Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
Machine Mindset
Gain tools to channel your inner Van Gogh and understand why an artist's mindset can help you in real estate sales.
You'll learn about Alex Jordan’s prospecting approach and the innovative use of WhatsApp stories.
We’ll also delve into why mindset, energy, and narrative play such a pivotal role in successful prospecting.
Plus, we'll touch on the necessity of being well-prepared, the art of communicating in transparent language and the balance of providing just enough information without overwhelming your clients.
Implement game-changing insights and strategies.
Don Panos, john McGrath, troy Malcolm. Welcome to another episode of Million Dollar Agent, the podcast, the longest serving real estate podcast in Australia and the best value training and content. You can't get any more, better value, Otherwise we'd be paying you money.
Speaker 2:So, ladies and gentlemen, Even if we, even if we do say so ourselves, you're a consomme.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to tell everyone, john. I'm not going to tell them the last text message you sent me about a proposed speaker at Eric, but I was salivating. I was salivating when that name came up and I want to remind everyone, if you're planning your 2024, 2024, letting you know Eric is 100% on. Are they getting a lot? I can't get over how many people asked me in October when's Eric? And I think what it is is they plan what they're going to do? I think they plan their vacations. So, to answer your question, I'm pretty certain Eric is going to be the 26th and the 27th of May. I'm pretty certain. Is that, john? Do you think? Because I'm looking forward? The next one is the next Sunday. Monday is the second and third of June and I think it'll be the 26th and 27th of May. I'm pretty certain we'll get confirmation. We haven't got 100% confirmation, john, that that's the date yet, is it?
Speaker 2:No, it's probably locked in, but the three of us don't have that date.
Speaker 3:Yeah, john, confirming it. Yeah, that's when we were on the.
Speaker 1:Gold Coast, 26th and 27th.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to pick a beautiful one. Interesting trivia oh, it's not trivia, actually, but fun fact. Troy, you're going to like this, I think. Vincent Van Gogh, van Gogh, some people like to call Van Gogh, I call it Vincent Van Gogh. Did you know? In his lifetime he only sold one painting. Wow, there you go. Pretty amazing One painting and he sold it for 400 francs and I'm about to do a Google search. But that won't be a lot of money. It might be a few thousand in today's dollars, but it's not. It was in 1890.
Speaker 2:And one of the quotes when someone asked him and he wasn't a high profile artist per se, but he was kind of considered an artist and a man of great skill, but not a sort of a superstar as he is today. In posthumously he said I don't really know why people don't like white paintings so fascinating. And there's a lot of people out there. There could be a lot of Van Goghs out there. Tell me. There could be a lot of people out there that doubt themselves. And his lifetime he was penniless. He only sold one painting. So what does that mean? What do I take out of that, other than it's a really fun fact that I saw it? I take out of that the fact that there are people out there that are bloody good at what they're doing and they're not yet getting paid for it because they don't yet have the confidence and belief in themselves. So let's get into it, not today, but let's make sure that we do have that confidence in ourselves.
Speaker 1:I say no. No, johnny, I'm not a stereotype, but I've got to tell you there's a lot of that I can't get over. So Ethan, he which you've met Ethan, right, and maybe I'm not out of school, I'm not going to say anything she's a great fella. He's got a you know Catherine that works with him. She's quite extraordinary. Like her work ethic is unbelievable, but brought up a humble, shy girl that always thinks to themselves. All these other people that are wearing the flashy stuff, driving the flashy, are much better right as this view. Yet I know her Like. She's amazing. The amount of calls, the amount of transactions, the amount of raving fans. And she in her head has got an inaccurate an error, if you want to call it. She has an error of what she thinks she is versus what she really is. And then you meet some other guys. They go. They're off the other extreme, they think that they hit Hollywood right. Totally opposite, you know.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people don't distinct you wish you told me between humility and lack of confidence. I love humility. I think three of us, we all, embrace and love humility and hopefully people would feel that we display it in our own way. But you can be humble and confident and I think that's what happens. Sometimes people are just shy and not confident full stop, but other times people are humble to a point where their humility actually starts eroding their confidence. So, please, when we talk about we don't like the arrogance in the industry, that's not confidence, because confidence is a good thing and every vendor and even buyers want to deal with an agent who's confident in their recommendations, confident in their approach, confident in their skills. So, just a small thing. But I just thought, because I stumbled across that just an hour before this podcast, I thought, well, I don't try in time and always love this sort of stuff, so we'll chalk that one up for the fun factor today. But, Tully, you got a good topic for today. Again, it was topic I've got a yeah.
