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
Don't Become A Sales Prevention Officer - Justin Nickerson
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The vibe on the ground has shifted, and you can feel it at the auction. Buyers are showing up with more caution, sellers are clinging to yesterday’s numbers, and agents are getting squeezed in the middle. I’m joined by auctioneer Justin Nicholson, fresh off a run of auctions, to share what’s actually happening right now, and what to do about it before you miss the market.
We get practical fast: how to open the listing conversation with integrity, how to uncover a seller’s real motivation, and why “testing the market” is a dangerous plan when buyers can smell uncertainty. Justin and I break down a proactive vendor management approach that keeps pricing realistic without burning trust, including a simple weekly structure around three numbers: buyer engagement, the seller’s expectation, and our honest view of where it will sell today.
We also dig into campaign communication that creates certainty: pre-booked progress meetings, a tight reporting cadence, and quick executive summary voice notes so no one can say “I didn’t know”. On the auction side, we explain the snapshot intel an auctioneer needs to build a strategy and why a neutral, fee-for-service voice can help vendors make clearer decisions. The thread that ties it together is courage: making the hard call early, speaking plainly, and leading with empathy while still protecting the outcome.
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Welcome And Sponsor Message
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name is Lee Woodward, your coach and host, and the author of the Complete Sales Person Course. Today's program is brought to you by the Agency Portal, Australia's first listed to settle execution platform. This incredible digital platform allows us to use Agency Sign, Agency AML, the sale funding process, commission funder, agency supplier pay, and agency settlements. Agency Settlements is the Pixar partner that allows the real estate digital transaction to exist. Let's get started with today's podcast.
Auction Day Results And Market Mood
SPEAKER_00Joining us now on the podcast, live from the market, even driving back from an auction as we speak, is Mr. Justin Nicholson. Justin, welcome back to the program. Great to be back on, Lee. Now you've just finished your auctions for the day. What did we have?
SPEAKER_01Yes, we had an interim event of 13 auctions today, six selling uh out of 13, uh, which is probably a pretty fair summation of the market at the moment. But we're experiencing some bidders that were present. There were some sellers that probably needed to adjust their expectations. Some did and resulted in transactions. Some chose not to accept what was in front of them, and those didn't transact, obviously. So yeah, it's it's been an interesting market. I always come back to the saying that things are never as good or as bad as you think they are. Our market isn't terrible by any stretch, but unquestionably, there's just more hesitation present across all parties than there might have been two or three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I can tell you from a consumer perspective, I was out of the market, but a couple of emails have come my way with some good quality adjustments that I think, oh, hang on a minute, I could be back in the market. I think there's a bit of a lesson there straight away for everyone. And Justin, that's what I want to do today is quick, short, sharp tips that you feel can help in the marketplace to get the agent to think different and shift. And you've got to shift now. If you think it's going to change, it it'll come back, you'll miss the market. One of those moments, and as I just explained, you can bring so many buyers back into the market that stop looking when it was hot, thinking it's just too hard and I didn't really need it anyway. But now you're talking that price and there's not as many people going for it, it's not that hard to get people back re-engaged.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think people keep saying, you know, the
Proactivity Beats Reactivity Now
SPEAKER_01market's changing, the market's changing. Well, I think unquestionably it's changed. It's a past tense now, not a present tense. And if it's if it's changed, your your behavior needs to change too. Like you can't be in the process of changing, you need to make that change. I think one of the biggest lessons we're talking about a lot in the training that we're doing in the conversations at the moment is this is a market that rewards proactivity and punishes reactivity. So if you're an agent, you're probably going to have to have a direct conversation with your seller multiple times throughout the campaign in terms of delivering where the market sees it as opposed to where their expectations might be. And the really good agents we work with are proactive in that conversation. They're doing it really from day one. They're having campaign strategy meetings. They're talking about the fact that their best offer is likely to come early because that buyer's in the market. They know what they're looking for, they've missed out on something else. Offers don't always go up. I'm explaining the risk of conditional contracts, particularly subject to sales at the moment. And the really good agents are having those conversations proactively before they happen. The agents that are going to struggle are the ones that are going to allow things to happen and then try and reverse explain it's their owner once it's already happened to them. So I think as an overall philosophy, proactivity is one as an agent you want to adopt. And then inside of that, there's a whole lot of things around how often you communicate, when you communicate, do you do campaign strategy meetings? How do you handle how do you handle the price question and appraisal? Are you getting offers in the right format and presenting them the correct way? All those kinds of things dovetail into it as well.
