Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
Mindset, Rejection & Curiosity
The focus is on the recent reduction in interest rates and how it influences the real estate market. They discuss how to leverage this change to add value to client interactions, enhancing the role of communication in fostering relationships with buyers and sellers.
This episode delves into the art of communication within the real estate market, emphasising that even amidst fluctuating interest rates, consistent and clear dialogue with clients is vital.
John McGrath shares insights from coaching sessions, highlighting the importance of guiding clients to make informed decisions. The episode also underscores the role of curiosity and continuous learning in personal and professional development, crucial for real estate professionals eager to scale their business.
Tom Panos, john McGrath, troy, malcolm, million Dollar Agent. The podcast coming to you on a big day, eventful day. Real estate it's across every media. Every time I turn my mobile phone there's another story there. Rates we all must know that rates have come down now and that's the industry that we work in. So, john and Troy, we can touch on a little bit on that. I mean, obviously we always, as real estate people, have looking for reasons to actually speak to our client base with some value add information, not just ringing them up and sort of asking oh, do you want to sell your house? What would John McGrath, what would John McGrath be doing if he was doing nothing but listing and selling houses in the days there at McGrath Good Hope and there was this announcement today. What would he be saying to buyers? What would he be saying to his sellers? What would he be saying to his vendors? What would he be saying to himself?
John McGrath:It's interesting, tom, because I don't think it's as big a deal as everyone else is making it it's. It's a nice trend to start. Hopefully the trend continues. Um, I think that we we teach internally in our business, the inner market, that kind of doesn't matter what interest rates are doing in the reserve bank and everything else, it matters what you're doing. So, look, it's a good opportunity to update, to touch base with with, certainly your buyers and sellers. But when people raise it, oh, what do you think it's going to do? I don't think a one-off reduction in rates is going to move the needle significantly. I think three or four rate reductions will certainly make a difference. But, look, it's a step in the right direction. But I guess moral of my story is I think it's the ongoing communication when there's no rate rises or no rate reductions. That's really key. It's how you position your clients. It was funny, tommy.
John McGrath:We did a webinar last week. Troy and I and Chris Moore did a webinar with. We've got a young lady by the name of Monique Leun. She's a young Lebanese lass, 23 years of age, going to be a superstar. She'll be the next Alex Jordan in Blacktown In her first, second full year of selling real estate. She'll probably do one and a quarter million. Last weekend at Super Saturday, she had nine auctions. She's got all nine, nine out of nine, some before and the rest at and you know, it was just funny because we were talking to her about you know what's the secret sauce? And uh, yeah, she said yeah, you just got to talk to people and be honest and direct and communicate and one of the things that con because I asked con, you know what? One of the things she does great.
John McGrath:I asked joel hollings as well that she studied under and joel said no client will ever die wondering and no client of monique's will ever die wondering. She will always let them know where things are at, whether you're a buyer or seller. She'll let them know clearly, articulately, and no one will be wondering what's going to happen, what's my next step, what are the options? She'll just sit down calmly and this is a 23 year old young lady, by the way, I mean quite remarkable and very mature for her age and I just love that, you know.
John McGrath:When joel said you know, none of her clients are ever wondering about what's happening. They always know. She always talks them through where we're at, here are our options. Here's what I think we should do. Next, whether you're a buyer or it doesn't matter, and I think that's just a great lesson to people who've been in the game 20, 30, 40 years, it's. Don't let your clients wonder what's happening. Tell your sellers what's happening, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. Tell your buyers where they're at, what they have to do. I think it's just a masterstroke.
Tom Panos:John, your role in the organisation at McGrath and Troy you might want to, you know, clarify or qualify what I'm saying appears to be a really strong coaching role for both high performing agents and also for emerging and aspiring and growth agents and aspiring and growth agents and in a typical, you know, like you have a lot of conversations the coaching that you do within McGraw, john, is it face-to-face or is it generally on Zoom Combination, preferably like anything face to face, but I'll take a zoom if I can't get a face to face and I'll even do some coaching on the run.
John McGrath:The other day I was driving up Central Coast and I did a 45 minute coaching session between Sydney and Central Coast. So any opportunity whether you're selling, and yet the opportunity to speak to buyers and sellers, or whether you're leading or managing, it's the opportunity to have a coaching session or a discussion I'll take it. I think it's really critical. It's funny. It reminds me Troy.
