Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
The Pathway to Real Estate Mastery
- Early Stages Focus: Becoming successful in real estate requires a keen understanding of product knowledge, foundational skills, and effective time management.
- Evolving to a Black Belt: Achieving high GCI levels involves strategic chasing of listings, developing brand positioning, and leveraging a supportive team structure.
- Pathway to Mastery: Real estate mastery is a process that involves continuous learning, client-focused service, and intelligent marketing.
Navigating the real estate landscape requires a mix of determination, strategy, and ongoing education.
Drawing insights from the experiences and wisdom shared by industry leaders Tom Panos, John McGrath, and Troy Malcolm, we explore the pathways to achieving 'real estate black belt' status - a metaphor for reaching exceptional GCI (Gross Commission Income) levels.
Let's delve into the core themes and step-by-step strategies to ascend the real estate ladder.
Tom Panos, john McGrath, troy Malcolm, million-dollar agent. Four weeks to spring. It is a critical time because I'm telling everyone at the moment gentlemen, the listings between September and December are in conversations with real estate agents in August and right now, don't waste this important opportunity 100%.
John McGrath:Tommy, and before we know it we're going to be starting to list for next year. So you need to really get your skates on right now, and I think today we're going to talk about a whole range of things around the various pathways to mastery, and we're going to talk about all things except the NRL today, I suspect.
Tom Panos:Well, Hunt, we're not going to talk about the NRL because the West Tigers are a basket case. South Sydney are officially now out of the premiership for 2024.
John McGrath:And you know, Troy, and the Roosters are coming third, but we all hate the Roosters. Well, troy likes them, but everyone else on the call hates the Roosters, so I think we'd better just move straight forward. They've got to be the most hated team, so we'll just let Troy salivate over his success and we'll lick our wounds and rebuild for next year.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah. Yeah, so the name of the podcast the Spain and Tall Poppy Syndrome at its best.
Tom Panos:Yeah, troy, let's leave it at that. You had a win. Everyone's saying it was a lucky win. You're coming third. But I will say to all our listeners in Melbourne, even when you think that, hey, they've had their run for the decade, they're back. Melbourne Storm are the favourites to win the grand final, and you know well done Victoria.
John McGrath:Penrith are unbeatable, I think.
Tom Panos:Wow.
John McGrath:The only good thing Tom about currently is the Roosters. Whilst they are third, they have no chance of winning the comp. Technically they do, but in reality better chance than the Rabbitohs and the Tigers nonetheless. But there's only two possible chances Penrith and Storm, and I reckon Penrith. Now they've got Nathan Cleary back.
Troy Malcolm:We will see I was going to say. The one thing about Penrith is I don't know whether you both saw the highlights or watched the game, but Nathan Cleary, what an influence, and I guess that's a little bit of what we're going to talk about today the influences of individuals on a team unit and the impact that can have in any market. I mean, he scored three tries, he set up two, he was phenomenal out there, but he also has a calm approach and I think when you talk about what it takes to be black belt in real estate, there's a lot of synergies there with sport.
John McGrath:Yeah, the other thing, troy not to flog the NRL or the sporting metaphor too much, but I think, for those that do follow the NRL and I'm sure there's an equivalent, I just don't know it in the AFL Penrith, even though you know they had a lot of injuries and they've lost a lot of their gun players over the last few years because of the salary cap and so forth, they have a systematic approach that seems to fit people into it and always works. So, even though Nathan Cleary could be the world's best rugby league player at the moment, he's been out for a long time. The team continue to the main degree, and Melbourne Storm's a great example of this too. They continue even when many of their top people are out. So I think it's about building.
John McGrath:Let's get back to real estate for a minute here, tommy. I think it's about building a process and an approach which includes a structure and a mindset that will perform in and out, because you know there's going to be markets go up, markets go down and I think you've just got to build that. So let's talk through, I guess, the various tiers and everyone will probably relate to one of them that's on the call and then we can sort of have a bit of a chat about what we'd be focusing on if we were you.
