We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
Your Life and Business by Design with Michael Murray
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Features real estate high-performance coach Michael Murray.
This podcast discusses the journey from a new agent right through to a super team.
Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems
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Hello and welcome to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the creator of the Complete Salesperson Course. Today's podcast is brought to you by RealTare, the home of pitch, sign and sell. When we look at the journey of an agent, no matter who you are, you go through this sequence of time, and that time frame can be fast for some, slow for others. But there's definitely milestones from being a brand new agent on the ground to then reaching that 500,000 in fees. Then you reach 500 to a million and then a million plus. And although the process of selling a house does not change, what happens to you as an agent, becoming a team and working with others definitely has some key learnings, and today's audio is about understanding that sequence. Coming into the studio to help us out is Mr. Michael Murray. Now Michael Murray has been the director of sales of McGrath, he's worked at Real Estate Academy and just like myself, has dedicated his life to the cause of working with agents and the real estate process. He joins me. Michael, welcome aboard. Thank you, Lee. Good to be back again. Michael, we've done many audios together, and today's an interesting one because we're looking at the agent journey. And I want to get straight into this. Just from your own introduction, we talk about these levels. What have you learned most about the levels?
SPEAKER_01:What's interestingly is that um being coaching in you know metropolitan areas and regional areas, what I've found is that the GCI levels, if we were to use that metric, which sometimes can be a very finan obviously it's a financial metric, but using that metric to the guide, what I've found is that five hundred thousand a million, basically they're just the same. So meaning that if you're selling a lower price point, so your average sale price might be five hundred thousand dollars, or your average sale price is five million, those levels are still relevant because if your average sale price is five million or maybe a little bit higher, it could be in some cases, they're selling less of them usually. So the GCI levels still mean the same thing no matter where you are.
Lee Woodward:Yeah, to me the GCI, to give it some visual, it's like hopping on the train at Central, and that's the start of the line, and then we're going north, and we want to get to Queensland or up to Casino there, and each one of these train stops, the big substations are those moments. So when you first start, you you thought of writing five hundred thousand in fees is like a mountain, but then you get there and realize how many deals that is, and you think, wow, I could actually nudge this up further. But let's get into what happens to you as an agent, and for some of our agents who've been around a long period of time, I think you'll come back to this beginning part, and although you've done the line and journey, you've been up the train, maybe it's time to come back and just reassess where you are now with the journey of an agent. So, Michael, let's get started. When you're a brand new agent, what is it we need to know, need to do? How do you see this?
SPEAKER_01:So, Lee, I see this as when you first start, it's all about core skills. And when I talk about core skills, I'm just going to go with prospecting, listing, managing vendors, and selling. So, what happens is that first of all, a lot of s a lot of officers may not have a training program in place, maybe coming from the brand they're associated with. They first they do training when they first start, then what happens is they kind of get busy, and then it's like, oh no, it's too busy for you to go to training. So what happens is there's not enough emphasis on core skills. And if we think about a lot of officers before, you'd have scripts and dialogues training or the old chestnut of there used to be a sales manager, quite often there's not a sales manager anymore. So there's no one actually facilitating the growth of the new agents. And new agent doesn't matter how old you are, yeah, because you can be a new agent at 50, right? You still need the same core skills. If you're 20, you still need the same core skills. Core skills take time. Um the other thing I see as well, Lee, is that people get stuck. So I do find in some of the super teams that I see across in when I'm coaching is that you'll find some associates get stuck too long, associate or assistant agent, whatever they might call them in that office, they get stuck too long being the assistant, and maybe if I was to compare it to tradesman versus laborer, quite often they're actually doing the labour and never really learning how to be the tradesperson, yeah, which they get stuck. So I look for that as being a weakness in their growth in their business for sure.
Lee Woodward:And you're right, if there is no training program, the person can't progress, which means they're going to get stuck anyway. And I'll give you a real life example of that. This young wonderful man turned up to a training program one day. It was the complete salesperson course, and we got chatting in the break, and he said, Yeah, they've sent me here that i if I don't get better, uh they're sacking me. I said, Oh, that's interesting. And what training have you had? None. And I I got sent to this course. So he was sent to the complete salesperson course as a last resort because there was nothing going on back at the business, and in that business he'd done nothing, no sales, no listing, nothing in the three months that he'd been there, and then got some core skills. That was Phil Harris. Yeah, wow. He was actually sent to the complete salesperson course as he as a last resort. But the point is many businesses don't have a training plan or a training system. So if you're going to be this incredible end-of-line leader in real estate, you've got to think about those things around you because they're going to be required.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and definitely, that's right, Lee. And the other thing I find as well out there, Lee, is that in our current world where we're very and it doesn't mat once again, it doesn't matter how old you are, we're kind of like we love instant gratification, right? So where I see this as a problem is we underestimate how long it actually takes to learn something. And then if we think it's going to happen faster, and you know, maybe I don't know, maybe maybe going viral on a YouTube video or something is making us think that things can happen much quicker. But the reality is mastery takes a long time, which is why they took about ten thousand hours. So it's very hard to shortcut when you're a new agent and you do need to learn properly.