John McGrath:I was just talking to some guys trying to get a deal together and you know, I said to them well, you know, is it in writing? And they said no, it's not. And I said to them well, is it in writing? And they said no, it's not. And I said, well, why not? If you can't get the buyer, get the seller. If you can't get the seller, get the buyer in writing. And then I said are you seeing the client face-to-face? They said no, we're going to do it on the phone. I said man, you've got to get it in writing, like to get face-to-face. I can see body language. It's like a listing. There are things people say and do at a listing that if I'm not there in the room it's harder for me to actually, you know, sort of sense it. So yeah, I think definitely. I mean this is a major part of my job. I'm probably in a couple of coaching sessions at least a day.
Tom Panos:And I love it and I love trying to move the needle. Is there, like, tell us this week any coaching, some of the stuff that comes out of coaching, some of the learnings? Because if you really think about it, this is in fact a podcast, which is a conversation, which is coaching at scale. On audio it's massive. It would be good to actually take some of the learnings of a one-on-one, to share it and leverage it to you know the thousands of people that listen to MDA yeah, you're cutting out a little bit there, tommy, but I think we got the gist of.
John McGrath:You're just talking about generally coaching. I've got what's interesting. Um, I did some. Well, obviously, as I said, I'm doing it every day, but some coaching. A few days ago and just today, in my email inbox, the young guy that I was coaching, he said just want to let you know. Here are the key takeaways that I got out of your session and I thought maybe we could share some of these insights, because some of them we've spoken about before and other than maybe not so much. But, a, it was great that he took notes and B, that he thought enough of the notes he took to share them back with me, which, as a coach, it's kind of quite good. Here are the things, troy, that I got out of it and these are things that obviously I'd said to him, but he's and these are things that obviously I'd said to him, but you know he's sort of saying these are the things that landed home with him.
John McGrath:Firstly, I said you've got to realise the game's changed. I'm looking at AI, technology, social media, databases, ebus, wealth that's never been seen before in the history of the world. All of these things are hitting simultaneously. So if you're not 10x to your business from where it was three or four years ago, my suggestion to him at that point was he's getting in the way because we didn't have this same wealth a decade ago. Tommy, you know that You've seen just this explosion of wealth through crypto and technology and mergers and acquisitions and globalisation. Yeah, ai there's stuff you can do with AI now which is phenomenal phenomenal. We should do a session one day on that Social media again. You can you know you can target people if you learn how to do it profile them, target them, get lookalike buyers and just find buyers that didn't even know they were buyers. So that was kind of one of the things he said.
John McGrath:Two is you know, this is what I he obviously took it from what I said because he was a little bit hesitant on you know. He said I don't want to be a pushy salesman. I said neither do I, but here's what I apparently said and he actually put it back to me better. I said sales is helping, guiding your customers to make the best possible decision that will favour them. Sales is helping and guiding your customers to make the best possible decision that will favour them. And that's been my belief is that I never want to push a square peg into a round hole. I never want to have someone make a decision they'll regret tomorrow. But I also know, in amongst all of that, people will hesitate making a decision because they have a level of fear and they may not have all the information they need. And you might need to find out what information they may not have or what fear they might have. And I just think it's really, really critical that if you don't sell and if you don't answer objections and if you don't surface what are the issues and really find out if it's the right property for them or you're the right property for them or you're the right agent for them, you know you're going to get stuck. So that was. That was kind of nice.
John McGrath:I say I say a lot troy, you hear me say it all the time 10x is easier than 2x. It's actually easier to explode your business to a whole new level, in my opinion, than it is to make some incremental advancesmental advances are better than status quo, but exploding your business to a whole new level has an energy attached to it and an excitement and an impact on the community that you're serving and the market and gives you resources, gives you finances that you can then go to the next level and build on that success and increase that success. So you know that was kind of important to him. I said talent is not fixed. It really depends on how much you want to explode your own talent. Yeah, a lot of people have this view. Tom, I wasn't born that right troy is. You know, much better at me. At that he's more articulate or whatever. You know. Don't think that whatever talent you believe you may have now is limited or fixed. It's actually able to expand like a rubber band to whatever level you want to expand it to. So this is one of the issues I find a lot of people think I'm not that guy. I'm just not, I'm not cut out so much for that. So I think really critical on us.