SPEAKER_00Couldn't agree more. So let's just take this right back to the beginning of the sequence. And
The Listing Question That Finds Truth
SPEAKER_00you're there at the listing conversation. A question that I'm asking the agents to ask the owners right now is a set the scene question. So if it was yourself, Justin, and you're selling a property, and I say to you, Justin, knowing everything you know now about the current marketplace and everything going on in the world, can I ask you what's got you interested in bringing the property to the market right now? And just that question gets to the truth of an agent not saying, Oh no, nothing's changed, everything's good, everything's great. You know, you can't start that way. You've got to start with the integrity of, may I ask you, with everything you know about the market right now, across all agents and what's going on in the world, why have you chosen now to bring the property to the market? What's important for you at this time?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I 100% agree, Lee. 100% agree. I'm a big believer that you can't make a sale of a listing table, but you can lose one. We had a situation two weeks ago where we had an auction that was really popular with 14 registered bidders. The owner decided to pass it in because the price didn't match the agent's appraisal. Now, in that agent's defense, they'd appraised it a fair way back pre, you know, fuel price hike, pre-interest rate hike, pre-budget, you know, all these kinds of things. So they're not really to be blamed at that instance. But I think that's a great question, Lee, because if they say, oh, we just want to test the market, well, you're almost going to say, look, it's not a market that you test because the test is going to be one that you're going to be disappointed in the results in. So why would you take the property to market now if you want to test the market? You know, there's there's clearly underlying motivation if you're taking a property to market right now, and that's kind of where you want to start from. Rather than I think you're right, if you go in and say, Oh, no, don't believe what you're reading, the market's amazing. They're going to have the root shock and it's probably going to upset, you know, the relationship at some point in time, which will probably prevent the transaction from happening.
SPEAKER_00This is so good. So we've set that scene, and now we've got to discuss with the owner the pricing of the property. And one thing that I'm teaching at the complete salesperson, what's so good that you spoke at the complete salesperson course early this year for us. And wow, when I look at when you spoke then to where we are now, what a world. If only we knew what we knew then, Lee, right? Yeah, it's amazing. For a lot of agents who haven't seen this current situation, this is your chance to master this game. This is your chance to learn the other set of skills that are required to be a career-based agent. And it's actually a very exciting time to learn a different set of skills. And one of those things that I think is important in pricing right now is a discussion because they can't leave it to the last minute for you to try and fix it up, Justin. It's gotta, it's gotta start at day
Three Numbers To Revisit Weekly
SPEAKER_00one. The layering effect of these conversations is so important. And one of those in the set to sell meeting is to say, Justin, as we progress through our weeks on the marketplace and we're getting that response from the purchasing community, I would like your consent to discuss three numbers with you each week. The first number is going to be the buyer engagement level, which is where buyers are interested and when they're not. And no matter what home is being sold in the world, from 200,000 to 200 million, there is a price when people are interested and not. And I want to be able to discuss that number. The second number is your expectation. I know when I had my property on the market, I had an expectation when I started. It changed in week two and then definitely changed in week three. And just you and I being on the same page with that is important because I want to meet your expectations. And then the third number, Justin, which is the hardest number, is I want to let you know where I think it's gonna sell. If we were going to auction today, what the reserve would be, or you may say to me, Lee, what's gonna pull it up? And I want to tell you that number based on being on the ground all the time doing that. Justin, am I okay to work with you like that, or do you not want me to have these conversations with you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's spot on, mate. It's spot on. And that's again an example of a proactive conversation as opposed to either not talking numbers at all, which is dangerous, or not explaining what you're doing and then trying to hammer them on numbers after, and then it creates uh, again,
Give Buyers Certainty Or Lose Them
SPEAKER_01tension in the relationship in that manner. And I just think on that note, and something we're drilling home at the moment, is when you choose method of sale and you look at how you present a property, in a marketplace that is uncertain, you need to give the buyer certainty. And certainty comes in two forms. It either comes on with a price they can buy the property for, so there's a price on the property, or it comes on certainty on a day the property will be sold, which is traditionally an auction or maybe a best offers buy. In a marketplace that is uncertainty, uncertainty is rife, I should say, unquestionably, the worst method of sale is one that have has neither of those things. Because if you're not giving the buyer the price they can buy it for, and you're not giving a buyer the price the day that the seller will sell it, the seller looks like they are testing the market. And in this marketplace, buyers will refuse to deal with an unmotivated seller.