Lee Woodward:I couldn't agree more with you. The world has become TikToked and sitting and learning something properly takes time. Going through an audio book takes time. Learning to get your words right in a listing conversation and understanding and Michael it was good that you mentioned core skills. If I look at anything I do today more than ever, no matter what level the agent is at and to me I don't care about GCI. I care about that moment we're in at that time. And I'll give you an example of that. I just finished the advanced listing workshop around the country and I'm working with every brand, eight hundred and twenty agents went through the program. But still, d didn't matter if you'd just started or you'd been around ten, fifteen years, no one understood the technique of delivering fees. And all of them didn't even bring up their fees because they were scared, they were nervous. And as soon as you teach the skills and the technique that there is a sequence called fees one, two, three, and they learn fees one, two, three, and then we shift that thinking of be proud of your fee. We work really hard to get a great result on one of the the biggest assets in someone's life. Why would you be scared of fees? But because no one had ever taught them the technique of delivering fees, it's just a lack of core skills. But I've had multi-million dollar performers ring me back saying, I can't believe it. Fees one, two, three, I'm just doing so well. It's just a technique. If you've never taught the technique, how could you ever deliver it?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly right, Lee. The other thing you touched on before is that we lose a lot of good people in our industry because we don't give them enough time. We also sometimes we employ very quickly without actually looking at simple simply the capital required to fund someone as well. So what we do is we invariably end up with if they don't make us money in the next 30 days, we can't keep them anymore. Not really fair to a new starter. So when we get in if you get a new person in the industry that maybe had one or two starts like that, they could be out of the industry and we lose a good person for the industry. And I've seen that happen quite a lot, Lee.
Lee Woodward:Couldn't agree more. So when you're a new agent or you're thinking about putting on a new agent, call skills is the focus, give it time. And most real estate companies do undercapitalize thinking, we need the listings, but how long are we keeping that person on? So on both sides of the equation there, you need the time. It takes time. Michael, you and I discussed many years ago about the learning menu. What's on your learning menu? And then you've got your own ninety times four program. Explain that to us.
SPEAKER_01:So ninety by four is the belief is this that if we're going to learn the craft, we actually learn in this order. So we learn prospecting first, we learn negotiating and working with buyers second, we learn managing vendors third, and we learn learn to list last. So what happens is that anyone starting in the industry would believe that they could probably do that in a year. So I've got a version of what I call the 90 by 4, which is essentially exposure to those four key skills, if you like, over that 12 months. Now, it also creates like a check-in point for the agent, who's their lead agent, of that quarterly calendar appointment to check where they're at with that. Because sometimes people literally lose two years in prospecting but still don't know how to list. So it comes down to having a simple, because I do keep it simple there. This is not like a complex onboarding system. This is like they start off and then what they're doing is they've got their check-in points and making sure they actually are progressing and actually are learning, but got exposure. But my view is they're not going to be necessarily fully competent after that 12 months. What you do then is is reset because you never really ever stop prospecting, right? So you would reset and then you would so example in the listing side, so don't let them go and practice on live customers, maybe role play that instead, yeah? So that'll be coming up in the fourth quarter, yeah. So then maybe they're not competent at that, so then in the next year, we're going to really start refining that, and then we're going to start producing agents that are more competent, more capable, and through in a timely manner. Because sometimes new people leave because they don't feel like the place they're working is providing that for them. So they see the grass is greener on the other side and go, when in fact it could work well where they are if there was some attention put on that.
