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
146 - Creating A Successful Real Estate Sales Plan
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In this episode of our podcast, join industry experts Lee Woodward and Danny Grant as they explore the essential elements of creating a successful real estate sales plan. They discuss ten key points that form the foundation of effective audio coaching, designed to help you develop a robust strategy tailored to your unique needs.
Discover the importance of lead generation and plan specific actions for your week to maximise productivity. Lee and Danny highlight the significance of a well-structured marketing plan and the need to focus on your targets to achieve your goals.
Whether you are just starting or looking to refine your current strategy, this episode provides an excellent starting point and serves as a guide to help you get back on track at any time of the year. Get inspired to create a plan that resonates with you rather than simply copying someone else's blueprint. Many agents need more planning or a clear understanding of developing a comprehensive strategy.
You can revisit this audio resource whenever you need motivation and direction. Tune in and take the first step towards transforming your real estate sales approach!
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. This week we're going to be discussing a topic you can do any week. It doesn't matter what time of year, where you are, what you're doing, and there's always a certain time of year that everyone's thinking about their life ahead and what they need to do. So today's topic is having a plan. And when we talk about having a plan, yes, business plan becomes part of it Reviewing what you've done in the past and making those decisions. But if I could do anything for you in today's audio, strip it back, make it simple. So for today's session it's coach to coach. I'm bringing in Mr Danny Grant, the director of coaching for McGrath. I'm bringing in Mr Danny Grant, the director of coaching for McGrath, and now Knight Frank being part of that world. That's come together. Mr Danny Grant, welcome back to the program we are selling. Hi Lee, hello everyone. Now Danny, coach to coach. Today.
Speaker 1:This is not a superstar interview of an agent who just the moons aligned and they wrote 5 million. This is pretend you're in a U-shaped room. We're going to go through 10 key points that people need to know, because we love our 10s in the training world. It makes it 100% compliant of what you could do to put a plan together. And, danny, you've been through this many, many times and both of us have helped thousands of agents get back on track, because everyone comes off track and I don't think people speak about that enough. We might start there before we hop into our points. Danny, in observation of seeing an agent that was going really well comes off track, they get into that lost moment. What's been your observation of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, it's one of those businesses that it's really easy to get distracted in and busy in and forget that you've got so many different you know legs to your business that you have to keep running at the one time. And what I find is that most agents don't run like they're a small business. So you imagine you're a small business and you know you're looking at profit margins. So what have I got to pay in, you know, in rent or a lease, and my employees and what does it cost me to buy that widget? What is my profit on that widget, et cetera.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like just they go on feel you know they might have a great few months and feel really good about it, but forget that the previous three months wasn't so great and you know the great feeling that they've had a good few months.
Speaker 2:They and you know the great feeling that they've had a good few months. They then take forward into the next few months and really when you track it out over that you know nine-month period, it's pretty average kind of year so far, because they just haven't tracked the numbers and we can kind of falsify it a little bit. You know again with that feeling that we've done better than what we actually have. And if you just track your numbers, week by week, month by month, looking at what your target was, what's your actual, very realistic you know numbers don't lie and can kind of give you that feedback that look, geez, I'm not doing as well as I should, I need to ramp up my prospecting, et cetera. So I find that that's how they get off track because you know, again, it's a very reactive business league.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more. And numbers are like the weather it's a certain temperature today, no matter what you're thinking, or what you're thinking or wearing, you're going to be governed by that number. When you step outside, it's either going to be freezing or boiling, freezing or boiling, and the numbers predicted tomorrow will be, and you get to take the appropriate measures to be part of that day. Well, your business is like that those numbers. You want to know where your right cruising temperature is and where you need to be, so you can bring it all together. Hence today's audio. Having a plan, danny. In the 10 points we're going to discuss, the first one is the real one Having a business plan, set some goals, monitor the numbers. Take us into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think when agents hear business plans they go, oh, that's boring. It's like business plans traditionally, again with the small businesses really to get business loans and present it to their bank. But for an agent there's lots of elements that you can put into a business plan. You can have it as simple as you like or you can have it as a 20-page document, but it's got to be something that means something to you.
Speaker 2:So the numbers is a big part of that. A lot of agents will set a target and they go I want to do a million dollars this year. And you go, okay, well, that's great, but what does that actually mean? What are the steps to achieve that goal? And you've got to work backwards. So that is, if I did $500,000 this year and I would do 20 prospecting calls every couple of days, then I'm probably going to double that to achieve $1 million. Same in sales If I did three sales, three listings for the month, then I need to double that if I'm going to double my income. So you kind of got to work backwards, because systems last forever, but goals you either achieve them or you don't, and it kind of means something, it kind of means nothing, I guess if you just have this target, if you're not doing the work behind it. So that's the numbers side of it.