SPEAKER_00I agree with that. And as an agent, you don't want to become a sales prevention officer.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's one of my favorite terms that usually it's spot on. We're there to create transactions, not prevent them.
SPEAKER_00I love what you just brought into the conversation there. Saying to your seller, just to let you know what's going on in the market that has changed, and people saying, Oh, is the market changing? It's changed. So you're coming into a change market, that's okay, everybody else is. However, the buyers or the purchasing community are very sensitive to are these people going to muck me around or not? And we've seen people who should have bought a property didn't, due to the attitude and response that they got back from the owner. Had nothing to do with the house, it was how they felt about putting that offer forward. It took so long, they didn't get the response, and they moved on to something else and got a different sale. We're in a very different scenario now that our immediacy to the purchaser is very important. They don't want to be mucked around, they will just buy something else, and you don't want to be selling your home to someone who would have bought it for 20,000 more to the person you let go. And I just thought I'd share that with you early before we hit the the marketplace and get caught off guard because we didn't have that up to date. And that's got nothing to do with your house right now. I'm talking about all the other houses we've been representing, but some great sales have been not done because of how the buyer felt in the transaction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and buyers aren't backwards incoming forward at the moment, telling you they are holding the whip hand. Um, I think the buyers have felt like they've been on the back foot for a long period of time and now that they're on the front foot, they're waving a big stick around and letting you know. You know, we've had we've had conversations the last couple of days where we've we've been to auctions across the weekend and buyers being told that no, you can't register in someone else's name or you can't register in the name of a trust that hasn't been set up yet, so on and so forth. And their response is, oh, that's fine, I just won't buy it then. So like they they feel like they're almost doing you a favor by being there and registering on the property. So yeah, as a seller, you cannot be a reason that the property doesn't sell. The buyer's gonna look for reasons anyway, and there's gonna be enough reasons they're gonna find at the market, you don't want to be the reason. They're not gonna buy your property as well. You know, don't don't think that being motivated as a seller, because a lot of sellers will say to us, I don't want to appear motivated or I don't want to appear desperate. You say, look, we're not gonna make you look desperate, but motivation is a superpower, not a weakness. Because motivation is attractive to buyers, and that's our superpower in this market. It's not a weakness, it's an advantage. So let's let's play down that channel.
SPEAKER_00Well, if we ever want an example of that, just run a no reserve auction. You'll you'll you'll see a very different mood in the buyer at that point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've got a hundred percent clearance rate at no reserve auctions, Lee. It's amazing. It's
Progress Meetings, Reports, Voice Notes
SPEAKER_01incredible.
SPEAKER_00Now, the other thing you mentioned before is about the meetings, and a tip for our listener here is ringing an owner and saying I need to come and see you is a dreadful way of doing it, versus beginning of the campaign, have a calendar invite to the progress meetings that are going to be right throughout the campaign so we can make decisions and not miss the market. But they've got to be preset booked calendar meetings, so there's no surprise. Oh, what do you need to pop up for? You know, I don't want to see you today. You've lost all trust if that's the case. These professional progress meetings where decisions are to be made are now the only way to do it. You can't underestimate that situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And it all starts about, you know, from day one. And I think the perfect cadence, Lee, is report goes out, the promise to the seller is the report will be out by Monday in their inbox by Monday, 5 p.m. So they know there's a designated time when the report from the weekend's activities will be in their inbox. And then at the start of the calendar invite is for a progress meeting, campaign progress meeting every Tuesday morning. And the very, very first question in that is, hey, you read the report, what did you think? And what that does is it puts the sellers on notice, they've got to read the report. Because we say to agents, if your sellers aren't reading the report or you're not discussing the contents of the report, well, why don't you save yourself a couple of hours on a Monday and stop doing reports? Because they're not serving a purpose anyway. And if a seller says, um, if we're doing some dialogue role play, if a seller says, oh, well, yeah, we're just a bit busy, you know, across the weekend, we haven't had time to have a read. So look, I totally understand that and and I respect you're really busy. Um, but in a market where buyers are so hot and so cold, my biggest fear is that a buyer will run hot this morning and you won't be ready to make a decision by the time they run cold because you haven't read the report. So it just outlines how important that report is because the report really is the umbilical cord to the market. It feeds them the information from the market, and if they're not getting the information, then how can you ever make a decision?
