Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
How agents can apply the process of McDonald's & the simplicity of Apple to their business
We kick off by drawing inspiration from the Matilda's World Cup triumph and examine how their strategies can be applied to the real estate world.
We then delve into the winning game plan of Australia's top 1% of real estate agents, who have brilliantly combined the process of McDonald's and the simplicity of Apple with high energy and authentic personality to achieve remarkable results.
Building on that foundation, we then guide you through the process of becoming the "McDonald's" of real estate, extracting the best practices from major corporations and implementing them in your own business.
A richly metaphorical and deeply insightful episode you won't want to miss!
Tom Panos, troy Malcolm John McGraw. So John's just ducked out of the image, so Troy gets second on the list.
Troy Malcolm:I get second spot.
John McGrath:I'll take it, tom, it's a win. Hang on, don't be saying seconds, I haven't left, I'll just do my camera.
Tom Panos:It's a little bit like the same. So John's the same, she's out of the team. Troy's come in. He's got a blinder and the coach is stuck. Now what do I do? Do I have to bring John back in? I mean, troy's played well. This is your chance, troy, I tell you, I'm the first about 15 seconds.
John McGrath:What are you talking about?
Troy Malcolm:I tell you what, though? How impressive. I know the media is jumped on now, but I remember three or four weeks ago we spoke about the Matilda's and how excited we were, but how almost disappointed we were that they weren't getting the exposure leading into the World Cup. But I tell you right now, every single person knows almost every single person's name on the Matilda's team, especially Mackenzie Arnold, which was the goalkeeper that just, I think in the last match just had a phenomenal night. They're just one of the best players. I think she got player of the match, which was pretty amazing, but how exciting to see the Matilda's.
John McGrath:I agree with you, troy. I've got to say it was an interesting decision after she had so much pressure on her as goalkeeper which of course in any penalty shootout the main pressure is on the goalkeeper because they're every single shot and then they gave her I think it was the sixth or seventh shot to take as well. I thought that was interesting. I mean, she missed it, unfortunately, but she was still the hero of the game, but I thought, man, that's a real tough one, that's a real tough one.
Troy Malcolm:And especially to bounce back like missing that goal, and then 30 seconds later to go and then save the next goal. I think she saved it. It was amazing mindset very strong mental and sports mind there Super. But the whole team I'm a massive fan.
Tom Panos:Very proud to be Aussie. I've got a guy, steve Georgiakas, professor Steve Georgiakas, who's two dollars down from me as a professor at Sydney University. He's often quoted talking about sports and he teaches people's sports, science administration. He said to me. He said one thing you'll notice in my time you play for the soccer ruse as well. He said one thing that Australians have when they put on the National Jersey spirit of Aussie players exceeds spirits of other countries. It's a spirited country that throws every. I mean I know I'm generalising here, but that's a classic case. France, I think they didn't win the World Cup. They were in the World Cup final against Argentina. That's on Wednesday night and I have a big dilemma. I have a 7.30pm flight from Melbourne and I have a funny feeling. It's a Virgin. They're 50-50 with their Wi-Fi. You know what I mean.
John McGrath:I can't do it, tom, you can't miss that. Can you get on a flight at 6.30pm?
Tom Panos:So I'm leaving Mornington Peninsula at 4pm and driving from Mornington Peninsula to Melbourne to me is a two-hour drive long drive. So that's at earliest, that's 6.30pm. Drop the high car off. You don't all need to know what the diary is. It's not going to help this pencil real estate, but what will is you can't see this, but I was showing John and Troy some slides prior to us coming on and we think that they're very good talking points. And the first one was this slide that it's got a logo of McDonald's, it's got a logo of Apple, it's got a logo of Virgin and then it's got a logo of you Inc.
Tom Panos:You authenticity, and I want to. You know, the story is basically what do the top 1% of real estate agents do in Australia? They've got the process of McDonald's, they've got the simplicity of Apple, which make it easy to do business with them. They've got high levels of energy and they wrap that all up into this authentic. You're getting me. This is who I am. I'm not perfect, but you're getting an honest story from me. What are your views on those four metaphors there?
John McGrath:I think they're hard to beat, aren't they? Mcdonald's is not everyone's favourite, because I guess it's not the world's healthiest menu, but you can't argue. No matter where you go into a McDonald's store, you're served quickly, efficiently, in a clean restaurant by someone with a smile. It tastes what you expect. It costs about the same as you expect. I do think that it's just a great metaphor that you need to systemise your business. I use it, as you know, troy, when we're talking to our team. I said you need a McDonald's type of system so you don't reinvent everything every day. I think it's a great metaphor Apple interesting one, troy, because I know you and I are passionate fans of Apple on their products.