Tom Panos:Okay, so the listeners will not see the slide, but the title of this podcast is the Pathway to Real Estate Black Belt and Black Belt is 2 million GCI and over Red Belt I've got as 1 million I've just used various brackets that real estate agents go up a ladder and if you start off with White Belt and I want to touch on that so, john and Troy, when a person is relatively new to real estate, right, they join the business and a lot of the times they have zero experience and maybe zero experience in sales.
Tom Panos:What are the sort of things that they should be focused on the first two years and what sort of income do you think is achievable early on? I mean, I know, I mean I sat through an interview and I had an agent say to me oh, how long would it take me to write the numbers that you know Gavin Rubenstein writes? And this guy was a 19-year-old kid, never worked in real estate, and I just felt like saying to him listen, that should not be your focus for the next 24 months to be Gavin Rubenstein or be Matt Steinway. What do you think, gentlemen, the early stages, what should the focus be first two years of real estate?
John McGrath:I think I'll start off Troy. I think that early on. For me anyway, product knowledge is really really critical. It's the foundation upon which you can build your confidence, and confidence is critical in this industry. So I think that you need to make an absolute study of the market. What does that mean? That means values. That means architectural style. That means what's happening in the market. That means what's happening in your community, but you know specifically, really getting to know everything that's in the market. That means what's happening in your community, but you know specifically, really getting to know everything that's on the market, everything that's sold, why things are selling at those levels, why the north side fetches more than the south side and how much a double garage adds, and and so forth.
John McGrath:I just think in any industry that product knowledge is a really critical starting point. So I would be really working. In fact, that's what I did when I started out. I started selling when I was 20. And because I was a bit sort of lacking in confidence and obviously fairly young to start out, I really found it was important to build that confidence based on product knowledge.
John McGrath:So in the early stages, I just think I know your table there. Tommy has got the word learn, which is a great word, and I think I'd be learning the product knowledge and learning the basic skills I mean we often talk about Troy. Learn the skills so you can forget it, meaning learn it, and it'll feel a bit robotic for the minute and you'll practise it. Practise it and at some point it no longer feels robotic, it just feels a natural part of your approach. So I think you know your basic infrastructure, mainframe skills base and there's only three activities prospecting, listing and selling. So there's not that much to learn and I think, coupled with the foundation of great product knowledge, what do you think, troy, what other things in the early stage of a career would you be focused on learning?
Troy Malcolm:I'll echo your comments, john. I think, yeah, market knowledge, the basic listing and basing prospecting skills are key. I think you've got to manage your time and energy really clearly when you're starting out and accountability I think those three areas is where a lot of new starters or learners fall off track. We noticed that. So how do you overcome that? I think you've got to develop a really clear business plan. You've got to make sure that you put the systems in place what's your prospecting system? What's your market research system? What's your listing framework? Develop those core systems and then keep yourself accountable or get a peer partner.
Troy Malcolm:It's a really hard grind in the first 24 months of real estate and I think if you can align yourself with someone that's going through that similar journey, you're going to set yourself up for success and you're probably going to fast track because you're going to learn from both people or multiple people, as opposed to just trying to go on your own. So they're the areas that I'd be most focused on. But, john, I think you're 100% right Market knowledge, listing skills and prospecting skills in that order, I think, will really set you up for success.
John McGrath:And you do all that, Tommy, you get to the next phase on your black belt chart, which is chase meaning. What do you take from that?
Tom Panos:Well, so to make things clear and easy for people, there are two pathways. You might go down the path of being a CSM or associate, or you might be a standalone agent. So I should clarify that, because there are those two models. But one thing is for sure nothing is going to happen, and I think it was Marcus Ciminello that said it to me, when one of these old directors early on in the piece said Marcus, everything is fine in what you're saying, but you need to remember one thing Where's your next listing going to come from?