Speaker 2:The other is what are your business goals? What sort of things do you want to incorporate, do this year marketing-wise? What's your budget for personal promotion? What are your personal goals? If I achieve these targets? I'm going to buy a car or a watch, or maybe it's a holiday or something like that. And then, looking at things like your image, how do you want to be portrayed? How do you want your team to be portrayed? Because that reflects all your marketing. So it's really taking a step back and looking at your business and how people view it from the outside. In that respect, I love that saying it's hard to see the label from inside the jar. Yes, so sometimes you've got to step out and think okay, what actually is my business? You know, where do I want to take it? Because it's, you know, I think, agents and I guess society as a whole is stimulus rich but context poor, you know, and agents are especially on that.
Speaker 2:So I think you've got to kind of put in a frame, simplify it in a business plan. You know, what actually do I want to achieve in the next, you know, 12 months, two years, five years.
Speaker 1:And, danny, I think you hit it on the head straight away in the first part of this. People look at the word business plan and that's not me. I don't read them, I fake it, I put it in the drawer. Whereas if we say, look, let's just have a plan, and strip that back to how many properties would you like to sell this year for you and measure yourself against your own goals, not somebody else. So let's say the average agent selling anywhere from 26 to 36 properties a year. I'm just throwing that out there as a number. And then you may say I want to do 45 or 50 because you're a solo. Now if you're a team, you need to do a lot more than that. But I know in the wonderful audio we had recently featuring the road to 900, that the agent had claimed 900 doors. It was 901. That's why he was on the audio and he did 44 transactions and, as you know from attending the Complete Salesperson course, 900 gives you 46. That's that targeting ratio that we're looking at that number. But how many houses do you want to sell a year is a key part to the business plan.
Speaker 1:The second part to the business plan is what does a good week look like, and I think having patterns to your week is so underestimated versus what we used to teach and talk about in the ideal week. Real estate is an ideal in time and you do have to be very flexible with the needs of the consumer. However, we know what Monday looks like. Tuesday, wednesday, thursday your best presenting days. Friday's got its own uniqueness and flexibility to it. Saturday's taken Sunday. You're trying to pull yourself back together before Monday starts, but throughout that week if you've got some set plays. So a lot of our agents, danny, as you know, will say 2.15, 4.15, 6.15 are their appraisal times, if that's their pattern. So when someone calls, I'd like you to pop over. You want Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, thursday you want 2.15, 4.15, 6.15. And they're just some patterns that you can commit to that allow you to have that productivity or the blast in what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And then, I think, a final part of the plan and I've just gone through this myself Robin and I just spent four days in business administration with our little team and all we did was lock down the calendar. So these are all the major events throughout the year, and when I say events, I'm not just talking about the complete salesperson course. A major event is the LinkedIn newsletter goes out on that date right throughout the year, which means two weeks before that, there's another calendar booking saying Lee, you need to get all the content through to marketing so they can release the newsletter. And, danny, you and I are in this audio today because we were booked to do it. Everyone will turn up on the 25th of December to where they're going because they're booked and I think it's very important that, to be the best you can be is going to be about your bookings. If it's not booked, it isn't real. And within that, what bookings are you expecting to be in? What looks like a great week for you? Great weeks turns into great months and quarters, but if you can get it down to that simplicity and sign off on that plan, I think you're way on your way to having a great period of time ahead of you. It doesn't have to be the year, the month or the quarter, because this is about having a plan, danny.
Speaker 1:Number two is claiming doors, lead generation and your marketing plan. Now you wrote lead generation and marketing plan. I threw claiming doors in there due to the book being out, but claiming doors has become one of the most interesting topics of our industry, as your established clients are your doors, future sellers are your doors, the buyer sellers are your doors. But if you can claim doors and it's like if you were to drive through Willoughby today, danny, you know all the houses you've sold you can just put your team grant poster on the door. They're the doors you've claimed. But lead generation what's your tips here?
Speaker 2:Well, firstly, it's think about your business in lead generation and in marketing, because they're two different things. And I think mostly agents too much just think about getting that lead, you know, finding the seller straight away, but they forget about the marketing side of the business, which is sort of that passive side that you know ticks along and gives you presence in the marketplace. So you've got to. I guess you know, if you're not kind of going to have a business plan, the next best thing is to have a marketing plan and that is, you know, am I going to have a letterbox drop every two weeks, going through my marketplace Every spring, summer, autumn, winter? Am I going to have a social media campaign that's out there automatically, not expecting leads to come directly from it, but it's just that presence into the marketplace. Maybe it's doing price driver letters, bus shelter, advertising, whatever it may be. That's the marketing side of the business. And then there's that lead gen, which is the claiming doors and the prospecting and hitting the phone and working out what are those numbers. That I'm going to do, but if you plan out the personal marketing for the year and have one of those whiteboards that has each month on there and you can fill it out. And the reason I say the whiteboard is because, having a visual 12 months sitting in front of you, you can see where the gaps are. You know and you can also work out. You know, if you look back on your last 12 months, your workout or the last sort of a few years, actually you'll work out which months you're a bit quieter and that might be coming into winter. That might be after October, november.
