We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

183 - Building the Bench: Caleb Venneri Team Success Story

• Lee Woodward

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Caleb Venneri of Barry Plant Moonee Valley shares how he built a successful real estate team that closes 130-140 sales annually at just 25 years old. His journey from teenage flyer dropper to leading a high-performing team demonstrates how structure, strategy and the right business model can create exponential growth.

• Started in real estate helping at his father's Barry Plant office as a teenager before joining Moonee Valley at 18
• Now leads a team of two managing agents who each handle complete campaigns rather than specialising in specific roles
• Focuses on dominating specific suburbs rather than spreading efforts too thin - currently ranked #1 in five suburbs
• Maintains 18-25 active listings with 40-50 additional properties in the pipeline awaiting vacant possession
• Begins every campaign with a strategic off-portal period before hitting major platforms
• Added first team member when earning $490K, which doubled his income to $1M the following year
• Leverages the Barry Plant brand power to overcome age concerns and provide network advantages
• Conducts 3-4 appraisals daily, focusing only on hot leads where he can perform at his absolute best
• Uses a structured agenda during listing presentations to guide conversations and address client priorities
• Future goals include increasing quality and value of deals while developing team members toward their individual targets

If you're considering scaling your real estate business, remember you can only do a certain amount in any given day. Without leverage and focusing specifically on dollar-productive tasks, you'll struggle to reach that next level.




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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, your coach and host, and the author of the Complete Salesperson Course. Over the last 12 months, I've been the appointed training partner for Barry Plant in Victoria and recently we had a private Complete Salesperson Course where 265 of their agents and leaders attended the two days. The Barry Plant Group, led by Lisa Pannell, who also appeared on this podcast, are developing some incredible young talent and as part of my work for the group and the leaders, I've been building the bench to field training program for anyone joining the company, and customised internal training is making such an impact on our young professionals coming through as they learn the real estate sequence, the business framework, the tools of trade and the visuals they need to succeed. And today's podcast is about structure and strategy and building a winning team. Joining us now on the program is one of our feature agents, caleb Venneri. Caleb, welcome aboard. Thanks, lee. A pleasure to be here. Mate, take us through your story. How long have you been in the group?

Speaker 2:

So I've been in the group it's a bit of a technical one because in the Moonee Valley branch which is under Bill Karp, there I've been about six, going on seven years, which, essentially fresh from 18, after school, moved here and that was the first job. But before that my old band, tense Veneri, actually runs a Barry Plant Mildura office. So as far as I can remember I've been a part of the Barry Plant group essentially Probably 14, 15, I reckon I was leather box dropping the whole lot, starting to do opens with me, old man. So yeah, quite a while now in that whole sort of complex term, if you look at it that way.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely brilliant start. We'll jump straight into the future, where we are today. Where are you now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm still at Barry Plain, moonee Valley with Billy there. So, six years in, I've now got a team of two, which is great Olivia and Harry that are working with me currently. I mean, we're just absolutely enjoying it. We're doing a lot of movement in the area. We're hovering at sort of the 130 to 140 sales at the moment, which is good, so plenty of energy around, but yeah, 130 to 140 sales is internationally world class.

Speaker 1:

And just for our validation of recording, how old are you today? I'm 25. 25 years of age, 120, 130 sales a year. Let's take you through the main sequence.

Speaker 2:

Lead generation. What are you doing? I've broken it down to a few components, necessarily because it's evolved, of course. So as we've sold more and more, it's become a lot more attraction. So my Ignite is one thing that I always talk about realestatecom leads. They're absolutely prospering and we've made that a big target because we've noticed, especially in our market specifically, people are really following leading agents in the area. People are doing their own research and going straight to realestatecom.