Speaker 1:So the topic is called machine mindset and you did a beautiful presentation to our MTA Good Camp last year. It's three slides. None of our listeners can obviously see them, but it's essentially started off and I've got it up there on the screen. With Troy, you and I can see it Goals what you want. A machine which is basically a repeatable, predictable process gives you a repeatable, predictable outcome. And in real estate, the great news is we're not back in the 60s and 70s where we would get a generic Tom Hopkins book and try and convert it into real estate in Australia.
Speaker 1:We now clearly know there's an algorithm, if you like, and that algorithm in real estate is very simple prospect, list, sell. There's three components to real estate. The reason I brought it up in a session I had this morning with some agents is that some agents are thinking, hey, end of year been a long year, tiring five weeks to go, and they said it's a different month. I said not really. I said every month in real estate you're prospecting, listing and selling. Right, you're prospecting, listing and selling. I said that's not gonna change. So why don't we pick up three or two bits out of each component? So those that are listening in. Just picture three columns Prospect list, sell. That's what makes up real estate. Find present to get the business and once you've got the business, then to sell it.
Speaker 2:John, I'm gonna kick with this, jump in just before we start that, because I'm just thinking about something. As you said that Not all of us can be Tom Brady, right, tom Brady for those who follow us to Sport or NFL is a famous NFL grid on player who probably earned 50 million a year, maybe more. So not all of us can be Ronaldo. There are some jobs that people really have to be and a lead athlete to be towards the best and to earn big money. It's not all about money, but if you're in a career, most will be paid for it In real estate.
Speaker 2:When you talk about and there was two people we got this from Ray Dalio and Rob Dierdek were the two kind of inspirations for machine mindset what it basically means is you can set virtually any target. Let's call it real estate. You can set any target in real estate and all you have to do is look at the levers that you control 95, 100% and work out Anyone can prospect. Are we gonna talk about that in a minute? Anyone can sit down Now. Do you sit down for 45 minutes an hour, three hours or three days a week or five? You gotta work that out and you gotta work out what works for you and what works for your client base, but there's no one here. There's a lot of people here who can't run the 100 meters in 9.8. A lot of people here come through our football 60 meters accurately, but there's no one that can't prospect three days a week for two hours and that would make you more than likely a million dollar agent maybe two, maybe five, maybe 10, who knows.
Speaker 2:And then you go to listing. Well, there's no one here that's listening to this. Any of your gym members and any of our listeners that can create and craft and design and hone and improve a listing presentation that one would say on a global scale of zero to 10, 10 being world best could be classified as an 8.5. Now you do two hours of prospecting a day and you do an 8.5 listing presentation. You're earning more than most brain surgeons, barristers, presidents of the United States, wherever.
Speaker 2:So just I want everyone, as we go through this, to remember that if you are operating at a suboptimal level that is suboptimal to your potential, there's only one person behind that and the good news is, only one person can fix it. So as we go through this stuff, just remember it's all available to you. You don't need to be an elite athlete. You don't have to be born six foot ten, you don't have to have fast-switch muscle fibres like Troy. You can just basically be a really good agent who's committed and prepared to do the work that it takes to get yourself. So let's go to prospecting Tommy. Over to you which one of those came.
Speaker 1:So the first one says did you do it? I'm going to go by-pass that because when I think, when you do it, I think most agents will say, yeah, I do a bit of prospecting. Really, what I want to focus on is the three after it, and I'll read them out for our listeners Do you do it consistently? How many layers do you have? And what is your mindset and energy when you do do it? So, john and Troy, they're those three things I want to talk about it. So what's consistently looked like? What do you mean by how many layers? So when you are putting that bullet point on that slide, john, what were you thinking? And mindset and energy? I mean there's a bunch of real estate agents that are doing cold calls. I come down to see you just calling to see whether you're thinking of selling or getting an appraiser in your house. No, no, okay, great, babe, tick it off. They feel like, oh, I've done my 50 calls. It's a checklist activity.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about that. Let me dump it and I'll tell you what I was saying. And, troy, I know you're going to do it options soon. So if you do get to a point where you've run out of time, just let us know and we'll keep going with the listeners. But he's still there, troy, is he? Yeah, and I'm here. I'm here, I'm just waiting. I'm waiting for you. You go first.