Speaker 2:We've had a really busy period selling and haven't been lead generating. So they're the moments that you need to think about. That's where I need to ramp up some of my prospecting or lead generation. So your business is constantly ticking over and you don't have those big ups and downs through your business where I've sold a lot. Now now I've got to hit the phones again and you'll always have gaps if you think like that.
Speaker 2:But also scale it back a little bit, lee, because I think people if they haven't done much marketing or lead generation, they ramp up way too much. You know, it's like I just haven't been to the gym for a little while, so I'm just going to do some massive weights and then you get really sore and then you don't do it again for a little while. It's just gradual steps Plan out the year and do something each month that gets it out there. But you've got to apply a certain budget, depending on what you earn back, into promoting yourself and not just relying on your brand or your franchise, your office, to generate it for you.
Speaker 1:Danny, great tips here and just to add some additional to that, when we're in this planning stage, when we look at lead generation and the marketing plan and, as you said, on a whiteboard you can see those gaping holes in something. A really good lesson or a really good exercise is to do a year in review with that calendar in reverse. If everyone can picture a calendar from January to December so that's your horizontal, and then vertically there might be those 30 cells going down the page. And if you went back to January and logged in every appraisal you did in January for the year before and then put a highlighter on the ones you listed and the ones you lost, you would have a clear indication that in January that's how many appraisals you did. So you've got a benchmark for the next year, february and so forth. But when you physically write in every address that you had the window of opportunity to go in and present and do an assessment, if you got it, great. If you lost it not, or it could be still unsigned business. But you would see the depths of those lanes, of what months are the bigger months and what months are the quieter months. But what we didn't have there is the marketing over the top of that that has generated that activity. But it's great forecasting too, okay.
Speaker 1:So in January last year I only did three because I didn't come back till late in the year, but in February I got in the door of 15 properties. So I'm expecting 15 this year. What would I have to do to make sure the 15 is going to be populated? And I think it's just a great way to do that year in review of how many doors did I get into, how many did I list, how many did I lose, how many is unsold? And then just put the dollar amount that settled in that month. So you start to see some forecasting.
Speaker 1:But there's nothing more powerful than the calendar. And again it relates back to our other point of it's either booked or it's not. And as you know, danny, yourself and Diane would pre-order all the DLs because you get that discount when you get them in bulk. And you guys were great at putting money away for marketing, whereas a lot of agents grab their commission, spend it, grab it, spend it Whereas you would grab it, put money into the marketing account. There's our salary account and you treated it as a business versus it's all mine. And that business maturity moment becomes really important and also leads us on to point three self-improvement, read and train. And my favorite thing I'm talking about at the moment what is on your learning menu? Take us into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, saying that in 12 months' time you'll be the same person you are today, besides the people that you meet and the books that you read. So read as much as you can. Or that could be podcasts, lee, like this one, correct, I think we're going to be mindful of social media and, you know, dropping cookies and algorithms that feed you certain information, and if you're just getting your information from social media, you're not getting a broad enough knowledge. So control your own algorithm and that is, pick what podcasts you want to listen to, books that you want to read. It will certainly change you and change your thought process, and you know, the industry in the last five years has changed more than it has in the last 20. And you've always got to keep learning and adapting and changing and keeping up with new trends, et cetera. But sometimes it's remembering what you've forgotten.
Speaker 2:I get a lot of people that are in the training room. They're like I used to do that and I stopped doing it. Why am I doing it? So I think part of your yearly plan should be I'm going to lock in the complete salesperson course. I'm going to do that. I'm going to go out. I'm going to go to the Hunter Valley or whatever it may be, and book that in.
Speaker 2:Or I'm going to go to Arik, or you know some of these major things, or I'm going to go do some personal coaching for a six-month period, you know. Or it could just be simple as reading books and podcasts and, you know, maybe going back into the archives of things that you read, you always pick up gems. I mean, I know, in our world, lee, you know we're always constantly learning because that's our job. You know our job is to simplify information and take it into the training rooms because, you know, we're not sort of listing and selling. That's our world. But if you and I didn't do that, we wouldn't be as effective as what we are. So it's pick up a book, take a moment just read.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going through the airports this week. I've been right around the country, including Perth, which is halfway to Europe, and in between the gates I saw a book and it was about chat GPT and I thought I'm going to buy that. I've got time to read it this week and I think I know what I know, but maybe I don't. And I'll tell you what, danny. I had no idea what I didn't know in the psychology behind it, but it's on my learning menu because it's valuable, whereas when it first came out, I was convinced AI was a covers band. You because it's valuable, whereas when it first came out, I was convinced AI was a covers band.
Speaker 1:And learning the questions to ask AI becomes the skill. It's an interviewing process of the technology to see what it brings up. It's not just a shortcut, it's not just I don't have to spell and do these things. It's actually fascinating, especially on topics you've had no knowledge on at all. This morning I did a brief for aged care and how much money you need to live on when people go into retirement. But I haven't worked on that before and I used AI to bring up some topics that would make me ask better questions. But it's on the learning menu and I think in self-improvement you're right booking your complete salesperson course and I'll give you a tip on that one.