John McGrath:Look at Alex Jordan. You know we talk about him a lot, troy, but Alex Jordan $380K when he came to us now doing $9 million, $10 million, and he's the same, you know, ostensibly, from the outside looking in, most people would see he's basically the same individual. Now, clearly, from the inside looking out, he's changed a major ways he thinks and acts and his energy and probably not so much his dialogue a little bit of his dialogue, but he was always articulate and sophisticated. What else did they say? What did they pick up from me? Most people are two or three decisions, actions or skills away from 10X. You know your identity. Tom is critical and I work on identities and I look for I go fishing in a coaching session to try and find people who have got an identity that's holding them back, so they have a story about themselves or a fear or a view of their own capability or limitations that is holding them back. It was interesting, troy.
John McGrath:I was in head office a little bit earlier today doing some coaching and one of our guys that I was talking to this is not the same person, but a different one. There's a property development company not far away from our business and he was walking down to get a sandwich and he saw them and they had a nice model and he walked in and he had a chat to a guy who ended up being literally the one I see, or two I see the business and he said, oh yeah, we'd love to understand what you do a bit more and so forth, and they're a phenomenally successful company that's sort of come from overseas and just really re-establishing or establishing themselves here and there's some terrific, and you know we're now looking for some significant properties for them and sites and so forth. But all because he knocked on the door and he walked in, introduced himself and I think one of the stories a lot of people they kind of think, oh, is that too pushy? Well, I don't think so. If you're a developer and a real estate agent that's well-presented, articulate, walks in and shakes your hand and said, just want to introduce myself, I'm not, you know, we're just up the road. I kind of think I'd be impressed by that, not thinking it's really pushy.
John McGrath:So you know I'm very much about proactivity, mentoring. He said you know I mentioned mentoring takes you 20 years ahead. You know, if you're Tom sitting across the table from a Shane Smolin or a Tom Panos or Troy Malcolm, someone that's been there and done that or done the stuff that you want to achieve, they can give you nuggets of gold and wisdom that you don't need to take you 10 or 20 years. All you need is the right person that's been there and done it, that's had great success in the area that you're trying to conquer and they can just take your head. Don't think you've got to take the long path and the painful path and make all the mistakes yourself. Find someone. You might have to pay them or you might not. Sometimes people are just happy to mentor and coach because they enjoy doing it. Other times people do it as a profession, as a professional coach. So I think really important that one to find the right mentor.
John McGrath:A couple more that he mentioned Resil. Resilience is a muscle you need to strengthen. Yeah, this is a game that is full of rejection. Even great agents often miss 40% of the business they go for and even great agents, you know, have to get 50 buyers through a property to get an offer. So the ability to go back harder and stronger and with the same momentum after facing rejection and things falling over is really one of the muscles you have to strengthen this business. And the last one it comes back to always be curious and keep learning.
John McGrath:I had breakfast this morning, tom, with Con and Shane Smolin and you know just it was interesting watching. You know the dynamic. We were doing a bit of coaching with Con about how to help him grow his business to the next level and you know Shane's just constantly curious the questions he asks. He's genuinely interested. Where are you at? How are you thinking? Why are you thinking that way? And I think it's whether you're an agent or a principal or a coach. Curiosity and constant learning is absolutely one of the keys to success. So they were just the sort of you know there's eight or nine things that he sent back that he that he felt were uh relevant. Um so yeah, hopefully there's something for people.
Troy Malcolm:You know we're not coaching everyone, but you two of the other ones that I always notice, john, in our coaching sessions that we do together and just observations that I see with you is the style and the language in which people approach things. So you mentioned the developer opportunity. There is a style and there is a way that you approach that and it's disarming and it's a genuine interest. And there is a style and sometimes it's a bad rap that agents get that doesn't really resonate with those clients. So I think there's a key point there that style and language is incredibly important when you are out there In a coaching session that we had recently, I noticed that that was one of the key things that you mentioned.
Troy Malcolm:And then the other one was ask great questions Always be curious. You just mentioned Shane there and Shane always asks great questions but a lot of agents forget and they fall into the trap of just going into agent dialogue and talking a lot as opposed to really understanding the client's needs. And I think those two, three things I've noticed over recent times you've been quite focused on as well.
Tom Panos:When you ask questions, you learn. When you make statements, you get judged.