Speaker 3:It's all right. No, no, no, I was just going to say you know the funny thing about looking at the three areas we're talking about and then also, John, what you were just saying is, before you talk about the mindset and the energy, A lot of the tools that we're talking about is almost understanding a playbook and then getting it to a level that you're comfortable to scale it. And you know most people in this mindset they actually fail to launch. They know what they need to do but they get to a point that they actually don't ever implement or try or measure what they're doing around prospecting and I think that's probably my big point, or what I want to influence on this. And, John, the layers that we talk about. People know these layers because we've shared them so often and they've heard them about letterbox dropping and cold calling and door knocking and all these activities, but it's their failure to launch that really helps the back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I agree. I agree there's 10 to 20 layering prospects and you decide which ones work for your dough. But just decide on something and do it. Do you do it consistently? That depends on your marketplace, it depends on you.
Speaker 2:I think Jordan, who writes $10 million a year, I don't think he's got to sit at a phone and make two hours worth of prospecting calls a day to the people he doesn't know. That wouldn't make sense. I mean, he would get an enormous amount of business by creating raving fads out of existing buyers and sellers. He's dealing with this because he's in massive momentum, so his prospecting strategy would be different to a young guy or girl that's kind of starting out and has no database and has no connections and has no listings or has one or two listings. So I think the consistency is an apple a day, keeps the doctor away and I reckon 30 to 60 minutes worth of prospecting to the right lists, the right layers each day are probably going to get you into momentum. What's momentum? 3, 4, 5, 6, auctions, listings, whatever is going to get you there. So I think. But the only question, the problem is a lot of agents. Here's what I hear, tom, you hear it too. Oh, when do you prospect? Well, I'm pretty busy, but when I get short on listings, no doubt I'll hit the phones. Well, the horse is bolted by that stage. You should be prospecting when you don't need to prospect, because that's how you build a massively successful business in momentum and then you scale it, as Troy has just mentioned. So I think consistently is just really. Whether it's half an hour a day, two hours a day, two hours every second day, is your choice, but just have a rhythm and a frequency and a consistency. You know I've heard you say before Tom, you're just. You know, 90% of success is just showing up. Same with prospecting. Just picking up the phone every day half an hour and calling people is a good start.
Speaker 2:Number two how many layers do you have? Well, you know you don't have your one trick pony. You don't want to just do, or not? You don't want to just do DL cards and you don't want to just do expires. The answer is all of the above are likely to yield you pretty damn good results. So work out the ones that fit you, fit your marketplace, that you look forward to doing, that you're good at doing, and sort of start there and then build on that. You know, design a game you can't lose, troy, just pick one thing for the moment and do it half an hour a day. Then pick two things and do it for an hour a day, half an hour each and then add a third layer. It might be something like DL cards that you actually don't have to do. Someone else does it for you. So you've done a third layer and just build that. And I think your gym members told me you've got a copy of the AD layers of prospecting, so you know they should just refer to their content and get that.
Speaker 2:Third one is what's your mindset and energy? Again, ringing up people when you're in a negative or even neutral mindset, you know you want to be ringing them up when you are in a good frame of mind, when you've got a good energy about you. And the best person I ever saw was on Toronto. He was a century 21 age Back many years ago. I went to visit him and he was standing up. He was pacing the boardroom. I was watching him through a glass wall and he was cold calling. Just before I met him I sat in the reception area and they said I was a bit early. They said he's got about half an hour of prospecting to do. Are you happy to wait? I said yeah, sure, and I just literally watched this guy as he was making call after call, prospecting, pacing, walking around and he had a high level of energy about him. So I think, on prospecting there, the kind of things.