Lee Woodward:Couldn't agree more. And I see great people leave average businesses all the time, and quite often it's not money, it's it's training, it's progression. They've got a better chance in that different company because the nurturing process is there. But for anyone listening to this right now, be you're a brand new person to the industry or you're about to put on someone brand new, it does take time. Don't think you're doing really bad because geez, I've been there four months and I haven't really sold much. It's not about that. It's about learning the core skills, don't get stuck, and you're not a labourer. You're trying to learn the trade and don't underestimate the time to master the tasks, and really that's what it's like as a new agent.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and Lee, and I think the other thing as well is that what I see as well is that routine and discipline is critical skill or critical process for any agent. Yeah. So what happens is that when you start, that's crucial, this routine and consistency, and it gets back to how you plan your week. Because you might have a scenario where you're focusing on core skill core skills and you're going through a year but you haven't actually done your call sessions. Yeah, so you've got to be able to identify that that you've got to actually have that, you know, that activity plan in your week where you've got I think you talk about it as commitments. Yeah. Everyone's got a commitment list.
Lee Woodward:And it's interesting one thing I would say to any new agent is are you prepared to do what's required? So being match fit on the phones and working in sprints is required. Uh facing rejection is required, but that's all part of the gig and I think some people do think it's going to be easy. And it's not easy. Nothing's easy. You know, it's like people say, Oh get a job you love and then you'll never work again. You can only be good you can only love a job when you get good at it. So without the core skills you won't love it. Because it it's not to be loved yet. You've got to get that position that I actually know what I'm doing, and you've got to be your own mechanic, you've got to know how to fix the car, you've got to know how to fix things because this is your career. You can't outsource that part of it. Now, just before we move on to this next level, which is the five hundred thousand, which is a different style of it. One thing I would say for everyone listening to this audio is you've got to determine how do you sell a house. And Michael, you and I were just chatting about this off air that people can be selling houses and it's different each time, and they never document that process. If you don't do that at some point in your career, you never progress to those great levels because you can't repeat the performance. Michael, you and I are in a studio at the moment, and this morning I had to do a webinar, but there's a twenty-point checklist to set up the studio for the webinar, 'cause it'd be very easy to plug in the lapel microphone, but they weren't charged. And although I've done thousands of these things, I still follow a checklist myself because I don't want to think. And people think, Oh, would you really need to do that? It's what a professional does. And you've got to make a decision, are you professional or amateur? But I don't care what level you are, the decision to be a professional is personal versus we can get away with it. So how do you sell a house? And if you're a new person starting right now, go to someone in administration and say, Could you just treat me as if I was one of the new owners? How do we sell a house around here? And what letter goes out, and what email goes out, and what goes to the lawyers, and what goes to the buyer, what goes to the seller, and actually gain visibility on that? Michael, so many people don't do that and they never ever progress beyond the levels that they could.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and Lee, how I find out straight away how solid their system is of selling real estate, if they hire a VA first, because quite often they do that because they think if I get a full-time person it's going to cost me 60 or 70 K, I'll get a VA, and what they're immediately exposed to because everything has just become off site, they've got no system. The system is they just do it and then they walk across the other side of the office and they say to someone in the office, Hey, could you do this? Could you do this? And of course, agents love their their thing that their their process done exactly to their custom, yeah? And when you've got a scenario where the office has maybe got four or five agents, if the administrational person is taking care of that, kind of impossible to do those customs, so then they go, I want to get my own person. So back to what you said before is have they have they got that system? Because as soon as you take it off site, you are exposed hundred percent to not having a system. So I always look for that system.
Lee Woodward:Let's move on to our sub five hundred thousand. What's your observation here and what do people need to know?
SPEAKER_01:So usually they've they've got past the new agent part, they're they're listing and selling, they're going okay, they're staying financial enough. Um what I find here, Lee, is they they can overrate their core skills. Maybe they haven't spent enough time, and you mentioned this before, of going back and maybe assessing where you're at, yeah, because maybe you didn't learn enough about that. A good way to know how you're going is what is your conversion rate like at listing. You know, don't don't ask don't ask someone to help when they've when you lost ten in a row. You know, not all the customers are consistent uh who they'll just oh they'll go in with the other guy. There's a reason we've got to find out why we're not winning, right? So overestimating core skills is a big one. Time in market. Yeah, don't you need to spend time in a market. Yeah, it's very hard to make it very quickly if you haven't spent that time. And that that sometimes leads them to get disillusioned with that market and they change market, so then they reset even harder. Yeah, that's right. Back to the beginning. A topic close to both of us is data. Yeah, we've spent a lot of time talking about this. Used to have the service area training as as really the start of it. And essentially, I do find it amazing when I've got agents who have been in the business for a long time. One of the first things I say to them is I say, How many owners do you have in your database? And then I'll say, depending on their answer, because sometimes the answer is really low. I'm surprised they don't have that many. They might say I've got 250 and they've been around for a while. I'm like, well, that's a bit of a concern. Maybe they've got the data in their phone, but it's not sorted back to an address, for argument's sake. So what happens there is that the data becomes a problem, and then the next thing, if they say I've got 20,000, I'll say, Well, so okay, how many if you call them now, know who you are. You know, Seth Godin, who's the marketing guy, talks about a thousand raving fans. If you have a thousand raving fans, you can make it in any business, doesn't matter what their business is. So to me, the data's a key thing, and sometimes when I'm coaching agents, it's like it's their their main game's data. Yeah, like they just need more of it. So someone's just got to go and find a way to get it.
