Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
The Million Dollar Agent Roadmap
The discussion covers key strategies in lead generation, relationship building, and listing presentations, all designed to help agents boost their sales and client engagement.
Tom Panos introduces the Million Dollar Roadmap, a strategic plan that agents attending the upcoming AREC conference will receive to strengthen their business game. John McGrath shares powerful insights on turning clients into raving fans and mastering prospecting, while Troy Malcolm highlights the value of tapping into personal networks and staying in regular contact with clients. The trio breaks down actionable tactics across four key areas: generating leads, nurturing relationships, excelling in listing presentations, and closing deals—providing agents with a clear advantage in a competitive market.
Tom Panos, John McGrath, Troy Malcolm, and welcome to Million Dollar Agent, the podcast, the longest serving real estate agents podcast in Australia, going since 2013. The last time the West Tigers made the semis was 2011, and I've got a funny feeling this year It'll be this year. That's what everyone's saying. I'm not being, you know, blindly optimistic. You've got to, gentlemen, you've both got to agree. We're in with a chance. We're in the eight now.
Troy Malcolm:I like the Tykes this year, tom, I think you're doing very well. I like the style of which they're conducting themselves on and off the field. They're making tough calls, but they're transparent.
Tom Panos:There was a wonderful article in the paper by a guy called Don Ritchie who says I want to apologise, I think I was wrong. He said he was wrong about Benji Marshall, because Benji Marshall spoke about how coaching wasn't going to dictate his whole life and he wrote an article and then one year later he goes. I have to accept that I think I was wrong. I think he's a very good coach and that he's doing it his way and his way looks like it's the right way. But I'm pumped and excited because we've got three weeks to Eric and, as I said to you off camera, I was doing a real estate initiative for our gym members because they've all been asking can you just give us a really big one-page dashboard that we can hang up on our wall? That's got the exact map, journey roadmap on getting the lead, nurturing the lead, listing it, selling it. Maybe have trigger points on what dialogue to use where, give us some ideas of the process. So we went to work and we finished it and then I said to Susan just get a quote to get enough for everyone that's at ARIC, we'll just give them one right. And she's done that and it's only like when you do a big print run. It's not major. So we're going to give every real estate agent that attends ARIC the million dollar roadmap, the roadmap which is lead, which is basically prospecting or marketing to get people to do a pop in a price update and appraisal to nurture it. And I want to spend time talking about how do you stay in contact with someone without sort of them thinking, oh, not again, I've got to answer this call. He's going to ask me or she's going to ask me. Am I ready to list? How do you actually continue a relationship without coming across as being too much of a stalker? Touch a little bit on the listing presentation and then talk about selling. So short, fast podcast To you, gentlemen, I'm going to put it out towards the lead. So some of the ones that I had, I'm going to put it out towards the lead. So some of the ones that I had were the open home, the buyer, seller. This is the buyer that says when I buy something I'm going to sell. Community connection, success, marketing, the magic 40. We have all different people. I mean, some people call it the magic 50. Some people call it the magic 40. I'm not quite sure, troy. Some people call it the magic 40. I'm not quite sure, troy, at McGrath, whether you use an acronym to talk about success marketing.
Tom Panos:You're just listed, just sold, targeted door knocking, orphan data, expired listings, past internet inquiries, obviously, realestatecom have basically told us if someone lives in an area and they're going to put their home on the market and they're not an absentee owner, they're going into an open for inspection. You're going to meet these people, no question about that. Right, and obviously your relationship with your. You know rental department banner advertisements. But, john and Troy, I want to start off on. You've always and I know, john, when you were in real estate, you had a philosophy if I can get them coming towards me instead of me having to go out to them all the time, right, you know the attraction. What are some of the things that come to your mind that agents can be doing in attraction? Obviously, around the just listed just solves.
John McGrath:Troy. Yeah, I think, tommy. Yeah, you're right. I just jotted down prospecting, which is outbound, attraction, which is people coming to you, and then the nurture, whether you've gone out or they've come to you. Often you don't list them immediately, but you'll probably list them sooner than later, so there's kind of three, three buckets there. So and you coined the phrase for the industry many years ago I've spoke about raving fans for decades, but you, you talked about attraction agent, you know, probably 15 years ago, and I think it really hit home um, you want to be the agent that people are coming to, as opposed to the agent that has to keep going outbound, doing both, initially, of course.