Tom Panos:That is fundamentally what we're in the business. We're a volume-based business and nothing happens without the volume of a listing based business and nothing happens without the volume of a listing. So I think you do have to, early on, before you become a magnet, before you have raving fans, before you become an attraction agent, you do need to learn the art of gentle interruption. That's how I define prospecting. You're going to have to learn how to interrupt people gently, whether it's face to face, whether it's on the phone. You're going to have to try and meet people that own real estate in your core area and get them to start liking you and getting a feel that, hey, he or she's like a nice person, so that's what we call prospecting in real estate.
John McGrath:Yeah and Tommy, let's face it, in the early stages of many careers in real estate, yeah and Tommy, let's face it, in the early stages of many careers, especially if you start at a younger age, you don't yet have a network. You haven't got past clients to follow up, all you've got is energy. And hopefully by this stage because the first session, the first section we talked about you know product knowledge. So hopefully you've now got some product knowledge. You haven't yet got momentum, but you need to chase and chase and chase, because you should have a bit more confidence. And you've got energy and we've all got boundless energy. It just depends on how much we want to pour into this great business of real estate.
John McGrath:So the chase bit for me, exactly right. And you know you use Marcus's commentary and I remember back to the late great Ron Pillinger and he was always, you know, first thing in the morning you get to the office what's the best deal, what's the closest deal, what calls can I make right now to get a deal sold or a deal listed? And he was just totally deal-focused. And you know he's still to this day, one of the best agents in 40 years of real estate that I've ever seen. So I think, yeah, it's just using your enthusiasm, energy, your newfound product knowledge. So you should have a bit more confidence. And just chasing, as Ron Pillinger said, you know what call can I make this morning prospecting, following up deals. So, troy, I think the chase bit is self-explanatory. You've got to get up and go.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, a lot of it, john, comes down to the feeling of pressure because, like you said, tom, a lot of these agents they're making 20 to 40 transactions, depending on what market they operate in. The chase is on and they're feeling that pressure. So it's like, how do they manage their time effectively, how do they make sure that they've got the lead generation and the listing lead source in place? Because they have made a few sales and so they know what it takes, but they're probably chasing a lot more than what they're actually converting. So the pressure improves here. But if you actually break it down into the systemized approach, that kind of gets you to the next level, which I think we're going to talk about in a second, about you know the support and the brand position and how you create that attraction business.
Tom Panos:Yeah, I'll just add and extend on what you spoke about both about the Chase bit. I was overwhelmed in my second or third year in real estate and on a specific Monday morning my employer, john Owsnet from the professionals padstow pulled me aside and he said listen, I'm going to make things easy for you. Let's go and have a sit down at a coffee shop. We sat down and on a piece of paper, he divided a piece of paper into three columns. The first column was listings I'm chasing. The second column was hot buyers I'm working with and the third column was my current vendors. And he said do me a favor, write it all out, write all three out.
Tom Panos:And I wrote it out and he said effective, from today, every Monday morning you'll have a personal meeting with yourself. You'll write these three columns out and you're going to write them out. I said why am I going to write out all these listings? I've changed. He goes because when you write it out, you're forcing yourself to come up with an action step on what will you do this week to get closer to that listing? He says when you write your buyers out, you're reminding yourself these are the high probability buyers and you write out your vendors because it forces you to come up with an action step. What can I actually do to help get this vendor sold this week? Is it another conversation? Is it more marketing? Is it a price alignment? And that piece of paper becomes your agenda for the week because you can get lost getting busy, being busy without a clear agenda at the start of the week.
John McGrath:You know, tommy, I reckon that's as good a real estate advisor as I've heard in four decades. Wow Listings. I'm chasing hot buyers and current vendors. What else is there to do and who else is there to speak to? You can try and get fancy pants and get into the social media era and that might work as well, but just the basics of that. You are name dropping again. Professionals, padstay Jesus unbelievable.