Speaker 2:

So, for example, olivia, we've really targeted the suburb to get to number one rather than just spreading across everything. Get to number one somewhere quick and we find that that really helps our lead generation. Probably three, four, x. So we've had a real big focus on that and we're currently number one in about five suburbs, which is good. So that's really helped. Aside from that, all the basics, of course. So from our opens and just really squeezing as much as we can from each listing and again, a lot of what we do I'd say probably 60 to 70% is in the unit market as well. So when we're doing one deal, there's always that opportunity for multiple to come out of that, just based on having the block itself. So just prospecting through each listing is a really big one for us because we have the volume now. So they're probably the two main sources, aside from your database and whatnot and the structure that we run there.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely fantastic. And, caleb, those results don't just happen. There's a lot of time and effort, a lot of structure and strategy to make that happen. And I just love how you just said we don't want to go too wide. We want to have that focus on that lane Stock on hand. How many are you carrying at any given time?

Speaker 2:

Typically 18 to 25 is that sweet spot. Once we go 25 to 35, which we've been before we start to test the boundaries of what we do and that's where we sort of move our structure around, depending. But we typically hover, like right now we're at about 20 to 22 online, which is good, and then across the board, as I said, because we're a lot in the unit market, there's a lot of tenancies, so at any given time we've probably got 40 to 50 listings as per se just waiting on okay, vacant dates, et cetera. So, just moving those things along, we start every campaign with an off-market one week period, or off-portal, as I should say. Actually Very good.

Speaker 1:

We fixed my language there mate.

Speaker 2:

So we have a lot pipelined as per se and we just get authorities is, even if they're two, three, four months away, I'll get the authority just to secure that.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting that, working that off-portal market, people think, okay, what's the point of doing that? Well, the owner gets to see your sweat. You can find out the buyer engagement level, one sale generating another, is such a big reason why the brand has done so well. Just out of interest for our listeners and for anyone considering the group, which is always a big part of a decision-making process, how many appraisals are you doing a week for you to keep that sort of volume coming through?

Speaker 2:

Again because it's split across three of us. So Harry and Olivia will do their own as well and we sort of count that all together. But me myself I'll stick to three to four a day. But I'll really stick to the core appraisals that are hot, essentially, and ready to go the assessments where they are looking to list or I know that's coming very, very soon and I'll stick to sort of three to four a day is where I find I'm at my absolute A game. And then, aside from that, if there's anything on the side, again Harry and Olivia can help with CMAs, just general price updates et cetera.

Speaker 1:

But that's my sweet spot to be honest with you, that's a tremendous number. The effective business unit model is very big. At Barry Plant, many of the great teams that have cracked the million dollar market doing that. What attracted you to the EBU model?

Speaker 2:

Look, I was heavily guided by our director, bill Karp, who's one of the best. A legend, exactly right, absolute legend. So it came about where it was probably year two, I should say, where we got to about 490. Well, I got to about 490 and then he encouraged it more than anything because I didn't know if I was ready for it or not. And he goes look, mate, the only way that you're going to really get to this next step is if you leverage. And that's where we got our first leverage, aging on. And from there the next year we did a million. So it doubled, essentially, and that's where I saw the value. And then we put on another one and it's just continued to grow because we know where tasks can go, what will be appropriate, where it will free me up and what else I can then do. So just the equation just works every time.

Speaker 1:

Now, the Barry Plant brand is very powerful in the area where you work and we're seeing that right across the Victorian marketplace For a young agent coming through. What's that great connection with such a powerful brand and being a modern agent like yourself?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, actually it helped me along the way significantly work for a big, powerful brand, because age is a factor. The reality is that does come up in a lot of appraisals still, even though we've got the runs on the board now. But having the backing of the network is just incredible. It works every time because I'll go to how many offices we have and all the experience within the office specifically, within the network specifically, and I just find that there's a very low chance where if we're competing against anyone that's smaller boutique, wherever it may be, that we lose against that because we can bring it up in such a way where you would not want your agent not to have access, I should say, to that type of network and that just brings a professional backing that you just can't compete with. So I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting, isn't it? An owner has a choice to have a network or not a network, but if you're not a network, you don't have the choice to be a network. That's exactly right. Yeah, all guns blazing is the marketing program there. In doing the complete salesperson course with the group, 265 agents turned up. But the collaboration between everyone in the different offices and each of you can train and spar differently against each other because of different skills, exactly.