Speaker 2:The next one is do you have a great narrative? It really is. What are you saying to people when they answer the phone? You know, do you have something interesting to say? Do you have a short, concise way of communicating? Because most people are not sitting there waiting for you to call. In fact, you come in line with people that are trying to sell them something from call centres from other parts of the world and you're probably a distraction. So you need to have a nice, sharp, interesting to them, not you pitch. Well said.
Speaker 1:So I was doing the session today, john, with Tanay, and I know both Troy and you know he's part of your network in Melbourne, right and Tanay. I actually said to Tanay how many layers are you using? And he said to me oh, look, if we go through them. And then it was fascinating because he says oh, one of my most important layers is WhatsApp Stories. Get ready for this. And I said tell me more. And he goes oh well, you know, on WhatsApp, I posted up as a story and Facebook has integrated with WhatsApp. I think Facebook actually owns WhatsApp, meta owns WhatsApp, right. And he goes oh, this is all you do. I've never done it before. And then all I did is I came here, I posted a thing and I just put it on status and it goes to all the people that are on your WhatsApp. That is another layer. You're hitting people there. And what's fascinating is that I'm able to see straight away who has viewed the story. And I said to him oh, how do you use it? He goes example he goes I've got all my vendors on WhatsApp and I sent them the story about the RBA most likely putting two rate rises up. I mean, I know we're not talking about prospecting, but it's a form of communication to clients and he goes, I sent it to them and saying this is unfortunately what people are reading at the moment let's get it sold ASAP because I'm worried the borrowing capacity of buyers that we've got may drop if there is two rate rises, which means that they'll have less money to spend on a property is an example, you know incredible agent, by the way, tanae, incredible agent. Let's talk about the next funnel, or let's call it.
Speaker 1:The next most important component in real estate is listing and, john, you sent me a video beforehand on TikTok, on Angpasta Coglu.
Speaker 1:By the record, troy and John, you know this, I am a fanatical support, even before Angpasta Coglu was the coach, and I have met Angpasta Coglu three times. Right, he had a relationship with David Gallup and when I was at News Corp, david Gallup was on the News Corp payroll, so I used to talk to David Gallup. Anyway, cut a long story short, pasta Coglu has always had a philosophy shoot as many goals as possible, have as many goals on target In real estate. I heard an agent once say to me in an interview the victory in real estate is pitching for the business, not just winning the business. As long as we're pitching, as long as we're indoors we know that some people might not go with us they got a preexisting relationship but as long as we're there and Pasta Coglu is winning the EPL comp because they have had the most shots on goals than any other team in the competition, as per that video you sent me, john.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Troy, I just saw this and I didn't even know you're Tottenham's fan, but I think we're all Ann's fans and Troy. The statistic was that Tottenham takes more shots than anyone else in the appeal Not necessarily gets more goals, or they probably get that too. There's relevance. But and bottom of Wayne Gretzky that says you missed 800% intake. So yeah, I think that's a really good one. If we look at that listing column and I know the listeners can't see it all, but I guess gym members probably do get access to it A couple of things there. What's your preparation? Like A lot of people wing at listings.
Speaker 2:The call I was just on then, tom, he's with a young guy that works last on Northern Beaches and he's about to go tomorrow, actually on Thursday, to be specific to a listing appointment and we're a role-playing and we're going to do it again after this call, because he wanted to run past me how he thought he was going to pitch to the vendor that owns this 4.5, 5 million dollar property. He's prepared. Well, he's getting prepared. He's thinking of what might they like, what may they not like. He's very across that. So, really important Price maximization strategy. With the hitter guy number six, do you present your price as you say all the time, tommy, there's really only one thing people are interested in. All the other stuff's interesting, their awards is probably not interesting, case studies is probably relevant, but all they want to know is how the hell, if I sign that bit of paper you've got sitting in your folder to give you the right to go in and sell your property, how the hell do I know you're going to get more than anyone else could, because that's the game changer. So do you have a price maximization plan? And there's not just one plan. Each area is going to be different. There are some areas where your best buyers are going to come through buys agents or expats or overseas buyers. Well, that's going to be a different plan to someone where 98% of the buyers come from just around the corner. There are some areas where option and styling properties is going to be a really important investment and there are other areas where that's not going to be the game changer because they have a different style of marketing. So it's really important in this mindset audit machine mindset audit that you have for your area, for the sort of properties that you represent and sell, a strong five, six, eight, 10, 12 point maximization plan, that is, go give them confidence that you can get the most amount of money. I'll throw in one more then, troy, if there's anything you want to pick up on, if you can see the screen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you make it easy? We always talk about? Yeah, the best agents make it easy to do business for buyers and for sellers. So, yeah, do you make it easy? Do you fill the paperwork out? Do you explain things clearly? Do you have your tradespeople ready to go at an instance Notice? Do you have a plain English agreement so it's not hard for people to understand it? Do you have a reasonable fee rate and a reasonable period of agency? That's not going to be confronting for vendors where they freak out, and usually you want six months agency agreement. That's hard. So what are the things that just think through? What are the things you can do to make doing with you and dealing with you easy? Troy over to you on listing audit points.