John McGrath:So I think raving fans', moments of truth that is everyone you're dealing with in the real estate, in marketing, whilst you're in the market open homes, buyer inspections, email inquiries, phone call inquiries, et cetera, et cetera. You have an opportunity each and every day. In fact, you have dozens, maybe hundreds for some people like Alex Phillips of opportunities to create a lasting impression, and I don't care what you say. You can spend $10,000 a month or $10,000 a week, if you like, on social media. There is nothing like having raving fans in your community telling everyone. You're the only agent they should deal with.
John McGrath:So I think that really washes over everything, troy, that you do. It's about opens, it's about auctions, it's about buyer inquiry, it's about listing, it's obviously about vendor management along the way, because vendors are going to be your greatest advocates. I mean, wherever you go in this day and age, you tell someone about a good experience and you'll tell a lot of people about a bad experience. So I think you know, aim towards being an attraction agent, aim towards creating an army of raving fans. Recognise that that happens through having the right character, the right process and the right process and the right integrity and just delivering big time. And every time someone goes to an open, you either go as a robot, troy, and you just turn up, open the door and you kind of go through the road, or you're there and you're connecting and you're interested and you're welcoming people in, like they're new guests coming into your home Over to Troy yeah, john and Tom.
Troy Malcolm:The other two that I want to mention are the consistency in which you go out there with marketing and the frequency of contact with those clients.
Troy Malcolm:They're all so valid and every single one of them, but you need to have a strategy to be consistent, because it's not one phone call that's going to influence their decision to pick you as the attraction agent. It's actually the multiple calls and the multiple layers out there in the market from your prospecting and awareness activities that are going to attract them to you. The other thing is that a lot of people seem to forget their personal networks. We always look for the next transaction, but we forget about the people that love and trust us and have great relationships with us. They can be from school, they can be family members, they can be extended family, they can be past careers for many of the people that are in real estate. But don't underestimate the power of prospecting your personal network so they know you're the person in real estate, whether it's to help buy or sell, that you're the person that can help anyone that they come in contact with as well.
John McGrath:Okay, beautiful. A couple of quick tips before we leave that. Tommy, just on, I heard what you said before. That's a good question. How do I not be a pest? I think you were saying words to that effect.
John McGrath:I think number one is mix up your communication. It shouldn't always be a phone call because everyone's busy. It can be phone calls, it can be emails, it can be text messages, it can be WhatsApp, it can be WeChat or whatever. But I'd mix them up. Two is make sure that when you are calling you have a relevant message. So if I own a luxury home in the area and you've just sold a luxury home, I'd be really interested to hear that you sold one around the corner similar to mine and how much it went for. I'm not that interested in hearing you know about a one bedroom unit in the area than sold. It's not relevant to me right now, where I'm at. You know if I'm, if I'm, a typical seller. It's relevant in real estate, but not for typical sellers. So I just think, mix up the communication style, um, and get rid of the commission breath and, most importantly, make it relevant to the person you're calling.
Tom Panos:Beautiful. So let's assume that that part of your business is that set and forget. You're doing things that you like to generate leads, whether you're reaching out yourself or whether you're using attraction and they're coming into you. Normally you're having a relationship long before they actually list, and that's quite different to what real estate was 30 years ago. It was 30 years ago and I remember people used to ring me out of the yellow pages oh, my mum's died. We're calling three agents in one at one o'clock, one at two o'clock, three o'clock Doesn't work that way.
Tom Panos:These days people build a video relationship with you. Often you're sending them real tear price updates for six months a year. They're coming to a few opens along the way. So this bit about nurturing. And in the roadmap you'll notice that I like to simplify things and say hot, medium, cold. Hot people are coming on the market zero to 60 days, medium, 60 days to six months, and cold six months and extra.