Tom Panos:Yeah, and I'll tell you what Maddy King knows. Maddy King was a good mate. Is Maddy King's, I think, good mates with them, right, john? Maddy King knows Maddy King was good. Is, maddy King's, I think, good mates with him, right, john? And it's interesting, you know, because when I joined that office I'll still never forget it Owsnet said to me we do 30 sales a month here. That's a sale a day. And he goes and you've got to chip in with seven of those. And it was like this is what you've got to do and I thought that that, to me, was the norm. And subsequently I've realized that not every office does 30 sales a month. But let's move on.
Tom Panos:So you've learned the basics, you've learned product knowledge and no one's got an excuse. Go to realestatecom. You could have a university degree in product knowledge in one day, in 2024. You can see all the just sold. You can see all the current listings. By the way, can I ask you both what's your view on agents that improve their product knowledge by going to other agents, opens auctions, sending associates in? I get mixed feelings. I get some agents at an auction on a Saturday. Oh Tom, what's this guy doing hanging around his property here. I don't want him to be on my property. Troy, you would hear it. You'd hear when agents get shitty about competitive agents coming along to the properties. What are your views on that? Can you do it in a good way?
John McGrath:I think number one public auction. You can't really retard anyone from coming. If they want to come, they should be able to come, although I do know there are some agents that try and ban other agents, which feels a little bit miserly to me. So I think, as an agent that's attending other agents' auctions, one must be careful not to disrupt in any way and appear to be touting for business.
John McGrath:I mean, I've seen some agents attend our auctions and even other agents' auctions and they sort of go around the crowd networking and I've even seen people, believe it or not, handing out business cards and some have approached buyers who have been underbidders and I've got to say I find that a bit distasteful because I think it's a bit like you've got to be respectful to the agent holding the auction and if they're happy to have you attend which I would be and I think most should be I think you know you should be appropriate. I've even seen I'll tell you the worst bit is I've seen other agents handing out brochures for similar properties to people on the way out of an auction. That's probably about as bad as I've seen, which I find offensive and some might argue oh, they're doing the right thing by their vendor. But I just think there's ways to do things and there's ways not to do things.
Tom Panos:And what about at Opens, john? Because the Opens the auctions is less so but Opens about. You know, because the open the the options is lesser but opens like, and a lot of companies are sending their younger associates saying go in, check that, place out um see what it's like. What's your view?
John McGrath:I think every agent should see everything that's for sale, if they can, in their neighborhood. I wouldn't be sending an associate. I'll be going to look at it myself, because you can't really tell unless you walk through it. And you know, to be quite honest, I had very good relationships with pretty much everyone in my market except for one, but everyone else I had very good relationships with and you know we'd welcome each other. Come along and they came to my Opens and I went to theirs. So I think you know there's no reason why this is not war and peace here. We're not taking over a country, just get on with each other and yeah, go along and have a look at them.
Troy Malcolm:Troy, have you got the same view? I've got the same view. I mean I would encourage and I do encourage my agents to let agents come through their opens, but they need to be respectful about it. You know, when I was in in sales, we'd always go midweek, when it was a little bit quieter. We'd never have our tie on our name badge. We'd always introduce ourselves or do a courtesy call before we arrive to say, hey, we've got a neighbor in the area that we're thinking about giving a recommendation about a renovation. Is it okay if we walk through? Looks like the owners have done a great job, there's a way to go about it. And I I think, John, that's what you're saying Everyone can get along, but you need to be respectful. And so I think you know the more care you take with those relationships. It's a law of reciprocity. You know it'll come back to at some point in time.
Tom Panos:Okay, beautiful, let's talk about the next level. I'm going to bundle it together. You get to around 400 GCI, thereabouts, maybe 500. And all of a sudden you've got five or six listings on the go and all of a sudden you've got to remember things and you've got to chase things and you've got to do your opens and then you've got to do your vendor reports, but you still got to look for new business. So all of a sudden things have got busier and in addition to that, your name's getting out there in the marketplace. People are seeing you on REA and Domain. You're probably hitting social a lot more. The community's becoming aware of you, and it's both about brand and it's about support. Do you have a view? Do both of you have a view on the support bit? When do you pull the trigger and say I'm bringing in someone to help me? I'm a standalone agent. At what point in your real estate path to Black Belt do you do that?