Speaker 3:The only one I was going to add, john and Tom, was how fast and how well do you follow up?
Speaker 3:I think there's a fine line between hustle and hustle. I think a lot of agents get it wrong, and so the speed of follow up even if you were going to go into this, or investigation about recommendations through the client, how quickly and how much do you prioritize getting back in front of them and making sure that information is at their hand so they can actually make the right decision to use your services? But, john, that's the following on from your point about how easy you make it. So many times we'll sit through a listing assessment or we'll do a role play with an agent and it's confusing because we're not using language that the client understands. We've gone into age and talk and we think that they want to hear all the points that we think are important, instead of asking some really valid questions and having a conversation with them at the time of listing To make it easy for them to understand that you're going to do a great job and you're actually going to help achieve their goal what they're you know get the sale of their home.
Speaker 2:What's interesting, troy, you just I was talking about make it easy and you just touched on it there. One of the first bits of feedback before I had to interrupt that call before with the young fellow was he was showing me on Zoom but he held it up and the screwing his price, maximum organisation strategy and it was detailed, other than great, but it was overwhelming. It was like it looked like to me and he's got to send it to me. It looked like there was like 30 things he does and I'm sure he does all of them.
Speaker 2:But if I was a vendor and I looked at it, I would actually find it overwhelming, versus saying you know, tom, there's four things I do that no one else in the market does, and I'll guarantee you, these four things in concert will maximise your price. And here's what they are and here's how I'm going to do them. And that's kind of it's easy to digest, I guess, whereas the other one would be somewhat indigestible. So yeah, that's a good one. So, toby, do you want to have a look at the sell?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, and sell is important because we're talking about fair, john, while you were on the coaching call with Troy and we were talking about, we're now in a marketplace that has become so sub-market. Where I mean sub-market, I mean Troy can do an auction, sell it for $2 million with 27 people registered and then drive to another area on another property only five minutes away and have no one registered at a home. That is not too dissimilar, but might have one or two things that are wrong. So all of a sudden, yes, there's a big shift to quality and that's why we're seeing this extreme of one price selling for way over and others not having any interest. All of a sudden, in real estate, deal makers are being rewarded and order takers are sitting there with listings that expire after 90 days.
Speaker 1:A great deal maker has learned the art of salesmanship. They don't just sit there relying on an open for inspection. I'll take your name down, I'll put it on my real tear thing, you'll get an email from me, right? They don't do that. Good salespeople, I think, actually create urgency. They diagnose, they prescribe.
Speaker 1:But on this column you can pick a couple there. I'll just pick, you know, I mean one example. One example is that is people buyers like straight talk and not fuzzy, cryptic language on pricing. So are you making it easy for buyers to understand price? I've got to tell you in every in whatever I'm talking to people on weekends, if I'm out at auctions and people come up with a price, I can't tell you how people respond when I say to them hey, I think it's got to be around this mark, this is what I think it's going to be. They say thank you so much for being clear and letting us know, because I think they're used to a lot of people saying oh, mate, we don't know. On this one I've got yeah, just like, yeah, it's a hard one, like it's not a great link telling people you're an agent and you don't know the value of what you think a property is. So that, to me, is probably one of them. What are some of the others that stand out to you guys?