Speaker 1:Do one out of your state. If you live in New South Wales, come and do Melbourne and see what the Melbourne agents say and do different. Or come to Perth or come to Queensland. But sometimes doing the course out of your state is a complete different experience. You'll probably pick up 20 new referral partners, as other people are looking for someone to send people to courses and it's just a great opportunity to be in a learning environment. But book it early, don't do it lastminutecomau and enjoy that learning experience time.
Speaker 1:We don't always get to go to the courses, but I'm very excited I'm booked to go to a course in New York in January. I'm not speaking, I'm purely there as a civilian and it's such a pleasure and an opportunity to sit, listen and say well, internationally, what's going on. So self-improvement can be exciting. It doesn't have to be oh geez, I've got to go and do that course. Don't ever go anywhere as a prisoner. Go there and take that extra day. Point number four tweak and overhaul our listing presentation now, danny, this needs to be done at least every 18 months and I think people leave this far too late. In my last six months I've built about seven different listing leave behinds, all different because the people are different. Take us into your view on the listing presentation yeah, this is a.
Speaker 2:This is a big one, lee, because um, I mentioned it before you know people are stimulus rich and context poor. So the way that we present has certainly got to change. And obviously social media is a big part of that. People have access to so much information and they generally want it quicker. So we've got to get more succinct and well-trained on our listings.
Speaker 2:But also, you do develop habits over time. You do this over and over again and you kind of think, oh no, I've done that before, I'm not going to say it to this next client. We forget that that's their first experience of it. It's like if you regularly exercised or just say you lift weights at the gym, it's a good idea to get a coach in every 18 months because there'll be certain habits that you form, you're not lifting properly, et cetera, and you can injure yourself. You just don't realize that you're doing it because you do it so often. It's the same with listing presentations.
Speaker 2:I think agents certainly when I've done reviews of agents listing and some top agents just little habits that they don't realize that the consumer notices, but they just haven't picked up on all things that they've said, or body language or their tonality is a simple one. We don't realize that people only attribute the 7% of why they pick us to what we actually say. The rest is in body language and tonality. So just little things like that, but also the construction of it. For example, agents get into the habit of oh this is my one marketing budget, this is it Same as every other agent does. We think everybody's kind of caught up, but the reality is no, you're still going to give clients a choice. Triple gutter choice still works. Give them a choice of three budgets so they feel like they've got a choice.
Speaker 2:You've got to explain the differences in your marketing elements. For instance, social media is a big one. A lot of experienced agents go oh yeah, here's a $250 budget, don't really explain it properly. You got to learn that stuff because it is such an important element to our marketing. And just getting the structure down and even the psychology of it sitting back Once. The better that you know your structure and listing presentation, the more you can focus on the client. What sort of type of personality have I got in front of me that I can adapt? There's always areas that you can tweak. It doesn't mean if you're doing really well as an agent that you need to overhaul it completely. It might just be five or six things that you need to adjust and certainly if you've only been in it in the last few years, you probably haven't really learned how to do it properly and construct a listing presentation properly. So probably the most important training- that you can do.
Speaker 1:Lee Couldn't agree more and I know, in doing the Complete Salesperson course for so many years, this is the one shifting, changing topic that constantly gets changed in the manual.
Speaker 1:But when I reflect back over the last 20 years, the skill has been stripping that back to well. The number one reason why someone doesn't go ahead with an agent was they were overwhelmed and they can't make a decision, whereas when you strip it back to a couple of key points, you're doing your discovery, you've got your proof points. Then you move into your technique for delivering fees, and big one in the last six months has been fees one, two, three. It is a technique versus I hope it doesn't come up which is that amateur way of thinking and then wrapping that up where you take the pressure off the owner to say this is the pathway forward and would you like us to do it for you? That sounds really simple but it takes a lot of skill to strip back, compress it and make it a clean, clarity message so people can make a decision to go with you with ease. It's a natural decision versus a forced decision, what we've seen in the past. Which brings us to point number five key hires. Take us into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what does your team kind of look like? Think about if you want to hire somebody, you want to kind of expand your business. What does that kind of look like? You know, think about if you want to hire somebody, you want to kind of expand your business, what does that sort of look like? And I think you know we probably compare what other agents are doing a little bit too much. You've got to really think about, well, what does your business need? And that is what's your skill set. So if you're somebody that loves lead generation and prospecting and doing that side of it, you're probably going to need somebody more admin focused so you can focus on that lead generation. If you don't love the lead generation side of it, then maybe you need someone, a young prospector, that will do that for you.
Speaker 2:And one thing that I first did in my business, lee, was we wrote down all the tasks that we did in our business and then you know, diane and I would write our names next to the duties that we would do and then we'd write a fictitional character's name down next to the bits that we didn't want to do. That would be ideal for the next person and then what happens is you extract that and that becomes a statement of duties for the next person you know. So you've always got something that this is what we're going to get these people to do. So once you become clear on that, then you can work out who the person is I'm going to hire and you hire somebody that's best for your business. Too often, I think agents hire people that are like themselves or they've had somebody that's been recommended or somebody within their office that they know I like them, I'm going to hire them, but they're just not the right fit, so it's got to be. You know, oh, I like them, I'm going to hire them, but they're just not the right fit, so it's going to be. You know, name your business. So if you call your business Bob, you know what's best for Bob, not what's best for me, what's best for the business, what actually fits and quite oftenly it is a different personality type to yourself.