SPEAKER_00Love this. And there's if you've got the uh I've been busy, I haven't read the report, so you can't spring it on me later. Just grab the report, grab your voice note, and say, hi Justin. Just got the report in front of me now. We've had 675 internet inspections, four interested parties, three with drawn interest. Uh, the lady Robin from Sydney has now purchased a property off Ray White for 50,000 less. And I drove past that property today. You'll see it too. And when you think it's sold, it did go to the person that was looking at your own, just at a different level. I know you don't get time to go through the report, but the key things in this report is, and I look forward to your phone call to discuss the response. And just do an executive summary voice note or message about the report. So there's no way of knowing I didn't know, and there's nothing worse when they drive past the Ray White sign saying, Well, that's sold, mine isn't. It's sold to the person that was interested in yours. And another tip for our listeners: every buyer who buys now, where did you buy? And then if they've been through your one, that's withdrawn interest. And then when you've done that, claim the door, because that's a future door of your own and get them on a price update.
SPEAKER_01Spot on, I have to giggle of all the names in the world to choose Lee, you chose Robin. I wonder why that might have been.
SPEAKER_00She's just on my mind. She's on my mind.
SPEAKER_01Ha ha ha ha. Well played, mate. Well
Auction Day Intel That Shapes Strategy
SPEAKER_01played.
SPEAKER_00Now, Justin, what can the agents do coming up to the auction to assist your role in what you do to do this final collaboration to get a result? Because you could just be five millimeters off and we're going to miss this.
SPEAKER_01Well, in information is power. So it's on the seller's side, you know, why are they selling? What's the reason that they're selling? How in terms of the time frame, is there a particular time frame they've identified they have to sell inside of? And then what offers have been made prior to the auction? Have those offers, are they still present or have they bought elsewhere? Um, so what's our highest live offer that's that's coming in? That's the key information that we kind of need to know that we build strategy from. Sellers in particular, not so much agents, some agents, but mostly sellers, they get it really twisted that they think the key things that we need to know walking into an auction are how many bedrooms does it have, how many bathrooms does it have, what's the land size? You know, that's actually not the important part. We're there to define strategy. And strategy is built around how the campaign has unfolded and what's likely to have it on the day. The attributes of the home are such a minor thing to us because they they form a small part of our description, which is a tiny part of the overall auction. What's more important is us getting the most out of the marketplace on that given day. So the best agents that we work with can give us really clear communication around that. Yeah, look, it's had a really good campaign. We've had 32 people through. Uh, we've had four offers prior. The range of the offers is one, two, five to one three eight. The one three eight has bought elsewhere, so they're no longer present. The highest live offer we have is at 1.3. Sellers uh started the campaign at 1.5. They've set a reserve today at 1.4, but what they've said to us is anything that's above the 135, they want bought to them. All that information, which is a 25-second summary or 35-second summary, gives me really everything that I need to build a strategy around the auction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a snapshot report, isn't it? Right on the day. These are the key factors. Justin, one of the great things you get to do as an auctioneer, and you do this so well, is you are the different voice to the vendor versus the agent who's been speaking to them right throughout the campaign. What's some of the questions or techniques you bring in to bring to the owner's attention how serious this is and the importance of a decision today?
