New Financial Year, New You!

Because I've got to say , john and Troy , I was looking at it when we started , there was none other so we could actually say we were the only , we were the biggest , we were the best . But I've got to tell you , there are so many podcasts , there are so many , even real estate agents .

Now I've noticed I don't want to have a guess at the percentage , but there's a large number of real estate agents that have entered the world of podcasting .

But today is right around the world , though some parts of the world don't have financial years as being ending on the 30th of June I know that New Zealand doesn't , but a lot of the world , including Australia , have this June to July period .

I know that a lot of real estate companies were January to June , but this is a good time of the year , john and Troy , to sit back , have a reflection . What's working ? What's not working ? What are you going to change ? What are you going to do more of ? What are you going to do less of ? Over to you , john and Troy .

Number one is you know , one of the key skills , troy , is listing presentation . Right , and when I say to a lot of agents I'm coaching and as you know , I coach a lot of agents and I say zero to 10 , 10 being world best , where do you rate your listing presentation ? And the number that generally comes up is four , five or six .

And I kind of look at that and I think , man , like that is , you know , that's just not good enough . And you know , one of my favorite sayings is in the age of information , you know , ignorance is a choice .

Um , there is no excuse now for anyone to have anything less than a nine out of 10 listing presentation , unless you just haven't taken the time to unpack it , think about it , uh , role play it with someone else , rebuild it .

So you know , one of the things , tom , I'd be thinking there's two or three things and I'll just jot those down and see what you guys think . Definitely I'd be looking at how do you create a nine out of 10 listing presentation key ? Second thing is yeah , this is the age of technology . I'd be looking at what technology and just choose one or two .

Don't choose 20 or 30 , because it's never going to happen . What technology solutions and I'll mention mine in a second should you be adopting to save time , to increase your scalability , to leverage

and so forth ? There's two things that I'm very focused on currently . One of them is AI . I mean , we all know we heard about AI . Some people are using it , some people are right into it . Others are too scared to look at it . I mean , just pick an AI which is the best AI doesn't matter , just find one . I use Claude . A lot of people use ChatGPT .

There's so many good ones . Just pick one and start using it . Whatever the monthly subscription is , subscribe for a year and , just as you're thinking through problems or situations , just start using it to get good at it . So I think AI is just going to this . The next two or three years is going to massively ramp up .

The other one I use time is now dictation . I rarely type an email that's longer than a couple of a couple of words . I I go to dictation . I've just I've got a double click . A double click , I've trained one of my keys on my keyboard to a shortcut .

I double hit the function key and then I just speak , just like I'm speaking now , and it gets a 95% right , 98% right . But things like emails , things like even using chat , gpt or Claude , John , I'm fascinated .

And you know it's one of those things , troy , I used to think , oh , but it'll get some words wrong , it'll spell check wrong , and then someone will read it and I'll make a fool of myself . You know , dictation's improved so much and yet occasionally the wrong word goes in there .

But most people pick up on it and they get the message , and I reckon I spend 10% , maybe 20% maximum , or the same amount of time to get things wrong . So I'll just go to all my messages , click on one after the other and I'll dictate a quick response , just like you do in the car .

So you know , just this is the year to embrace technology , and they're just two , but especially AI , that I think are really , really critical .

And the last one , the last one would be it's a really simple one and it's kind of I've stolen it a bit from Tommy Ferry , from Eric a few years ago , but reality is 5% of the people in your phone are probably going to sell their property in the next 12 months .

Why wouldn't you go through and just contact as many preferably all of people as you can in your phone and just check in ? Tom just wanted to see how things were going . It's been an interesting and turbulent year for some industries .

I just wanted to check in on all my clients and just see if they think there's anything they might need from me over the next 12 months . And just a simple phone call like that .

I reckon if you do that every day for an hour and you get , you know , 12 or 15 connects or whatever you're going to get in that period , you're going to pick up half a dozen listings in the next 30 days that you didn't even know existed and you probably would have lost if you didn't .

So I think you know proactivity , leverage and scale through technology really critical and rebuild your listing presentation to world-class .

just about to finish financial year . In saying that , I want to know where your listings came from , where the opportunities were for market appraisals that you converted in , Because if you write down those numbers and you see those ratios , you will get a really clear understanding of what's working and what's not and some of the gaps that you need to fulfill .

So , for example , if you're really great with past clients and 30 or 40% of your business is coming from past clients but you're not doing anything in regards to social media or door knocking or networking and client events , well , you may need to look at those things to improve .

But sometimes it's good to look back and see where the success came from , realize the opportunities and the gaps in other areas of your business , but also to double down on where you were successful in the previous 12 months , because chances are the next 12 months you'll be even better . Yeah , Great .

getting a really good snapshot of what is working for you , what you should do more of .

And also , like , realistically , if you went to 200 listing presentations right , and you signed up 50 presentations and let's assume the other one I'm assuming that they went to market another 150 went to market , which meant that you had a 25% listing presentation to list ratio . That's an alarm bell . That's an alarm bell .