John McGrath:One of the great stories was when Steve Jobs, having been fired from his own company by the board and then begged to come back some time later, the first thing he did was he canned or stopped 80% of the things they were working on. He said my philosophy is I want to be world best and a handful of products I don't want to have. He looked at them and just trying to build all these different things. They did it. I remember again reading of a situation where Tim Cook looked down to his tressel table and he said we believe in discipline, we believe in simplicity, the words of the effect, every product that we make, would sit on this tressel table while he was delivering one of their annual speeches.
John McGrath:I think there's a lot to be said for those two. In one way, troy, mcdonald's and Apple are diametrically opposed. I mean one's top shelf and, I guess, the creme de la creme, whereas McDonald's is for all the people and it doesn't try and be an expensive or luxurious product, it just is what it is. They both have a really special offering and I like them, tom, as two metaphors for agents. I think they're really good.
Troy Malcolm:The three reasons why I think I really like them echo in your comments there, john. Even though Apple and McDonald's are probably slightly different in their approach ones are almost luxury goods these days with the Apple product and McDonald's, like you said, is achievable for all. They are really customer focused and so they know who their customer is. They know exactly what their customer is looking for and they deliver on that. They're relevant and consistent as well in their approach, and I think the same applies to Virgin. If you look at those three areas of what we talk about with agents being customer focused, being relevant and being consistent in your market each one of those brands if you wrap that, as Tom said earlier, you wrap that with your own personal brand is really going to set you up for market dominance.
Tom Panos:Yeah, and I've got to say I had another guy was showing me trying to convince me on why I should move to a Samsung phone and I said I just don't get it. And then he started playing around with it and I said to him yeah, you're right, look, I didn't realize you can do that and you can do that and there's so many things you can do. And I said but I don't know what it is, I just think make Apple, make it easy for you to do your stuff. I said I agree with you. I don't think it's as comprehensive, I don't think it's as good. There are so many things that you've just showed me that I know I can't do on my phone. But you know what? It's just easy to do business with my phone and I think Apple make it very easy to actually spend money with them if you actually just look at the whole model. And I think real estate agents that are very good make it easy to do business from the listing presentation. They make it easy for someone to sort of jump on board. They make it easy for buyers. They give them information that they need up front. So you know, I mean there are, I mean I hear of store. I hear of stories that sometimes you've got clients that are finding it difficult to get a copy of a contract and there are other agents who are actually giving people pest and building inspections and every bit of information. So I want to move on to another slide Distraction avoidance, and we're talking a little bit about that.
Tom Panos:And Warren Buffett says your success in life will have more to do with what you say no to than more what you say yes to, your ability to actually say no to the stuff. And he went on. I was listening on a YouTube clip. He said that what's interesting is that it's that old 80, 20 rule. He goes. You'll find that most of your results will be yielded by 20% of the stuff that you do. So it's very important that you are not avoiding doing that stuff and getting distractions. So, troy, distraction avoidance you train and coach so many of the business units at McGraw and are involved with the education there of the agents and any tips on distraction avoidance for real estate agents.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, tom, it starts right from what you said earlier process, process, process. You have a process and you follow that process with a disciplined approach. You're going to set yourself up for success Prospecting list, negotiate, sell the four key areas of any business and any successful business unit really start with the process of what you're trying to achieve. So if we break that down, it's making sure that what are the daily habits that are going to get you in momentum. Once you start to get in momentum, how do you avoid that distraction? Well, it goes back to keeping into the formula, making sure you're ticking the box. Moving on to the next task delivering every client with world-class service is going to again set you up for continued momentum. John.
John McGrath:A couple of things, tommy, little anecdotal things most of them, but come to mind for me as you're speaking about this. Karen Terri, one of our you know Karen very well Tom, and obviously Troy does one of our great agents and one of the stars of Australia's future. She walks into the office 8.30 AM, hands her phone to reception front office manager and gives it to them to hang on to for the next two hours while she prospects. Now that is just a simple but cool example of she's serious about prospecting. She doesn't take it in and wait for it to ring and whatever. Now she says obviously to the receptionist if it's an urgent call, come and grab me or let me know about it. If not, please take a message. And I think so.