Speaker 2:But really think about what you want and do you actually need to hire somebody? What's your profit margins like? Do you really want to ramp up your business? Are you happy earning a certain amount, being happy with your life and not having somebody? Because once we start adding people to our business, it does change the structure a bit. You do become more of a business owner and a leader than you are a salesperson. So we've got to think about that too, rather than, oh, I just need to hire somebody. So it's thinking about do I need somebody and what is best for the business, and when am I going to put that person on, because there's no perfect time for that. It's like having a child, lee If you kept waiting for the perfect time, you'd never have kids, right it's just a perfect time.
Speaker 2:It's hire somebody just before you think you need them.
Speaker 1:And Danny, when we talk about key hires today, that doesn't mean they're here, it doesn't mean they're permanently employed. They could be a skill or a service that you're using. I know for Robin and I we have two international team members and then we have another team member here in Australia, but our international team members it's all remote, everything's via Zoom. They work from home. We're on the road, but all marketing social media and the marketing calendar is run by one person and then all administration, follow-up and requests is run by the other. But those two functions are key functions and every week, marketing is a daily activity.
Speaker 1:It's not a when the cupboards are bare, but there's some incredibly talented people that can run that section for you. They don't physically need a desk, an office, to work with you, alongside you, and you've got to keep them motivated If they're talented and they know what they're doing. Key hires is definitely a new way of looking at international team members, and onshore as well. There's nothing wrong with that, but you'll know who you're best to work with. Which brings us to number six clean up your database, the followers of you. What's your tips?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always used to love the saying that used to say whether you remember it or not, lee, but love the one that you're with. Too often we're kind of looking for new business and prospecting and lead generation and cleaning doors and we forget that actually you've got a lot of good doors that you're maybe not nurturing properly, and maybe there's a massive data on your database that it's just not clean data. So what is clean data is okay. Well, what's the response rate like with some people that are in your data, who's clicking on what, et cetera? Maybe you've got double ups of information. Maybe you've got double ups of information. Maybe you've got people on there that have already sold. So less is more. In that respect, if you can work your data better and clean it up, then you're going to be much more effective. And the same as like a BDA. The theory in a BDA is that if it's too large, you can't saturate it enough, so shorten it in order to grow.
Speaker 2:Now, how you do that is hard, because a lot of agents find it hard to spend the time on it.
Speaker 2:So maybe, to your previous point, lee, hire an offshore person or maybe a local company that does lead generation and give them a list of your database and just get them to phone through.
Speaker 2:You're not trying to get leads, you're just trying to check if you're still there and have you thought about doing anything in the future. You're happy to get market reports, hire an external company just to clean it up, or maybe it's a social media company that can do, you know, text message, promotions, whatever it is that sort of gets you on your way. It's like having a, you know, a messy office. You know, get it cleaned up so you can work a little bit better and sometimes pick the quiet periods. Sometimes you know, getting towards the end of the year is a good way of doing that. So sooner or later it's just going to become ineffective and it's not worth having so clean it up. Just put people on there that are engaging and it's actual clean information. And, by the way, if you are using external companies, you'll soon realize, with social media and things, that you spend a lot of money contacting your database and if it's not clean you're actually wasting money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sending things to people that have moved five years ago and you still think they're there is a really sad moment, especially in a world we live in today, that you can connect the dots now, but I like your analogy of the office was messing and you can't see anything. Gaining visibility of your data is very, very important, and making sure the data connects to a door and are they still at that door? I think just getting that right and understanding your data's clean love the one you're with. So for a lot of people listening to this program right now, because we have seasoned professionals, reclaiming doors is going to be your plan. You think they're there, but are they there? You may need to reclaim the door, which brings us to number seven. Stop start doing. Take us into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, it's to sit back, look at your business and think about what are the things that I'm doing repetitively because nothing happens in isolation that I'm just going to stop doing. You know, for instance, I was speaking to a principal yesterday and he was frustrated with one of his agents that just kept having issues with marketing being wrong or booked wrong or owners not being aligned with open house times and what fixes? That is an expectations meeting before you start the campaign, just make sure everything's aligned. You just can't get them to do it. So it's like what am I going to stop doing? So in that respect it is I'm going to stop having mistakes at the start of my campaign, because it actually impacts when I've got offers and I'm trying to get something sold and the vendor looks back at the start of the campaign and says there's too many mistakes.