Speaker 2:I just look at the last two and they're kind of the same thing. Are you an expert negotiator? And note the word expert not just can you negotiate, because most people that have got a bit of experience in this industry can do a reasonable job negotiating. But you're actually not paid to do a reasonable job. You're paid to be able to extract the highest possible outcome from the buyers, and that takes a high level of expertise.
Speaker 2:And yeah, combined with the last one, which is can you close a deal, there's a lot of good agents that are good at talking, whether it's a listing or whether it's selling a property. There's very few that have the ability to time the right question, ask the right question with the right words and then let the silence do the heavy listing lifting. And I think you know you've got to be in this great negotiator, expert negotiator, chris Voss, you know, style FBI negotiator in a sense. You've got to be that good and you've also got to be able to close a deal. You've got to be able to ask the question, shut up, get the right answer and be prepared to sort of go through that level of this comfort that often precedes a deal being agreed upon.
Speaker 1:Troy last one.
Speaker 3:Last one yeah, for me, john, it's transparency wins in the selling process and what's the repeatable formula for success with every campaign you take to market, that is, what are the things you do to launch the property? What is the first VIP opening look like with the community and also the hot buyers? How many hot buyers do you have? How fast can you get the information about the property? What's the value add? What's the video product launch? How many private appointments are you doing all the way through to auction day or selling prior? You've got to have a formula for success that's repeatable, that shows transparency and integrity in the market, but also that becomes your next listing opportunity, because people gravitate towards that success, towards that excellence. So the the impression you're leaving with every campaign right now in the market is your future business Will Sickle Troy.
Speaker 2:Pulled a few extras out of there, Troy. No, those are on the screen.
Speaker 3:No, that's not the name. No, I think I've got it from you. I got it from you. An extra, extra playbook JM. Before.
Speaker 1:Troy goes beyond Troy. Malkin always adds value. One of the things you'll get with Troy is you'll get more than what you pay for with Troy. I hope you do well with these two auctions this afternoon.
Speaker 2:Before we finish. I was just on the phone You'd be aware of this Troy, as you might have mentioned me earlier that Richard Shalub did a sale just under $20 million in bream late last week. Anyway, I rang him to congratulate him and Richard said thanks, but don't congratulate me, congratulate Richard who's his associate, richard Shal. And so I did. I said yep, I'll give Richard a call. So I rang young Richard or younger Richard, and I said well done, you know, for a young guy to get a sale just under $20 million is pretty damn terrific. Anyway, he said to me, he said I was really a pleasure. He said I've been dealing with this buyer for five years, five years. And so people would say you know buyers are liars, he's a waste of time, what a tire kicker.
Speaker 2:And Davey Ong sold one for $28 million at circular key for a buyer who'd been dealing for eight years. So I've got to tell you there's just two little case studies that happen to be a few blocks apart from each other. So if you're listening to this, if you're part of the gym or if you're part of our audience, just stay with buyers until they buy, no matter how long it takes. $17 million, no, a bit more than that, closer to $8 or $9 million and $28 million Damn good payday for having the patience and the perseverance. That's the stuff legends have made of Troy, because those buyers say you know what a new place. I'm really thrilled. I've got to tell you, this agent has been sticking with me for the last eight years and people say, oh, my God, that's the sort of agent I want to work with. So there you go. There's some good case studies, everybody. Good luck to Todd and the hot spurs Tommy Undefeated.
Speaker 1:Well done. No, no, and I think, and I think, apart from his sale strategy, I think for anyone it's, he's Angposta Cobbler is a picture of possibility. I mean, he's from very poor suburbs of Melbourne, very average upbringing, and I've got to tell you, john and Troy, you might have remembered he was being knocked at knot by many, and the world-known one is Craig Foster, where they were saying you should resign and he persevered, persevered, persevered here and here he is. He is the leading coach in the leading competition in the whole world, in arguably the leading sport in the world, all the way from suburban Melbourne.
Speaker 2:No doubt Craig Foster Chagrin. That interview where Foster attacks him is still on and, I would imagine, climbing Daily. The Views on YouTube Ah, they get stitched.
Speaker 1:matey, you should resign. Yeah, that's the thing that TikTok does very well. That allows you to stitch one video to another video. Alrighty guys, thank you so much. See yous next week.