Speaker 2:

I agree, and it's just awesome. It's like in our office just in Moonee Valley, as I say, we've got such a variety of agents and different people that we can bounce off, which just helps again because even your market presence is super strong. So I'll get listings on the back of one of my other colleagues' listings just because the barrier plan is selling everything.

Speaker 1:

They don't actually go to an agent. Does that make sense? It's gross from that perspective. Take us into the lead conversion, the listing conversation. You've done a lot of work on this, building your agenda. What have you formulated as that best? Barry Plant conversation for Caleb.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I mean the agenda has been awesome for me because I love structure. It helps me follow a structure, but, more importantly, it helps me get off the points that I think you need to in an appraisal to show you a difference necessarily. Otherwise it can come across where you may miss certain points and forget about certain points. That's the reality of it. Alternatively, you may push the point before they've necessarily brought it up. So a lot of that agenda the basis of that is to reverse engineer and get them to bring it up, rather than myself, if that makes sense, and that's why I've really loved using that Because, as I say, you can bring in your differences.

Speaker 2:

There's a range of differences with myself, Barry Plant, but it has to be important to the owner. So there will be some times where maybe we don't bring up the network because that's not important to them. However, what is important to them is a structure of your team or the sale down the road or the listing you currently have. That, then, will allow me to pivot, but the agenda helps me bring out. Okay, lee, what do you think is important to have the difference? Or do you think that if you went with Barry Plant now, or agent X, y and Z. Would there be a difference in the end result? Do you believe that? And if they say yes, if they say no, that takes me into why do you think that? And they will naturally bring it up and I can work them into. Do you think buyers are important? Do you think exposure, okay, yeah, okay, so network is important to you, so we can reverse it back. But that's why I love the agenda. It just keeps me on track.

Speaker 1:

Very, very high end skills in presenting there, breaking it up into those stages. Do you use any visuals in the presentation?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so visuals by way of case studies? Yes, of course Visual by way of.

Speaker 1:

I know the group's looking at a listing leave behind for the future, which would be that executive summary of what you're saying now.

Speaker 2:

Which is amazing, and even the. We're actually working on the one that you mentioned about the brochure, essentially for the campaigns. That is extremely detailed, end to end, so we're working on those as well, bringing those in. Of course, we leave behind lots of visuals by way of the team, the network on the map, all those bits and pieces to really just help the conversation go.

Speaker 1:

Now client fulfillment is the third part of anyone's business. So lead generation, lead conversion, client fulfillment when it comes to a brand and platform. You've got that nailed and that's supporting and working with you so well In this delivery of service. A lot of agents, as you experienced in that early days, there's only so many you can carry In an effective business unit. You're dispersing and using the leverage agents to do that.

Speaker 2:

Take us through what the other two team members do Of course, yeah, and that helps dramatically, by the way, your contact points to the owner to make them feel like they're informed all the way through. Where it could be something small, we run our EBU as if they're managing agents, rather than having an admin only and a buyer agent only. I tried that for us. Look, it personally didn't work. Just because they wanted to evolve quicker. The admin didn't want to just be admin. It's hard to fill. That position is what I found.

Speaker 2:

So we run them as managing agents. So I'll list one and say, okay, yep, that suits Liv perfectly, you're going to manage this campaign. So then she'll do all the admin and she'll do all the buyer follow-up and those type of things. Touch points to the owner will then be boards, photos, bookings, marketing, payment. All those type of things is their follow-up, booking, the opens, and then, if they're at the open, I'll then follow in with the follow-up, the negotiation, the feedback. So along the journey there's significantly more touch points than what I could obviously handle, and that's pretty much how we run it, because it helps me with my listing presentation as well. When other agents say that we've got team members and try to work, that against us is it's not a PA, they're a colleague and they're exceptionally well-fitted, perfectly for your campaign. Because Liv has just ran this one, this one and this one, I found it best to keep them in their categories, hence why she's got a suburb, harry's got his suburb and then we go from there.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. So when we look into the future now, caleb, what's on your focus list? Like I'm here at the Barry Plant headquarters today, we're in the training room. There's so many things going on with head office and the next things, with technology and the websites and the lead behinds and the knowledge documents. There's a lot going on, but we bring that straight back down to agent level. Where do you see your focus? What are you passionate about for the future?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, of course. So the passion really comes in the team, to be honest, where, ever since we've really nailed and focused on those suburbs, harry and Olivia specifically are growing so much quicker and that's just helped the whole team or pod grow significantly better. So our target's 2 million and if they can get to their 200, 250 each and put that in perspective, we're treating them like their own agent, if that makes sense. Given me a lot of fulfillment as well to see them grow. Putting them first on these ads and seeing how they can then develop and get their own lead conversion and then see them leave. Of course but that's been probably one of my biggest ones is not for me necessarily to dramatically increase. I want to increase in other areas. I want to increase the fees rather than just the amount of deals, if that makes sense, get more quality as per se, while then increasing their skillset to pile that all together. So the aim at the end of the day is, yes, to go higher in GCI, but in a healthy way that supports everyone.