Speaker 2:So what am I going to just stop doing? That annoys me in my business, that keeps coming up and what am I going to start doing? So I'm going to start having a set to sell meeting. So you know, yourself and your business, what things kind of irritate you. It could be that you're going to stop. You're going to stop kind of being involved with people whinging about your office or your brand or things that are going on, or interest rates or external factors, it might be. I'm just going to stop doing that and I'm going to work in a bit of a bubble and do my thing. Whatever, it is that you know that's a habit that is not serving you, lee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and getting distracted. First thing in the morning is people check their socials and their emails and so forth versus there'd be something far more important you could do as a sprint right now and that could be if you rocked into the office and the first thing you did was check those two channels, you're gone. Probably 11 o'clock will get you back, whereas if you rocked in there and said, I know I'll get in that rabbit hole if I do those two things, but if I could get 10 price updates out before 10, what a significant compounding interest that would have upon my week, my month, my year. And I think the disciplines to success are so important that you can recognize what they are and they're different for everyone.
Speaker 1:Danny, you and I have talked about this before. Not everyone's a morning person. I know in coaching you for many years you were good at night. You just worked better in the evening, whereas people were telling you to get up at five o'clock and do something and you're like, yeah, not my finest moment that one. And knowing your energy management becomes really important in stop, start doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I have a 5am club and we're all in Bedley. Look, it's know yourself on that. You know we're all different, we're all geared differently and some of us are kind of very up down, up, down, up down, you know, during the day. Some of us, no, we're not great in the morning, so we shouldn't be doing listing presentations or on the phones in the morning. It should be sort of later in the day and that's okay, as long as you get the same workload done and you're just as effective. Who cares what time of day it is? I mean, look at nightly, it's 5am somewhere in the world.
Speaker 1:Very true. Now number eight, and we've got our final three key ones here, and the first seven are the difficult ones. But the BDA health check is something people don't always bring on their radar and it's a great recommendation from this particular program. Take us into this.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm going to start with an example of an agent and it's our number one agent, alex Jordan, who works in and around Brisbane in Queensland. When he came to us at McGrath he had a BDA of about 19,000 odd homes, right, so about seven different suburbs. And the theory behind that was is that you know, I'm going to let a box drop everywhere, I don't want to miss an opportunity. And you know, to give you an analogy, that that's like driving around a Westfield car park, going up and down all the levels, whereas if you actually just stopped on the one level you'd probably find a car park. And he kind of figured out that some of the top agents in McGrath were actually, you know, doing much bigger numbers than him, with 1,500 or 1,800 BDAs Matt Steinway is a good example of that. And so what he did is he reduced his BDA down from 19,000 to about 790 homes lead, wow, which is hard to do, right. And he just picked an area that he you know there was some nice real estate and that allowed him to kind of door knock, understand those homes a lot better. He could do area-centric information, you know, deliberately on them and just better frequency, right, so they would see him all the time. He secured his first listing door knocked that. That was much easier to get around because it's less homes, much cheaper to market to those properties because there's less homes, and just became known a lot easier for those people in that area and got called in because there was more frequency, if that makes sense. They saw him all the time and then what he did is he built it out with the team. Now he's back to 19,000 lead. But the difference is when he started with 19,000, he was doing about 340,000 commission for about 12 years. Now he's doing 11 or 12 million with the same BDA. So he started small and worked it out.
Speaker 2:So where's the lessons in that? The lessons is that maybe your BDA is too big, maybe the frequency of contact is not enough, maybe you don't know enough about your BDA. Then you need to analyze it again with numbers. Okay, so how many did I actually list in my main BDA last year?
Speaker 2:What you might find is that you actually earned more money out of your average commission in your BDA because you know it so well and it's easier to list in. So maybe you're earning more money on that and then you go well, why don't I just focus on that, that'd be a good idea. But also, if you think about a listing presentation, if you get called into another market that maybe you don't know so well the prep that you've got to do, I guess the feeling that you give off to the vendor that maybe you're not that knowledgeable and you're competing against agents that have better market share in there, that's hard yak up, whereas if you know your BDA and you've got plenty of listings that keep coming, so much easier to list, so much easier to list and increase your fee.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more. And our business development areas shouldn't be a business distraction area where you spread everywhere and no one really knows who you are and you pop up by fluke Whereas you look at the greats. They'll have a focus area, their cashflow area and if they get a bonus referral out of town they can go and sell that. But they don't market there. They get back to your home turf and Danny.
Speaker 1:I've seen you sell some properties and I say to you, what are you doing over there? Oh well, this investor I sold from before and it was in Newtown and it was a terrorist and I just popped in to do it. That's fine. It's method of introduction guaranteed. You've got the trust, you're in and you're out. You're suddenly not door knocking. That suburb Back will be where you came from. I don't want to stay there, yeah, yeah. So okay to do the pop-outs as a bonus referral. You know you've got a gig out of town, but get back to your business development area, which brings us to number nine. Beautifully, social media health check. There was a great podcast I was on a couple of weeks ago featuring the incredible Charles Tarby, and Charles had this topic of don't broadcast your business objectives? Why would you warm up the competition to everything you're doing and all these statements you're making, versus communicate to the people who you need to communicate with? What's your view on this?