Lee Woodward:And clean data. I think people have these massive databases. We had a great experience when I was at RealTare where we brought in the price update. And the price update goes out, surrounding sales, but there's a button in there saying book an appraisal, but every time it's sent, someone opens it, you get notified. However, some of the agencies thought, great, I'm gonna bulk this out to my established clients. And all these replies are coming back saying, Thanks for sending this. I sold the house ten years ago. I sold the house five years ago. And it just showed you how out of date the data was. So holding a stack of records that is out of date is not the game. It's connective records, and you're right. You know, we say 900 consented records will give you 46 transactions. Uh a thousand raving fans is the same principle of thinking. But is the data clean? And data is an issue, and I think your phone's a good example. Michael, if you ring me now, your name comes up in my phone. If I ring you, my name comes up in your phone. I'm going to call that a real record. Whereas in a database, it's not like that. And you can have thousands and thousands of records, but keep it real. Otherwise, you you're spinning wheels just thinking you've got data, you'd be better to hit delete and find real people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a hundred percent. And one of the tips I share with agents all the time is when you're chasing people, whether it be post OFIs or whether you're chasing you maybe you're doing a street campaign and you're calling people in the street, quite often they might leave a voicemail or send a text, send your card, send your my card if you've got an Apple phone with the details because people are getting busy. One of the one of the trends I'm seeing, Lee, is that people don't answer their phones. They're doing callbacks on Monday, no one answers. So then I say I say to some of my agents, depending on their volume, maybe do longer opens and talk to people longer. How many are coming through at the moment? Is there seven? Is there fifty? At the moment, there's probably seven to ten. So maybe we we we need to spend more time, quality time. And then those people have my card. And of course X amount would be possible sellers, right? Or it definitely could be buyers, which is what we're hoping for as well.
Lee Woodward:And yeah, if you're a brand new agent, open it twice. You've got nothing to lose. You do a morning one and an afternoon one. The morning will be the locals and the afternoon will be the out of area people. But it's just another opportunity to meet people and especially when you're trying to gather real data.
SPEAKER_01:And Lee, the other sub five hundred problem that I see is that they they kind of um so if you ask every person who's by themselves as an agent, by themselves as an agent and they say, I so what do you want to do with your business? They're like, I want to get a PA or I want to get an assistant. So what I see happen here is they might have had a crack at that. They're not allowing enough money. They're back to what we talked about before with the business capital. So when you're an agent and you're sub 500 and you want to go higher usually you need a bit of leverage. Yeah and to do that you need another person because unfortunately real estate is 1.5 jobs day one so you're always going hard anyway right so when you what you what you need to do is you need to get your I call it pay it forward. So you need to provide enough to get the right person to create some leverage to jump out of that bracket. And what happens if you don't do that then you'll drop back and that's why a lot of people stay sub five for quite a long time.
Lee Woodward:Yeah couldn't agree more and it is one point five and getting the right person is well actually you could get the right person and lose them if you haven't processed and documented how you sell a home or or how you want things done. And I think that checklist of you can't move from that task unless it's processed. And if you're not a checklist style person or a process driven person, how does someone work with you? And as we've seen with the um offshore teams or the international team members, unless it's in a process it can't be activated because we're not going to be seeing each other all day every day. It's just a request and the request gets done. What's your request? How many do you have and which person will be doing that in the right selection of that person.
SPEAKER_01:And Lee the next big thing as well is this is if you're by yourself sub five hundred and your competition your main competitor is a team you're now competing where you're one person competing against a team that have got specialization in there. And a good example is this right so just just say I I've I've just sold a property right I've got agents that don't process the soul because they know as soon as they press exchange in the system the competitors will call the street quicker than them. So it's almost like I think we talked about it before it's almost like you're competing with the tradesman with the hammer versus the nail gun. Yeah. Yeah like they're gonna get they're gonna go quicker right so so that's one of the blockages of being sub five hundred is your competitors slow you down. Yeah.