Speaker 1:

And Caleb, remuneration is flexible in the way of the standard agent package is out there for a solo agent coming through. But then the effective business units, they've got that opportunity of the incentive for their own staff members. And then we've even got situations where people are like on a sponsorship within a business, meaning they're coming through the ranks. They might be supplied to some of the agents for a period of that time for training. But I love the Barry Plant way is the flexibility and then the essential services that you're receiving back are first class 100% yeah.

Speaker 2:

Which is? They just help you grow in so many different ways, which is amazing.

Speaker 1:

Now with the marketing department. They're coming up to speak to me shortly. It's just amazing that you guys have that resource, that I want to get this booklet done. I want to get that done.

Speaker 2:

You're not going out trying to find designers, it's all in-house 100% Saves so much more time than what you could possibly imagine. Having quality as well and not like it's just anything average, it's absolute, first-class stuff that's delivered to you no matter when you need need it, brochure design, so many things that we've adjusted per campaign even to have that access there where it doesn't slow anything else down. Top tier.

Speaker 1:

So the effective business unit. You're definitely mastering that part of it. What's another real estate goal for you for the future?

Speaker 2:

It's an interesting one because, as you say, we always bring it down to that simple aspect of doing more. Doing more but again doing more effectively. Changing potential markets, so slowly increasing into different types of properties or bigger developments even, as I say, because we're in a lot of the unit market, getting complete apartment buildings and things like this has always been on the horizon or agenda to get that next level of clientele specifically as well, which again can then just elevate it completely. But aside from that, as I say, just continuing to grow a team within a team is the biggest one. Continuing to do more at the end of the day, but doing more effectively. And I'm very big on tech, so I love all the aspects of tech that are coming through and I love implementing that as best I can. So anything that changes or comes our way, we completely embrace it because I know just how helpful it can be.

Speaker 1:

Carl, a final question for you, and this is for our agents, who are a solo agent and have never really looked at effective business unit or team-based structure as an option. What would be your advice of why it was such a game changer for yourself? Because you're doing well, but having that leap of faith and going to an effective business unit, what would be your advice?

Speaker 2:

Everyone is individual in the way of their business, but you just have to break it down. It's not rocket science, it's quite simply you can only do a certain amount at any given time or any given day, no matter how effective you are, and that's only going to get you to a point. That is the absolute reality. Yes, you can potentially increase your fees, but how far can that go? Until you get leverage and only focus on prioritizing specific tasks, so you don't want to do any of your admin necessarily. Your building inspections, your final inspections and once you realize how much time you're spending on those items, you'll realize how much more effective you can be and just how quickly your business can quite literally double, Because there's one thing about putting someone on, but putting someone on and actually effectively training them to be something that's very similar to you so you can run it a bit of a clone.

Speaker 2:

I like to say that there's three of me, if that makes sense, or three of us just a clone, and they're not just doing non-dollar productive tasks. You can't just think one way. In my personal opinion, you need them to also generate you another income stream or another lead stream, while also giving you more time, and I just don't think you will be able to get to that next level if you're hoping to as an agent without having leverage and focusing on specifically dollar focus tasks.

Speaker 1:

Caleb Vanirie an absolute brilliant interview. Thank you for joining us and sharing your story.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much, lee, appreciate it.