John McGrath:Number one is Troy. You know, just physically get rid of the things and the phone's the key one. Another one I heard of ages ago I don't recall where it could have been advice or maybe someone was doing it. They said turn off or delete your social media apps during work hours. So make it almost impossible, because I would say that social media would be by far other than just general phone calls and dropping visits of your colleagues by far the number one distraction. So imagine if your Facebook, instagram apps and TikTok you deleted them all or you removed them until the end of the day, and if you really wanted to look at them at six o'clock, you know, just reinstall them. I like the idea of that. The third one is Troy making appointments with activities. You know, we say all the time if you had an open for inspection at 11 o'clock today and I invited you for a coffee, you're not going to say no, because you've got an important activity locked into your diary that you wouldn't ever dream of ignoring and you should see things like prospecting or daily vendor calls, whatever. We're talking about your big rocks or key activities, you should see those the same as an open for inspection or an auction. So I would do that.
John McGrath:The last one was and I think you said something there the slides gone down, tommy, but something about environment. I mean you need to create a productivity temple around you, so whatever. Firstly, it's got to be removing distractions and stuff. We've just spoken about rubbish tips. You know, piles of whatever. Secondly is have the things around you. I mean you can't see it now, but I've got my board of directors. It's not my real board, but my imaginary board of directors of people just down to the right hand side here. This is my home desk. I've got Dr Fred Gross, I've got Ray Dahlio, I've got Mark Cuban, I've got Tim Cook, I've got Bob Bollard, I've got Tony Robbins, et cetera. I've got about two, four, five, 10 people there and it's long going into an important meeting or an important call.
John McGrath:I'll often glance down and I'll just think how would Steve Jobs handle this presentation? How would Dr Fred handle this coaching session? And it actually goes to Madison, who I thought was great Tom, at Eric Madison Sutton. She talked about that book, altarigo, and since then I've read the summary and I've started to listen to some interviews with the author. It's a similar sort of thing he talks about.
John McGrath:You need to you have a number of superheroes within you. You need to bring out the right one at the right time. So you know what? What if you were? And I used it this morning trial as coaching the team at Stratfield and I said you know, name someone who's a superhero of yours? And they said, oh, chris Vosle, negotiator. I said great example. So imagine you went to the negotiation table tonight at six o'clock and you actually became Chris Vosle for that meeting or that phone call and you, you took on the persona, the confidence, the dialogue, the gravitas of Chris Vosle. So again, I love the idea of setting up a productivity temple that inspires. I mean, here no one can see it, but I've got my beautiful two dogs, so when I'm working at home they're down here next to me, they're a big part of my, why I've got my board of directors just off here to my right and I've got everything else around me. So I love the idea of creating that temple of productivity and wrap it around you.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, the other one that's used quite a bit, tom, is the just the do not disturb. So you spoke about handing the phone over. For those that don't have or want to have that luxury, you can put certain apps on do not disturb and that always works in favour. I do that at every auction, but I make sure that there's a voice recording for coaching purposes, but also that I get to record and play back where I can improve those options. But, tom, turning off all those apps has been a great step forward, just to not have any distractions during that time frame.
Tom Panos:Yeah, create an environment that sets you up for success. And I can't remember who said it once the guy was talking to someone about. He goes I can't help it. I just keep on binging on chocolate after 8.30 at night. I just can't, no matter what I do. And then the guy turned around and he said had you thought about not having chocolate in the fridge, right? And then he goes oh, but I could still get in the car. He goes yes, but that's an extra layer. You've got to go outside, you've got to get in the car, you've got to drive. By the time you get to Coles or Woolies you might rationalize and say well, I won't have the chocolate, there's none in here, right. So you know what's that state. You don't want to slip down and hang around slippery spots, you know right.
Troy Malcolm:The gym is always better, Tom, when you turn up to the front door of the gym 100%, so listen.
John McGrath:I remember, tony. Yeah, slippery spots is one of my favorite quotes and we're at Albion Street, surrey Hills, when I heard you first say that and I've never forgotten it. It's one of the great ones. Just as we finish, one last one is and this is a little bit left field but think bigger. If you are playing for a bigger game, playing a bigger game for bigger rewards, thinking bigger you actually don't have the time to mess around. If you're kind of just, you know making enough money to make ends meet and you want to have the same year as you had last year, you can probably screw around and get away with it. If you're committed to five X in your business and creating an amazing business for yourself, you actually don't have the time. So often, I find when people get distracted, it's because they haven't reset their goals to a high level.
Tom Panos:On that point. I'm flying back from Melbourne last week. There's a guy on the plane. I never talk to people when I'm sitting on an airplane. I don't know why whether I'm anti-social now or what it is I put my headphones on and I generally don't speak to people on the plane. I just do my thing.