Lee Woodward:Michael what else have you seen here in the habits or the decisions that people make?
SPEAKER_01:So what I see as well is that sometimes so if I'm a solo agent and I'm sub five and I'm thinking I really want to grow a team I don't have enough money to hire that person because maybe I've given a lifestyle around my income that I'm bringing in and then I go you know what I'll do I'll just form a partnership with another agent in the office. I see this happen a lot. I play golf with an accountant once and I said do you deal with any real estate agents he says yeah I usually deal when they break up their partnership it's actually quite common. So what happens is that when two agents get together there it's almost like they've got the same problems and then what they do they get together and now they're two Ps in a pod they didn't create specialization one's a lead agent the other's a lead agent who goes on the signboard first who goes on the listing first what's the strategy so what I find is that that's actually a dangerous trap to end and enter into now bearing in mind it can work sometimes so it's not a perfect science right but I do feel that more often than not it doesn't work and you end up with the two Ps in pods that get they're both going a listing appointment they're both doing prospecting sessions they're both not doing prospecting sessions as well. So I always look for how do you get the leverage point where the actions are happening or the tasks are happening without you doing them and that's the problem I see with I call the two Ps in a pod model.
Lee Woodward:It's so interesting going through this prepared work we've done today and the you know the area that you land in and people listening to this right now think that's me. That's not me. That's me. But it's amazing how similar the behaviour is and from our perspective of working with thousands of people you see the same mistakes happen all the same the same way because people think th the progressive moment is two. But I'm hoping this audio makes you think one you're not alone but two is there other options for you? So for example manual labour versus machine is their biggest competition and we just gave that scenario that two two carpenters are on a building site one's got a hammer one's got a nail gun. There's no comparison. But sometimes that doesn't have to be a physical person. I know with the outsourced or off site telemarketing companies that I use myself you know I I'm here today but there's four people on the phone on my behalf so they're making phone calls about the next event coming up but by the end of three four days we've called two hundred people but I'm here but two hundred phone calls are being done as a function they're not sitting in the same room where I am it's an outsourced thing you can get the tasks done but what are those tasks and what would they say? Because you could be listening to this right now and go, oh that's a great idea I'm going to do that. But you can't why what's the script? Where's the data list? What's the approach? When someone says yes I'd be open to an appraisal that's not an agent making the phone call. What's the positioning? And you'd have to give thought to that promotion to make it work and I think that's what this audio is all about. Think this through and Michael if you and I can keep people out of these potholes and they don't end up in a partnership that busts up or end up changing areas which you know let's discuss that. People get it all wrong in one spot and the first thing oh you know what? I'll go over the bridge and uh change area.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah no definitely and and the grass is greener yeah we're drilled that way and sometimes we get seduced by maybe a competitor that's trying to recruit you yeah. Um Lee, one thing you said there is is about tasking right so one of the analogies I try and paint for my agent teams is this right so so in your business there's a task from the the minute the phone rings until the day you put the sold sticker up to the day you do the settlement right so sometimes we look at tasks and checklist as admin functions right but if you think about the prospecting plan or the marketing plan booking a call session right so they're all tasks right so what happens if they're all tasks how do we do all the tasks all the time when we're busy yeah so well you'll find solo agent typically gets uh two three four listings now they're busy trying to sell it they're definitely not doing their just list to yourselves they're not making as many calls maybe they're not even they've dropped the ball on their pipeline seller and then what they do is they go back down to the zero listings and they always say to me Michael I don't want to be that roller coaster agent. The challenge is if you know the tasks and you know they've got to happen then offsighting can work. So what I've done in the past is when I've set recommended to an agent to go offsight and when they've when they've had the money and had the people before it's because there might be poor people managers. And I'll say you know what you should have a VA yeah because they're going to be there ready to do the work as opposed to have someone who you're now managing in your office yeah and then on top of that they might find that they're the person that makes the calls and they're the person negotiates. So what they do is they hire a assistant associate say a sales associate and then what they find is that they're still the one making the calls they kind of resent the associate because they still feel like they're bringing the business in so then I'll say to them I'll say why don't you get a part-time person on Saturday to help you turn the key because maybe you they're not really during the week going to do much for you. So sorry so talking about off site again there's many people in real estate who want to be in real sorry there's many people who look at the real estate industry and want to be in there but maybe they just like the fancy bit on Saturdays and and we get quite a lot of I've had a lot of agents that end up with a person helping them turn keys on Saturdays sometimes it's a family member might be a you know maybe they've got a nephew niece who's a un university student get their certificate of registration interested in um in being an agent get their their certificate of registration or assist an agent and then go and help them on Saturdays.