Speaker 2:It hits on a point that I think impacts majority of the industry and that is they know, yeah, they're posting things, which is ego, ego posting, you know, to show off to competitors or other agents and you know they're the ones that like it and follow them. But you got to think about your client. What does that actually mean to the client? You know, if you're sort of showing what suit you're wearing that morning and what car you're driving and stuff like that, I've got to say they're thinking of a word and it starts with W and ends in R. They just don't get it because they're not in industries where they're competing and often that they understand that. It's like well, how are you helping me, guide me through this buying and selling process by posting about that? So you've got to think about what are my objectives? Authenticity gets thrown around a lot and agents still choose to be non-authentic. So it's like who are you as a person and what content are you putting out there to genuinely help people? If you're posting about a sale, that's great. People look at that, they look at sold stickers and boards and people are attracted to that. But what they'd love to hear is the story behind that. You know here. People are attracted to that, but what they'd love to hear is the story behind that.
Speaker 2:Here's Mr and Mrs Smith. They bought this property from us in McClellan Street and what's really interesting is they were looking for about six months and they didn't even look in their suburb. This is why they bought it. They love this about it. They're going to go to the local school and whatever it may be. There's a bit of a story behind it that kind of makes sense. And we, to make sense, and you know we help them do this and whatever it may be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean health check on social media. You can get companies to do this for you and they can look at what you're posting and what's effective and what are people clicking on more, etc. And it's also Lee having one profile. You know, a lot of people kind of go I'm going to have Danny Grant at McGraw and then I'm going to have Danny Grant separately and you know, guess what? You've got one digital profile.
Speaker 2:People find stuff online and why do you need two separate profiles? Are you behaving a different way in real life? You know, just don't be a dickhead on social media. You don't have to post everything, you know, if you are going to be a dickhead, well, don't post it, you know. So it's okay, you can go to the gym. So it's thinking about how is this making my client feel every post? How is a potential client viewing me when I post this information? Now, the disclaimer on this is there are some agents that work in certain areas that are on celebrity shows that they attract B-grade celebrities that love that stuff right, but old money people don't love that stuff. General mums and dads don't love that stuff right, but old money people don't love that stuff. General mums and dads don't love that stuff. So think about where do I work? What's my marketplace? What cars do my clients drive? What do they do for jobs? What are they generally looking at online Post with that in mind.
Speaker 1:Excellent information. Only a couple of weeks ago, we had the amazing Stephen Whiting from Canada share his 12 years of study, psychology and knowledge on. We made the topic claiming social doors and that particular platform being a Instagram, facebook, dedicated real estate platform, is all about should you move? Should you renovate Homes with pools? Five ways for preparing your home for the market. It's all education-based marketing. It's actually got nothing to do with the agent. It's the agent providing knowledge to the person seeking knowledge to the person seeking. Someone hasn't listened to that interview. It is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:I think, out of all the interviews that have really caused a stir in the last six months, that one hit upon something because it was the opposite of what people are doing. Posting those things that you just mentioned there before versus someone who wants to know how do I put my mum into a lifestyle village and not have the taxation issues is very different to you. Went to the gym today. This is where social and I think when socials first came out, that was all funny and good and great. Yet today, yeah, you're wasting airtime and in that airtime I know myself, danny.
Speaker 1:The less I post with more important things, the better things go, and I'm posting to communicate things back to an industry I serve, this podcast would be. We talk about lead generation and marketing and image. The podcast is the most important thing I've ever done because it just helps a lot of people and those people reach out and we all get to work together. But there's an intention behind. We Are Selling that features incredible people like yourself and all the guests who have appeared, that, the person down the line. I was in Perth yesterday and this guy rocks in and says, hey, lee, loving the podcast, that one with Karen Rich is about the base fee. That's just helped me so much. They made my day yesterday. It was like probably the most important thing that happened out of my event yesterday was someone's got that embodied knowledge and takes it in the marketplace from something they listen to and they're following the program which brings us to number 10, image brand health check. Take us into number 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we said that saying before, it's hard to see the label from inside the jar. So, taking a step back and looking at your brand and your image in the marketplace and we touched on social media as well that's part of it and maybe you've kind of moved into an area or just developed over time that you haven't realized. That you've kind of moved into. It's a bit of a self-actualization thing. It's like well, how am I actually being seen by the market? Is there something that's stopping people from you know listing with me? So maybe I need to take a look at that and surveying it's probably pretty good. You know, ask certain people or good clients and you know what do you think and you know what people on social media do you like that you sort of follow and what attracts you to that. Just think about what is the image that you're putting out there and what's your brand. Again, to mention social media, because that's a huge part of it is, you see, some of the agents that they start to do well and they start to be little coaches online and oh, you've got to do this and you've got to do that and you've got to do this and you go what are you posting that to? How is that serving you and helping your clients? So think about that and what you're portraying out there. But it's not just social media, it's your marketing material. So if you want to kind of let's just say you're thinking, god, I just list too many apartments and lower grade houses, so stop posting those, right? Just post the ones that are really good, because that's the image you want to portray.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I say in McGrath is that we are not a black and white, mass photocopied brand that you stick in someone's letterbox. So when someone opens their letterbox on any given day during the week, it's real estate crap, right. So there's three or four from your competitors and they're black and white, mass photocopied Yours. So there's three or four from your competitors and they're black and white, mass photocopied. Yours is a self-addressed envelope that's beautifully written, professional, no gimmicky headlines. You've personally signed it. You've dropped a profile deal card in there Looks professional.