A Different Voice With Wider Data
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the the first thing is we we enter from a different space. So an agent will say something to an owner and an owner will half have a mind of or an eye on the fact that, oh, well, you're probably telling this because you want to get paid your two and a half percent of our purchase price. Whereas when we walk into that space, we're getting paid a fee for service, not a fee for outcome. So that means anything that we say is not tarnished by wanting to further our own interests. And not that agents act selfishly in that regard, but it just removes any thought that the seller's saying, oh, well, Justin's telling us this because Justin wants us to accept it, therefore Justin can get paid. I'm we say openly to sellers all the time, look, whether you decide to sell your property now or you decide to hold on to it, I'm getting paid exactly the same. So I'm here to tell you what I genuinely believe. That's probably the first thing is we come from a different space. I think the second thing is that the agents that I'm working with is probably an absolute expert in their marketplace, in their product type, and in their price point that they frequently sell in. So they know recent sales, comparable sales, they know the buy pool they've been working with, they know everything in that regard. Where we can't compete on that. The agent knows far more than what we do. But what we have is a wider, a wider windscreen to look at. And that windscreen encompasses all price points, all locations, all buyers, which gives us a probably better scope on how market and behavior is transacting, not on a micro level, but on a macro level. So we can walk into sellers, and this happens with polyp buyers all the time. I had a buyer last Saturday that said to me, look, they can accept our offer or not because the market's crashing and nothing's selling. And I said, Well, actually, this is my ninth auction of today. And out of the eight previously, we've already sold five. So the market's actually going pretty well. Oh, well, no, clearance rates are plummeting. I was like, well, we ran an auction business that does more than 8,000 auctions per year across Australia and New Zealand. I can promise you that they're not because we track the data. So I think it gives us a special space to be able to speak in. Again, we can't compete on a local knowledge level, but on a macro level, we've got a pretty good insight there. From a seller's point of view, we can bring those lessons into conversations we have, which can sometimes change perspective a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Very powerful. Final questions for you, Justin. And I love that you've called me on the way from the auctions just being completed. Talk about real estate hot topics in the marketplace without using that original show. But this is right up to date. People need to hear this right now. My final question for you is only an observation. It's not agents' names or brands or anything like that. But what's your observation of the agent who's capable of having that uncomfortable conversation? They may even use that technique of Mr. Mrs. Owner or John and Helen. I have a duty of care to tell you where we are with these numbers right now, and I don't want you coming back to me in two days' time telling me you should have got us to see it. Look at where we are now. We are here right now, and I I have to tell you exactly what we have and what we don't, and my recommendation to you. What's your views on what you get to see of okay, this agent's gonna be okay with this, and for the benefit of the owner, and then those who feel I I don't want to get into that space?
Courage, Hard Calls, Better Outcomes
SPEAKER_01I think Lee, one of the most underrated actions. Of a good agent that I've seen is courage. Because we think about courage being that, you know, um, it's around origin time. I'm a proud Queenslander. Courage is you taking a hit up and getting smashed by a wall of blue, or making 50 tackles in the game, or you've got a head cut, you're taped up and you're battling on. But real estate courage is having the bravery to have conversations when they need to be had. Doing it an empathetic matter and an understanding matter, but saying, okay, I can either let this slide or I can have a conversation with my seller now. And one of the saying, we say in a business and launch, you can't be more honest than honest. So if you're being honest with your seller and you're doing it at the appropriate time, then that is a hallmark of courage because you could have taken an easier part. You chose not to, you've decided to be the courageous path, which is have the conversations that need to be had. So don't leave the conversation that needs to happen today till tomorrow. Don't leave it till this afternoon. Courage is going, that is the hardest phone call of the day, and picking up the phone at 10 past eight and making that phone call.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely love it. And then for those who've been to our course, we have the everything email, which is the executive summary of everything that's happened with that property for them to make that final decision. And that before the auction day is a great little final communication. And Justin, this is a good time for everyone to get their heads right and back in training.
Launch Event Invite And Closing
SPEAKER_00You've got your own event coming up soon. What have you got?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so July 21st, uh, the Brisbane RNA, we've got our launch conference uh this year. So we've got an amazing lineup of speakers, which we're super excited about. Dan Carter, the all black speaking of courage, is going to be probably our our headline non-real estate speaker. Uh, Simon Black is also speaking for the Brisbane line. And there's an absolute uh plethora of real estate um professionals and uh people coming from, I guess, real world experience, um, but also those that can hopefully inspire and uplift others. So really excited about it. Uh, if you haven't grabbed your tickets already, uh please jump through the Apollo Auctions website, grab tickets to launch 2026, and um yeah, it should be a great day. I'm really excited about it.
SPEAKER_00And I'll put that link in our show notes so that people have got it there directly. Justin. Justin, thanks for reporting in as our auctioneer on the ground. I love the right at that wire information and some great tips today. And we loved having you on the program.
SPEAKER_01Anytime, Lee. Hey, go Queensland, by the way.
SPEAKER_00Go Queensland. Okay, mate, take care. Thank you, mate. Cheers.