Lee Woodward:But you imagine you've got a a uni student who does three or four opens for you then in the afternoon they load all the data into the database make sure it's tagged and anyone who's an escalation for you and then you come in on Monday and go, Wow sixty eight new people are in my database, seven of those have been qualified that they are open to getting an estimate on their property and suddenly you were doing your part. So but you're right it doesn't have to be a full time person and I I I work in a few virtual teams and I like the variety of that. I don't want to see them every day. But when I'm in that moment with that person it it's always impactful, it's always real. Whereas when you're there all the time I think it's different and it's interesting, you know, changing areas is what's brought this up but this is the biggest challenge now in the five hundred to a million you mentioned to me before they get they've tried a PA and it failed. That th that they think they can't get the leverage. They're poor managers and they haven't broken the task down properly and could be a poor recruitment decision or there was no processes there at all and they go backward because they think it's just too hard. Nob no one does it as good as me and that becomes the challenge in itself. Michael take us into a million plus what are you seeing here?
SPEAKER_01:So what am I seeing a million plus so what I'm seeing is all of those problems magnified because now you've got more people in your team to be a million plus so typically to typically I'll find a million plus there'd be three of you if you count yourself. Sometimes they're bigger than that. And when I say a million plus we're trying to be broad here because you know you could be at four million right they have the same challenges and and these are not the challenges of like I wrote a million once and I dropped back down to 700 grand because that happens right so what it is a million plus is that they've now got the churn of staff becomes a factor. So they've had someone who is in administration who was really good. Yeah I think you used to call them Sally I think years ago everyone talks about Sally everyone's had a Sally. Yeah and they become the benchmark of how the admin was done and if your system isn't perfectly documented into process Sally had bridged a lot of gaps. So then Sally Lees went on with something better whatever it might be then in comes the new admin assistant who doesn't know where all the bridges are because they were the IP that left the building with Sally right so what you find is that when you're running a bigger team is and it doesn't matter if it's admin or sales you then have more people right so now you've got one or two people helping you selling yeah so then what are they learning about? How good are they caught how good are their core skills? Have they got their activity during the week locked off or are they just running around in one big mess? And you'll find that a lot of teams that are writing good volume actually do have too many people in there. I was coaching last week where when I compared the performance to what they had in their team I said like you're at least one arguably two people too many. Why is that and the reason that is is because then if they're not sure about a team member they'll have someone spare in case because on the bench on the bench and what they do is because they know that when someone goes they go backwards and then they've got to make okay what do I do now? I've got to find someone else so so what you find is that being sometimes and I'll say poor management because I think a lot of real estate agents who are selling never signed up to be the manager. Yeah they want to be a salesperson but what happens in these teams is they're managing and and sometimes the teams are almost like the franchise office of 15 or 20 years ago like they've got a big team writing all the business um and then what they really are is a is a is is a principle without property management. Yeah really is what they are so what I find in that million plus is getting if so if I look at it Lee um tenure so a lot of agents who go through the stratosphere in GCI usually have strong tenure from their people yeah um if you turn over people all the time you always go backwards yeah so tenure is important. Why do people stay are they a great leader? Is does the agent have the assistants or the sales associate's future in mind and they feel that yeah like you know if someone cares about where you're going. If you're treating them like a laborer then they're just using you to get skills and go somewhere else. So I often say to say to agents I say so what is the progression plan for that person in your team now here's another cracker lee is if you hire someone who wants to be you yeah then they're very attracted to that person because they want to be them and they maybe they do are great with call sessions getting them the door but what happens when they start listing do they then start taking your clients so what you've got to look at is and this we talked about poor recruitment decisions when you hire people and you lay out the plan and this happens for they need to do this as a team if we lay out the plan of what we want them to go that might be that they land in a patch next door to yours. Yeah but you've got to have that there so as they learn as they grow as they add to your productivity they won't stay there forever they've got to grow right so you've got to have a plan to grow. Now if your business is such that maybe what you need is maybe your growth plan might be to for them not to grow. Yeah?