Tom Panos:But there's a guy who's got a book 10X and I couldn't help it. Right, I couldn't help it. I'm watching him there and take my airpads off, you know. I said is it a good book? He said he goes. Oh, if you understand the principle, he goes it's a brilliant book. I said what's the principle? He goes 10X.
Tom Panos:And I said to him what does 10X mean to you? He says it means everything to me and I said I'd love to know. I said tell me more. I said I work in business, I'm in real estate, you know, explain to him. And he said it's very simple. He goes.
Tom Panos:When you want to go, do 2X, he goes. What you're really thinking is I'm going to do what I'm doing, but I'll just do more of it. More hours, more grind he goes. The minute you start thinking about 10X, you realize that putting in extra hours is not going to get you to 10X. You know, hitting that wall heart is not going to get you 10X he goes. 10x means that you've got to get rid of all the baggage and you've got to do new stuff. 10x he goes. You've got to think really, really big. And when you said that point there, john, about thinking big, I just thought about that and then I couldn't help it. I said to him I'm going to take a photo of that book. You won't believe who wrote the book. It's those guys that the podcast, john, dan Sullivan, forget what he's, what's? He's mean, troy. I think the podcast is called 10X, is it? I think it is called 10X.
John McGrath:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Also, grant Cardone has written a book which has got. It's either called 10X or it has 10X in the title, and he does a number of conferences called 10X. I love that. I often say, troy, as you know the team, what I love about 10X is you're going to have to reinvent yourself with an extreme makeover because you ain't going to stumble across 10X. You're not going to have a lucky year and get 10X. That means I need to go inside and develop an almost an entire new human being to fit the 10X possibility. So you know, I love that. That's a brilliant one.
John McGrath:So I mean there should be a few tips for our listeners there, because you know to become the McDonald's of real estate and or the Apple, and I think it's both and I don't think you need to choose. Well, I'm going to be McDonald's, downscale, high volume. I think what we're talking about is just like individuals pick the great things out of certain corporations. You know operational efficiency, customer intimacy. You know and our Virgin would be kind of more about customer intimacy McDonald's is around operational efficiency, mcdonald's is around innovation and so forth, and just develop them into your own business, even if you're a business of one person, just you. You can still deliver systems the way McDonald's deliver burgers.
Tom Panos:Yeah, well said, and I think, john, you've said it before. Sometimes people turn around and say oh, yeah, but I'm not Sister Moin turd, I'm, you know, more freewheeling. It doesn't mean it's got to be permanent and you might not end up becoming 10 out of 10 McDonald's, but if you're a five, you might end up becoming a seven or eight, with just a couple of small hacks along the way. I mean you don't need 75 different processes. At the end of the day, we list, you know, we sell, we're looking for business. If you have seven or eight bullet points and I can't get over the amount of real estate clients I've been working with who are telling me what they're doing now is they're videotaping, in short videos, they're processes, they're putting it up as private YouTube videos that no one can see or vigno except their team and they're just saying, hey, don't come back and ask me 20 times what happens the minute we list the property, there's the video, what happens? Right? And they're using the same approach that agents train their VA workers overseas. A seven, you know seven, forget video. So it's not. You don't have to change your life to actually put in some systems and processes to put some repeatable, predictable behaviours in your business, signing off.
Tom Panos:Go, matilda, listen, go, matilda's Wednesday night against our what is it? Our brother or sister, england, right, and a big listen. I'm going to do a big shout out to you. Know, sanjay, don't you from England? Troy and Johnny, unfortunately you won't believe it.
Tom Panos:I was going over there to do a conference but I chose not to go. My wife and my daughter went to Europe instead and I didn't go and I stayed here. I was going to go do a conference for him and then a week and it never went ahead. I wasn't going to go. The conference never went ahead anyway.
Tom Panos:And then Sanjay told me the other day and he's put it up online he's got diagnosed with a very bad brain tumour in his head. It's very large and it's in a very bad spot. And to me it's just a reminder, john, I don't have to remind you, you, you, you, you spend a lot of time with people that have worked in real estate, that have gone through cancer or going through cancer now or any health issue. Don't ever underestimate the power of what your life is. When it's OK, right, as they say, when you've, when you, when, when you've got no health problems, you seem to have 500 problems in your life. When you've got a health problem, it appears you only have one problem in your life. So just you know things, focus and good luck to everyone who's who is fighting a difficult time at the moment. We we are mindful, we're aware that this happens.
John McGrath:You know very aware. All right, I'll see you guys next week.
Tom Panos:See you guys next week signing off.