That's basically saying 150 properties listed by other companies because they believe that they had a better narrative , a better story . John , you used a term on a podcast we did two weeks ago and I'm trying to remind myself it was volume negates luck or it was something like that . Could you remember what ?

Same in real estate business If you've got 20 pending hot listings you're chasing today , when you loot a few which you will you're still going to have an unbelievable month . By the way , ethan , your man , your coaching client , 15 listings last week in a week . So well done , tommy , you've trained him magnificently .

So he knows that one in 10 are going to say oh , thank you , leave it with us . And sometimes they may have a pre-existing relationship . They were fee checking , they were price checking .

But before we finish off today , I do think that one of the things that really less so at McGrath , because many of the estate agents at McGrath see themselves as running their own

businesses . They're contractors running their own business units . But John and Troy , a lot of real estate people this time of the year should be setting a 12-month set and forget plan . That is not your vendor paid advertising , property specific marketing . I'm talking about making the decision . I'm going to invest 30 grand in my community this year .

10 grand is going to go to the tennis club , five grand is going to go to the public school . I might go off and do some portal advertising on the JustSol sections . I might do some billboard ads . I might put on a movie night , but salespeople often forget that they are running a business within the business , even if they're not the principals .

John and Troy , anything you want to touch on that .

Most businesses and we've got in this industry agents now that are starting to hit 2 million , 3 million , 4 million but most businesses at 2 million would be probably retaining 15% margin and investing the rest in activities to grow their business into the future . And yet a lot of agents they balk at a 10 grand marketing plan or sponsorship plan for a year .

So I agree with you totally You've got to see your business as a long game . You have to understand that it's critical for you to be the top of mind default . So , whatever activities you're going to do , get some advice , get some , get a coach . You know , go through what you're going to do .

But , troy , I think it's really critical and I know when you're coaching guys you go off and through what's your marketing plan and I just think it's so vital to be contemplating what activities are you doing to to reinvest back in the market . You look at Troy , you look at Coca-Cola .

A lot of people could say , well , they could stop advertising because everyone knows them , you don't need Coca-Cola . You could save hundreds of millions a year by stopping advertising . But even Coca-Cola knows that it has to keep making sure that its brand is associated with fun and lifestyle and activity or whatever . It wants to purport itself to be Bad example .

I know because I'm not a fan of those sugary drinks , but you know what I'm saying that even billion dollar companies that are worldwide brands continue to market themselves to stay top of mind . Troy .

You've got to allow your consumer to digest it when they feel like the time is right .

So the way you do that is obviously having a couple of different strategies , one of them being a digital campaign and having a lot of social media so people can really understand the power of your brand , even when you're not probably proactively out there pitching for business all the time .

Just ask yourself the question if there was one thing , one skill , one activity , one thing you did brilliantly , better or much better than you're currently doing it , or you became a black belt of one particular thing in your life that would propel your business ahead and faster than anything else , what would that be ? For example , a lot of agents .

They're terrific agents , they work hard , they've got good work ethic , they've got a polished listing presentation , all that sort of good stuff , but they cannot align vendor expectations with the market because

they fear they don't want to be a bad person . They haven't developed the dialogue , they feel guilty about it and all this sort of stuff that you know . Your one thing may well be your ability to have a business conversation with a vendor to align them to where the market is , and that could be your one thing .

It could be prospecting , getting over the fear of rejection , it could be building a great listing presentation , but inevitably , for each and every one of us there's one thing . So I'd think about that as well for the year . And the last idea Tony Robbins said years and years ago . I went to one of his great seminars and he said most people underestimate .

So they overestimate what they can do in three months and they underestimate what they can do in three years . Well , I'm going to say 12 months for today . A lot of people think , oh , if I do this and this and this , in 60 or 90 days , by spring I'm going to be doing record months . Well , maybe , maybe not .

I've got to tell you , if you adopt some of the things we've spoken about and you , in a disciplined , systematic , non-negotiable manner , you continue to do them throughout the next 12 months , you will hit absolutely new highs and new levels of success . So stay at it .

This is not a I'll go to the gym once and I'll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of thing . It's fantasy . That doesn't happen . You have to be playing the long game and it's around consistency and showing up every day with your new skills or your new strategies and applying them , and in three months , your life will look probably similar .

In six to nine months , you'll be seeing a change . In 12 months , you'll be a brand new human being or a brand new business .

I said to Michael I said , michael , I'll be honest with you . I said I come from a world where we didn't set up 12 month plans and budgets and targets and he just said , look , all you got to do is this If you only had a 30 day period to achieve your 12 month goal , write out what are the things you'd be doing . And then he goes .

Then do 12 of those and you've had the best year of your life . He goes don't complicate it , don't think about the sixth month , the eighth month . Just create 12 good 30-day projects and you're set .

And I just want to remind all our listeners those people that are going to be listing their property , signing a form six of signing an agency agreement , in July and August , are people that you're having conversations with right now . They don't spontaneously just come out of the blue .

They've normally been on an Excel sheet you call a chase list , your CRM system . So please remember , what you do in this 30 days is going to affect your whole spring .