Tom Panos:And the reason I like to break them up is you simply don't do the same thing to someone that's coming on the market in three years as someone that's coming on the market next week. The frequency of contact, the type of contact, has got to be different, but to both of you is got to be different, but to both of you. What are the sorts of things, whether it's a one month or a 12 month, nurturing in a relationship? What are the sorts of things that you can do, whether you're doing what John said, phone or hybrid approaches? Phone, smss, you know, face to faces, sending them out something, what kind of content, information? Can you stay relevant, keep their attention going and not having them say, oh, not that conditioned breath stalker again?
John McGrath:Troy, are you going to lead us or not?
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, of course. So always, as John said, amplifying that from before, you've got to make sure that it's relevant. But just listed just sold information. I'd be introducing myself as an area expert, some of the others that I've got down, I've just brought up a slide so you could go into the buyers that you've been working with, how they're looking for properties similar to theirs monthly market update newsletters, weekly sold report, activities that are happening in the community. So spotlighting a local community event, an equity check company snapshot of results, value-add information, new invite to view a new property have you considered this property? Maybe one of that's out of the box An end-of-year wrap, a start-of-year wrap If there's a zoning and legislation change, which we've seen a lot come through in New South Wales recently. Tom, there's a whole myriad of stuff that can be I'll stop you on that.
Tom Panos:I reckon the most common question I'm asked by the punters out there not by agents by the consumers is mate, is my house worth more money with all these new codes, this new zoning? I think it's actually a minefield there. And the agent that gets all the information in that core area and produces it whether it's in a booklet or in a video format and actually just simplifies it and actually says if you live in this area and you've got a block that's 15.24 metres, you can now build a duplex, you can do this on here. You can now build a duplex, you can do this on here. Someone that can actually just cut through all the noise there. That's confusing. But keep going, Troy. All good stuff.
Troy Malcolm:No, that was kind of where I was heading, tom, but there's information seminars that you can do what you really want to do. You want to differentiate yourself against your competitors and make sure you're the value-add expert in your market, and that's going to become really attractive to a lot of people that are asking questions. Like you say, you get asked that question more times than not. It now is the time to provide information and stay relevant, but also stand out from a crowded market that are just competing on fees and marketing.
John McGrath:Yeah, yeah, that's a very comprehensive and quite diverse list, troy. I really like it. Yeah, there was once upon a time, especially when sort of American real estate was sort of pervasive. A lot in a lot of the coaching materials years ago, before people like you, tom, in the Australian market became world-class coaches, they used to sell recipes and cookies and this sort of stuff. I think people want to hear from specialists about their specialty topic. So, as a real estate agent, I think information relevant to the letterbox in which you're putting it or the email inbox you're putting it, I agree, troy, you don't need to overthink it. You know the last. Just want to let you know last 30 days here are the top 10 sales. Here's the addresses, here's their land size, here's what they sold for, here's where the buyer came from from. You know they were local, they were interstate, they were overseas. Just a few little bits of information attached to a list I think is really good.
John McGrath:Trends and legislation, as you've said you look at leading into the most recent election, the federal election last weekend. I mean there were some quite significant proposals by each of the parties and now that Labor's, you know, gone back in on a landslide, you know they obviously have some fairly strong housing policies Debunk them. Make them simple. Here's what the Labor policy is likely to mean for you. If you're a first-home buyer, this is the impact it'll have. If you're an investor, this is likely to be the impact. First-time buyer this is the impact it'll have. If you're an investor, this is likely to be the impact. So just make information digestible and simple for people to understand. As an expert, and the way you explain it's really critical. So I think yeah, but, troy, your list was very comprehensive. If they do half of what you just said, then they'll be way ahead.