John McGrath:Probably depends initially, tommy, on the level of support your office gives you.
John McGrath:If you've got full support in the office in terms of the admin, I think you can hang on a bit longer. But if you've kind of support in the office in terms of the admin, I think you can hang on a bit longer. But if you've kind of got to do it all yourself, you know you'd be better off paying someone else 25, 30 an hour to do activities that you know 25 to 30 hour activities. I reckon as a general rule of thumb, you should be able to list and sell one property a week yourself and I think once you're at or above those levels, I think you know you definitely want to hire your first team member by the time you got to that.
John McGrath:If you're only doing one or two sales a month, I think it doesn't make sense financially and you probably don't need it. But I think once you're getting to three or four sales a month, you definitely need to start your team, starting with someone who can probably take care of all the paperwork off your plate, help you get organized, help look after the marketing activities and then, as you get a little bit more, you might get another couple of sales a month and then you start probably with someone that can help you with buyer work. That would be my thinking, troy.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, I think it depends on the individual as well, Tom. We know there's agents out there that are extremely savvy in their approach. They know how to use technology to their advantage. They're using products out there that streamline everything. So I think if you're tech savvy you can probably leverage being a sole agent for a lot longer than what someone would be if they were probably not as tech savvy. So it depends on the individual. But I agree with John, If you're making two to three sales per month and you're getting a lot of volume through Open for Inspections and there is a need for the buyer work, I would definitely be looking at bringing on that person and that'll kind of take you to 60 to 75 sales for the year and that's kind of that realm of what we're talking about from a GCI point of view as well.
Tom Panos:Okay. The magic in real estate starts happening when, all of a sudden, you're on the shopping list and they're calling three agents and you're just getting calls coming in from people that you may or may not know saying hey, troy, could you pop over and look at our home in Kingsley Street? Right, and that normally appears not to happen. In your first two years, I mean, you might get the occasional one, but I get a lot of real estate agents that tell me from around year three onwards, hey, they seek me out, I'm getting call-ins. They're saying that they've seen me on the review site on the JustSold section. So, on that, should real estate agents, apart from vendor-paid advertising, should they be looking at investing in agent-paid advertising to enhance and extend their brand?
John McGrath:their brand. It's funny this is one of those industries where a lot of your brand positioning can be done whilst you're doing a great job as agent marketer. I'll give you an example just listed cards. They are actually important and beneficial to a vendor, but of course, they do, in a sense, promote you and your brand at the same time as do just listed, just auction invites and then just sold. Well, the just sold probably is a cost for you. So I do think you have to start investing, just like any business. You've got to, as soon as you shift from a mindset of an employee to I'm a business within a business. I mean every business dry cleaner, laundry, corner stores, anything. If you want to grow, you need to promote your service and your products. So, yeah, I think for sure you've got to start doing that. In fact, I think the next two levels, tommy, which isently is a really important and a great way of doing it. I think just the simple things, like you know just listed, just sold, type of cards. Really important, troy.
Troy Malcolm:I think it actually creates a bit of breakthrough.
Troy Malcolm:When we get to this moment, tom and John, I think you've got to really look at the quality of the team excellence standards, because if you're doing the right thing out there, then you probably won't need to do as much marketing as what you would have done in the past.
Troy Malcolm:When you're getting through to this level, you do become that household name and you do get people coming to you instantly. Do become that household name and you do get people coming to you instantly. I think, with some really smart marketing initiatives, this is where you can see one sale turn into four very quickly with a campaign and that's what most people should be focused on doing great things. I think of agents throughout our group, john, that use social media and video products very intelligently around their just sold and just listed properties. Not only is it in the letterbox, but it's also online and that's leaving a digital footprint, tom, that people are looking and digesting, you know, months after the event, and I think that that's a really smart strategy to get that next level of momentum and take you to the superpower teams you know, 2 million and above.
