the energy in that room of what you've created there. What are you advising your team to do for the focusing and planning of 2024 so that they can come back ready to run?

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

Yeah, that's a very good question. And while I'm on that point of post-self complete salesperson course, I can honestly tell you that we've actually had an increase in our fee.

Lee Woodward: 9:56

So what you're fees one, two, three.

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

So I can report that, I can report that now live to you, that that fee one, two, three, and getting our agents comfortable in having that discussion, you know, it's very it's been it's been fantastic because it's just brought it out from the darkness, the the stepson, you know, under the stairwell, the fees, no, no, bring it out, talk about it, be proud of it, own it, and move on. And I I mean there's one agent in particular that he was just telling me before he's got six or eight auctions before Christmas, and he is he's just telling me now he's he's right up in the high twos, plus GST. And I'm like, you know, that's so good to hear because he's worth it. He's he's a very good agent, and that was just a simple switch of let's get that into our into our dialogue. But how we get ready for 2024, I mean, I think the thing that you know you we've got to start with with real estate is you've got to find something you you connect with. I think all we're doing in real estate, we know the job, right? And I mean you say this time and time again in your in your in your amazing training is that the job is the job, it's your energy around the job that we have to get we have to get focused on. So, you know, I can sit here and say, write down a whole lot of numbers and watch your your your GCI for next year, and everyone can give me a number. And it's got to be something that you connect with. Because and and I use that that term connection because I find when people aren't connected, say disconnected, the energy's low. It's like being plugged into electricity, you know, onto a wall. If you're not connected to your own goals and and what you want to achieve in 2024 and what you actually want, it has to come from you. You have to take the time to write it down. It can be a whole lot of things. It doesn't have to be just about real estate, but I think you've actually got to get very excited about what kind of life you want to create, you know, what kind of business you want to build. And then that actually that actually starts the process of, well, you know, how how can I make improvements in 2024? What are my weaknesses? What can I improve? What are my what are the focal points that if I got right, I know I'm good at this, but what if I'd got this right? What if I zeroed down on you know generation, past client nurture? Only you know that. And I think it's important that you take the time out to actually analyze what is it that I connect with? And you've got to find that, because look, I'm a big believer, we're all Rubik's Cubes. We're all trying to work out, we're all trying to work out what gets what lights us up. And and we have to do that by experiment. For me, it might be okay, I know if I avoid social media and I journal in the morning, I know that that sets my day up to actually have a really good day. If I start getting away from that, I just don't I'm not as sharp. I know I'm not. So for me, that's one of the things I've worked out about myself. You've got to find those things for you. And then once you do that, the plan is there. Like it's written, it's already written. We already know how to generate stock, we already know how to convert listings, we already know how to process listings to sold. The qu the question is, what's going to light you up so you actually go and do those, do those things. So planning for 2024, if I say to you, you know, and and you've heard that speaker say that thing before, Martin Luther King didn't say, I have, you know, I have a I have a strategic plan. He said I had a dream. And I think that's really I think that's really important to connect with for real estate people because it's got to be bigger than just numbers. For me anyway, and I see that with our top people, it's got to be more than just numbers. What trip are you going to go on next year? What, you know, if everything goes well, what's your reward? Because we're all trying to feel proud of ourselves and we're all trying to actually, you know, really we'll really make sure that we have the energy around doing what we need to do. Because when we're in flow, it all goes from there. That was a really long answer.

Lee Woodward: 13:31

I love that answer because you're bringing the natural part of this all together. Don't write a fake plan either. Final point for you, and you're part of this point because I was doing it last night. I'm doing my planning for 2024, and I have a strong feeling for anyone in business that we're all as good as our bookings. And as you know, in real estate, getting booked Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 215, 415, or 615 for an appraisal or an assessment is all you're trying to do. Absolutely. I went old school this year, and I think doing that uh Charles Tarby podcast has uh really had an effect on me in a wonderful way, where Charles runs a paper diary for his to-dos, plays it forward, plays it forward. So I went into office work, sport the big annual laminated planner, and I because I want to gain visibility of what I've got and I know when I'm off and when I'm in, and then I was I got my label maker out and I'm putting all my permanent gigs in that are already made a decision for next year, and up pops up on the 12th and 13th of June, Harcourts Coastal, uh for the complete salesperson course again, so that we can lock it in and it's there. And I think what I got out of doing the planner last night is I could see the holes, and the holes were like, and this is very different for me to say this, there's a big gap there, and I said, Don't fill it. Rob, don't fill it. Let's take a breather, let's have some rest time in that time because look at what's coming up, versus when you're looking at that month in isolation, you can overload yourself and you can burn out. Whereas gaining visibility on the whole year, I I just think makes you calmer.

SPEAKER_01: 15:10

Absolutely, and you hit the nail on the head, visibility and whatever you need to do to do that. Some people can do that on a screen. Uh maybe it maybe it's a generational thing. I'm like you, I need to do that and you know, analog, I need to do that in a journal, or you know, writing down pieces of paper. I respond better to ticking things off an actual list in pen that is old school. I just find that the I don't know whether it's the brain for me works differently when I do that. I know when I write down goals, I have a far better response than if I just type it into a note section of a phone or a computer. I just think the brain works differently where when you write it down, there's something to be said for committing it to it to on paper. It's very old school. It's like it's almost like an oath where you're writing it down going, okay, there it is for me to see. It came from me, I wrote it down and I can tick it off. I think that's I think that's a really it's a creative thing too. I think when you're when you're asking even asking yourself questions on pieces of paper and then pondering the answer and allowing space. One thing I don't think we do too well in this day and age is allow ourselves space to ask ourselves big questions and sit with those, sit with sit with the answer for a while. It'll come to you. Because as you say, you can see the holes as well when you start to visualize. I think it's a I think it's a really powerful thing.

Lee Woodward: 16:23

Well, Dane, firstly want to say congratulations. How does it feel to be number one in the world for Harcourts?

SPEAKER_01: 16:30

Oh it's funny when you tell people that, isn't it? We're number one in the world. I feel like taking the trophy into a listing presentation and just and then just plonking it, plonking it on the uh the dining room. But um, as you know, the consumer doesn't care, mate. They want that they want the service and they want the best person for the job. But no, it's been a great achievement. We've done it back to back now. And look, when we joined Harcourts in 2011, the the big businesses in that group just seem so far away. So, you know, to be held in the same esteem as some of the biggest businesses in our group is an absolute honour because they're I I think they're some of the best businesses in Australasia, and um, you know, it's a it's a privilege to be held even even in the same sentence as those guys, and we are really honored.

Lee Woodward: 17:10

Well, Dane, I know you're gonna join us again on the programme, and it could be as soon as next week or the week later. We've got our Harcourt special at the moment with Daniel appearing and then yourself. It was wonderful working with the team and seeing fees one, two, three, and the team understand, be proud of your fees. You work so hard, just that alone was enough shift to make the whole thing worthwhile. So, Jane Atherton, thank you so much for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you in the forthcoming weeks.

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

And thank you, Lee, for everything you do for the industry.

Lee Woodward: 17:41

And that concludes another edition of our podcast, We Are Selling, and really looking forward to having Dane back on the program. We welcome Dane and the team to the RealTare platform, the home of pitch, sign, and sell. My name's Lee Woodward. I'll see you next week.