Lee Woodward:Or that they're suited in that lane and you know some of the most successful teams I've ever seen is when an agent came to the understanding they're not the greatest lister and hunter but they get testimonial for buyer management, vendor management they love going to the building and pest reports they love people and they land themselves in the right team and they are so powerful. But as a a solo standalone agent it was just too up and down and I've seen that right blend right lane person come in and it's magical and I agree with you someone trying to be you and then move on and they've got two hundred of your established clients because they met them at the opens and did the settlements and so forth that's a reality. People say how do you avoid that you can't you can't present and promote someone and they they evaporate because the rules were it was your client. People buy a people and Michael if you're the listener and I'm I'm the buyer's agent and I've just sold 20 houses they didn't even meet you and they don't even know you exist because I showed them through the property. Now you found the property but I sold it to them. Well then that relationship has transitioned and unless it's a team based business where it's explained that way people just think that's the agent I bought it off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah and Lee as well like just on the um I want to be you scenario right so it all comes down to how you set it at the start. So if you're recruiting so let's say for argument's sake that I'm the number one agent in Hornsby Sydney it's in a suburban Sydney. So I'm the number one agent in Hornsby when I recruit an associate that I think wants to be me because you want the productivity then you can lay out the plans th for them to be number one next door. And if if it's from the start what you're doing is channeling them into that as opposed to thinking they're just going to be your assistant for the next ten years. Because they're probably not going to be if they're any good. Right?
Lee Woodward:Now Michael as people listen to this program they're gonna be thinking wow is there any good side to this? Well when we started this today I said that you know when you go to look at a property you get a beautiful glossy brochure. This is the building report of an agent. We're looking at this journey of what to know, where it goes wrong and that is where you start to make some really good decisions based upon what's not worked from us seeing so many things that have happened and I think this is the time and decision to work out where you are what do you want to do and don't have the same problems that everybody else has had by having some knowledge and doing that study. And if working with others working to to have a team is on your learning menu well this is the time to to give that deep thought. Michael when have you seen it work best and what have you noticed about that?
SPEAKER_01:So what I've noticed that so so I'm just going to use the word team leader just to keep it simple. So um we la last podcast I did with you was on accountability. So what happens is that when people delegate a job they sometimes don't check in to see if it's done which is a form of accountability yeah so they don't do that part and they go I ask them to do stuff all the time and they never do it. Yeah so so accountability is a massive piece in a team and you need to I remember uh Chris Hanley um when I first started working in real estate I remember saying to Chris how do you keep people accountable and he said well I SMS him in the you know early in the morning I think you'll remember the program which you you built with Chris and the thing is that he did that for people that are very capable, very motivated because they need that accountability. Yeah? Yeah exactly but what I find is that some agents believe it's just going to happen. I'm like they should just do that. That's their job. Well no they need the accountability because if you don't check if it's done sometimes people then go on to the next thing because you didn't check that one or she didn't check that one.
Lee Woodward:So it's kind of like that's a that's a human thing that happens eh so when it's working well what's the sweet spot and why does work so well?
SPEAKER_01:I think when it works well is you have good tenure, good understanding of each other. Sometimes it's financial so sometimes they're making great money and I said to an agent not that long ago, I said did you ever think you'd be earning this kind of money doing this and he he said no. And that's the reality so sometimes if our team is that finally all machine that you're talking about and everyone's making money and there's the right mechanism for commission or profit share then what happens is that they're earning great money they're very stable yeah you keep that tenure but culturally a good leader is consistent yeah that so they're consistent and you know me and my leadership style very consistent personality type don't get too excited don't yell don't scream yeah so what you find is that I find that agents that get better at that part of it so they're much more consistent career people in mind that that's the sweet spot. Not a perfect science again but that's what I've found when there's been long tenure because let's face it we want we want someone if we're going to work With someone. So say by nature we're gonna we're gonna stay in a team, 'cause a lot of people who are in teams stay in teams, because that's their nature, that's their nature as a person. We want to know that our team leader has has got our interests at heart, yeah.
Lee Woodward:Couldn't agree more, and Michael, we've shared a lot of information through these stages. Let's just do an executive summary wrap-up here of what people need to understand, especially in the area of discipline and accountability, which we've talked about as people need to break down all the tasks and have that business maturity of this is how we sell a home. I think that is all collective and together. What else do you see?