John McGrath:It's a good point, troy, because we often talk internally at McGrath about raving fans and to create raving fans it costs zero, it's just effort and interest and service levels and attention to detail those things. And whilst a lot of people go and spend thousands a month on newsletters and letterbox drops and social media, their service levels, which are far more impactful and cost nothing, are often a bit substandard, you know. Then you go to one of their opens and they're on the phone and they're not particularly attentive and you know, whatever. I think that the number one brand positioning and the number one marketing is always going to be your attention to people that you're serving in the market. So I think you're right, that's critical.
John McGrath:And then that brings you to the leverage point. You know, if you're up and around the sort of 800k, a million dollars, whatever, you know you've got now, now you've got a business that's bustling, that's got momentum, that's got a bit of scale, that's got energy and it's really about. You know how do you leverage that level of momentum to go to what we often call runaway success? Yeah, I think it's a really great graph you've got there, tommy. I hope you can somehow put it up on your gym site.
Tom Panos:Yeah, I'll put it up. I'll even put it up on social and on that last bit there, when I look at the black belt and you can't see it there team. But just picture, black belt is 2 million plus and the focus is on team because there's only a certain amount of things a single person is going to do. So I sat through the REB top 100, call out the names with Phil Tarrin about three months ago and there was one column that had how many members were in the team as I was going through the list 100, 99, 98, which, by the way, congratulations. I think there would have been around 30 people from McGrath on that list when I was going through it.
Tom Panos:However, the observation I want to make is it appears there was not one person that was able to do 2 million plus without at least two team members in their team. One might have been working towards buyers and helping with lead generation and another one was doing more marketing and admin. That's when you start talking about epic levels in real estate. We could go through lots of names. You could go to the REB Top 100 and see them, but you will see, the bigger the dream, the bigger the team.
John McGrath:Yeah, and the last one team development, which you'll see on the list when you go to Tom's website. When you're really in momentum, you're able to engage, hire and and retain really good quality people that become part of your team. But they're fully fledged and and very successful agents in their own right and that's where these multi-million dollar agents I mean, you know they're all going to have quality people at that level and a lot of people are happy to work for an Alex Jordan or a Matt Steinway or, you know, gavir Rubenstein they're looking to be mentored and coached and they want to be a part of a team. So, yeah, I think it's a great way to go forward and everyone should check out this ladder.
Troy Malcolm:When I was looking at that list, Tom, I was always really keen to see how long those associates and team members had been retained by those lead agents, because I think you would find there's a correlation between the success of the agent and the part of his team. For probably as long as I can remember, there's a really good synergy there between business operations, scale and senior agents that are writing huge numbers. So lesson for everyone the team that you have, it's the pick and stick mindset and developing that team that's going to get you scale and consistency around hitting $2 million plus GCI on an annual basis.
John McGrath:Yeah, good point. Check it out at Tommy's website because it's a fantastic pathway to give everyone a sense of the way to go to build their career.
Tom Panos:All right, Gentlemen, it is good to see you again and it is very good to know that. Look, I don't know about you, but my experience in real estate is July to December is always a lot more volume than January to June, and I think that we're entering our state of origin period in real estate. We're only four weeks away from a lot, a lot of listings and volume is high and I don't know what it's like there at McGrath, troy, but you can tell there are a lot of auctions being booked in at the moment.
John McGrath:It's definitely on the up, definitely on the up. Chase Harder and Criago three that is. I love that. Tommy, three columns listings. I'm chasing hottest buyers and my current vendors. There you go, guys, tommy. Three columns listings. I'm chasing hottest buyers and my current vendors. There you go, guys. If you heard that today, that's a great piece of gold. Thanks, tommy. Thanks a lot, troy.
Troy Malcolm:See you, Tim. Have a great week.