Speaker 2:What does that say to the consumer? So when you do that repeatedly and your marketing is really good repeatedly, and how you present houses and it's a big holistic thing, how you do open houses, et cetera, that's your image. So you need to think about it? Compared to your competitors? How do I look? Is there a differential? Am I standing out? Am I really appealing to the market that I go for? Maybe you're overdressed. Maybe, if you're in the Sunshine Coast and you're wearing a suit, maybe you should be wearing a polo shirt. Whatever, it is the image that you want to portray. Maybe you need to rethink about it in terms of your business and thinking geez, if I'm going to get into the upper end, for instance, I need to change my image a little bit of my collateral that I'm putting out there.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more. And one thing I love about being in real estate education and I'm absolutely more grateful now than ever I've got a more deeper appreciation for the things we do as you travel and the incredible agents of regional. I really think they get this right in a beautiful way. I don't know why and how, but when I'm in regional and I see that the materials, the marketing but when I'm in regional and I see that the materials, the marketing, it's really advanced and it's from the heart and it's been done with the intention is clear, to use that terminology. And even as we go through these 10 points, one thing I'd like to close off on today, danny today's program is not a to-do list, it's a consideration list for things you could bring on your radar to improve. We know not everyone can do everything at any given time. I fall into that boat but I do pick a couple of things and do those really well.
Speaker 1:And in lead generation and marketing, which was point two, that's your communications plan now and it connects to the social media and image brand of it's time to update your photo. Your start, start doing or stop doing becomes really important. A key hire could just be you might have someone in your street who's 22 years of age, passionate about social, and they can assist you. And tweaking that overall listing presentation never ends the self-improvement, the retrain and what's on your learning menu and at the end of the day, everything comes down to the three major swim lanes of lead generation, lead conversion, client fulfillment. I think just picking a couple of little key projects that you can work on over the next couple of months, that's going to get you there and get into the training rooms where you're around people that may be doing the same thing or slightly ahead of you.
Speaker 1:I know myself I love meeting people ahead of where I am to say how did you get there? And they go oh, you know, 10 years ago I started doing this and you think, wow, and I can have that conversation with you today. And whatever you do, it doesn't matter what time of year it is and you can see why. Today's a extended program on the program we are selling. It's important, but we all come off track. That's okay. The question is, could you listen to this audio at any time in the future? Take the recommendations and make it part of what you do. Danny Grant, any final?
Speaker 2:comments from you. The key to all this, I think, is getting away. I know whenever I used to create a business plan and you just mentioned it before is take some time, get out of your area, get out of your business, take a couple of days and really focus what you're going to do for the next year, I think is a good idea. And then, if you're in a team, do the same thing. Go away for a couple of days and work on your business, because real estate is so busy that you're constantly in it and it's difficult to just stop and start doing things correctly without getting out of your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, create time and space has become a fascination of mine. I know when I did the book Claiming Doors, I was blocked in doing the book because I had so much information I had to review and consolidate before going in to record and then do the transcribe. So Robyn was up in Queensland and I said, look, I'm going to get the train up and Rob goes, you sure? I said yep, it's a 10-hour train drive. I'm ready, A business class, first class seat's like $80 on the train and it's a stunning train with a cafeteria. But I sat there by myself, with no one around me, for 10 hours and that's how that book was created. I went through every book. I'd written every manual.
Speaker 1:The method is creating the space, the time, and it could be that you're going away, Because quite often if you're in your own environment you'll end up doing things you always do. I know when I've got a flight overseas a lot of people think, oh, you're going to be on a plane for 16 hours. I think I'm going to be on a plane for 16 hours. What could I do? And I look at that protected time sometimes and think that's why I mentioned earlier in this program do the complete salesperson course in a different state, because you'll be in a different state of mind and you won't go back to your normal life and it's good to detach at that moment.
Speaker 1:They are the defining moments where people say I went to this course, I went on this trip, I did this, I did that. I actually remember, Danny, you coming to Melbourne because you'd missed the Hunter course. But being in Melbourne just feels different to doing it in the Sydney one and you think different, and that's a very powerful thing. So, whatever you're doing, make sure you protect some time for you so that you can serve everyone around you better family, friends, loved ones. And building a plan is not just about business. It's about you planning a better existence in this world that we live in. Danny Grant, thank you for joining us. An exceptional program, and we look forward to having you on the program in the future.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Lee, An exceptional program and we look forward to having you on the program in the future. Thanks, lee, absolute pleasure.