SPEAKER_01:So what I see, Lee, is that definitely on the discipline side you talked about you've got to be prepared to do the work, but more importantly, you've got to actually know what priority to do things in, because you can get really busy not doing much, right? Th the the other thing is that have you got your prospecting plan sorted out? Have you got your tasking from that prospecting plan sorted out? Have you sorted out your marketing plan and the task for that? Have you got your weekly commitments sorted and do you revisit those when you do your team meeting on a Monday morning or when you do a Monday review? I mentioned priority management before, it is important to understand that. So I'm not a massive believer in time management, I'm a believer in priority management. What is the most important thing I need to be doing right now? Hopefully there's not so many of them you can't get it done. If you do, then you need leverage. Yeah. We talked about VAs. Simple method for a VA is system. Just you need a system because you'll have a VA for about twenty-four hours otherwise. Growth pathways, we talked about that. For your if you are going to run an agent team, you are the manager. You've got to have a growth pathway for your people. They need to be connected to that.
Lee Woodward:And Michael, just on this VA situation for the virtual assistants, I was over in the Philippines doing a study tour, and I had fifteen, twenty principals following us round uh in the buildings where we had the VAs, and a couple of them were on their phone. And one of the principals said, Oh look, they're on the phone. I said, They finished all their work by ten thirty and there's nothing left for them to do because the company doesn't realise how fast, how efficient these people are. They'd love to be tasking right now, but what was taking people two, three days, when you work uninterrupted, you fly through it. And the Australian thinking is way slower than a VA. So they would love more work, but the company didn't realise their capacity.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's a massive potential productivity, isn't it? So if you've got everything sorted, how much more can they be doing, especially on the stuff that you just never get to?
Lee Woodward:Default activities. Is every established client on a price update? Is every established client still living in the same house? You know, there's so many things that we never do in in Australia because oh we'd never get time to just sit on RP data checking out to see if they're still there. A VA can do that as a default and say we checked 335 established clients today. We only have 400 to go, and every one of your established clients is up to date and on a price update. Welcome to first grade. And you know, the investment in that is a fraction because the production outweighs it. Michael, what else is in this executive summary?
SPEAKER_01:So, Lee, the final piece is really back in the coaching realm of what is it you're trying to actually do? Because I think what happens is agents and especially agent teams, they need to design the kind of business they actually want. Yeah, so maybe you're a lead agent that works really well with one or two assistants at a junior level. Yeah. And maybe your their progression would be inside the business in another role. Yeah, but know that that's the case. So for me, it's about if you know what you want and that's the type of business you want, yeah, because I quit when I coach agents, I'm always I spend a lot of time in designing the business they want because they don't give it enough thought most of the time. So it's that's like the session. So we go in there and we look at exactly what they want because I say to agents, do you want that kind of business? Yeah, and they go, No. Okay, so let's build one you want. So what do I want my systems to do? Do I want to have other agents in my team listing and selling? You know, am I trying to get time back? Am I trying to make more money? What am I trying to leverage? So a lot of this comes back to coaching with teams is really don't kind of go with the flow, be very clear about what you want so we can build a plan.
Lee Woodward:Couldn't agree more there, and so many people photocopy somebody else's idea or plan, but that you got no guarantee that that person knew what they were doing. I say that in pay structures all the time where someone's on a percentage of per sale, but they never worked out the break-even point of the effective business unit, which means everyone's being mispaid, overpaid, and there's nothing left for for the agent, and they say I've had enough, I'm out. You were better off when you were by yourself, but it wasn't that the people didn't do the work, you paid them incorrectly. You gave them a percentage of every sale. Well, that's where I got the plan from the other person. Well, they've got the same problem as well. So check out these things, and you know, the fact you even listen to this audio today is absolutely fantastic because this is a different audio. This isn't a pump me up, the world's gonna be great, blue sky. It's like these are the things you need to give consideration to and the biggest go-wrongs. So you can actually go through something like this and go, ooh, listen to that, listen to that. But learn from that. This is the reality of what goes on, and not everything is as it seems.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, definitely the case, Lee, but um I've really enjoyed what we've been through today. I think that um we've given some great information, and I think it's something where by understanding the go-wrongs, you can build a bit of better business for yourself.
Lee Woodward:Couldn't agree more. Mr. Michael Murray, thank you for joining us. For any of our listeners that need to get hold of you, where do they get hold of you?
SPEAKER_01:They can either find me on mmhighperformancecoach.com.au or I don't mind if they just call me, Lee, 0432-284-894. And I'm about to launch my own podcast, which is very much just sharing the ideas that I talk to many in one on one sessions, but I just think that I would love to be able to share that with more people.
Lee Woodward:So make sure you ring through, get onto the podcast. But Michael Murray, thank you for joining us.