Tom Panos:Beautiful. Two last sections, couple of minutes on each List, and we're not going to spend too much time because we've had plenty of our podcasts focused on what a great listing presentation irresistible, unstoppable pitch looks like. But, john, you've always had the view that the listing presentation has three components the pre, at the presentation and what happens afterwards. And obviously you know we now live in a world that we do have some tech tools, and one of the things that I'm really looking forward to at ARIC is to listening to how Ryan Serhan, at his pre-listing presentation, is doing a full personality diagnosis on the vendors he's about to present using AI. And in fact, in the roadmap that I'm going to hand out, I've actually given people the AI model. I've actually told them this is exactly how you actually put the vendors' names in, put their Facebook and Instagram account, and we sat through that presentation with that person from Ryan Serhant's team Coin, yes, coin, coin. That's it. So I'm really looking forward to that. But you know, in the world of listing presentations, even though we've got all these things like the real tears and being able to analyse people's personality before you go over, the truth of the matter is you said it once Troy or John on a podcast.
Tom Panos:Fundamentally, you need a house price maximization business plan for the vendor. They don't need to see how many Rate my Agent Awards or REB Awards. They don't need to see all these other things. All they care about is man. Will this agent get me $100,000 more than the other two agents I'm interviewing? They need a house maximisation plan. Over to you, gentlemen, any tips on the listing?
John McGrath:Yeah, look, you referred to earlier, Tom, we look at 30-40-30, that we think 30% of the success of a listing happens before the listing. So it happens from the time someone makes contact with you or you make contact with them and you meet them. So you know the preparation, the quality of the questions, the research, the information you might send to them. All of those things Could be a video that you send to them introducing yourself, could be a corporate that you send to them introducing yourself, could be a corporate video. Who knows? 40 happens in the moment while you're at the property property to a property questions, deep dive and then, if you're unable to secure it at that point, it's what happens immediately afterwards in the follow-through, and it's common for people to not list first time around, so most people would fall into that bucket.
John McGrath:So so I think that's really critical, and you're right, tom, that the only thing that really matters to the vendor at the end of the day is I want to get the most amount of money for my property. Yes, I'd like to like the person. Yes, I do want to trust them, but at the end of the day, if I meet someone and I absolutely believe they have a clear plan that's likely to get me more for my property, that's the agent I'm signing up with. It's not about 1% commissions. It's not about anything else. It's about if I've got to pay 2.5% to get Alex Jordan, because I believe he's the best agent I've interviewed and the best agent in Brisbane I'm going to pay it because he made it very clear and very easy for me to understand how he's going to get me the most amount of money. So I think, troy, that's really critical.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, so often that we get agents going into listing presentations and they fall into the trap of just telling the clients how good they are, tom, as you mentioned, with their awards and how great their results have been. We've really got to make sure that we have a simple agenda, that we understand their situation, what they need to look for in selecting an agent. Obviously, you've got to play to your strengths the marketing element and then the pricing and the fees. I think if you have a really clear agenda and you stick to that agenda and guide the conversation, you're going to have a lot more success.
Tom Panos:Beautiful. Let's touch on the last one and that is the sell. And all I'm going to say is, right now, my real estate gym members are loving putting their CRM report whether they're using AgentBox or whichever one they use and getting their realestatecom report, putting it into AI and then asking AI to produce a high level summary that can actually be presented to the vendor as the executive summary of that report. And I've got to tell you they are amazing and you can actually prompt it in a way to actually say this vendor needs to understand the reality of the marketplace. They're an absentee owner or whatever.
Tom Panos:You can prompt, obviously, ai, but obviously the selling involves two bits. One bit is, of course, the marketing working the buyers. The second bit is keeping your seller informed and often having them having to understand that, hey look, you're going to have to realign by this amount. Sometimes they're realigning up, but a lot of times they're realigning down. So all I can say to you well, listen, before I close off, john and Troy, is there anything on the sell that we can talk about?
John McGrath:Pricing, presentation and marketing, I think, are the three key levers to get right, to get a great outcome. So a good quality pricing discussion that doesn't take away their hope of achieving the highest possible price, because that's in fact what we're there to do, but also they understand where the market sits at the moment. Presentation, which is not just plumping up cushions, it's what can I do to remove any impediments this home may have in the mind's eye of the buyer. So if I have, if I have, 10 buyers through this home tomorrow, are they going to find fault in anything? And is there something we can do, you and I as the vendor and the agent, today, to remove or reduce the impact?
John McGrath:And then marketing I mean the more buyers it's simple math the more buyers I can get to engage in, come and look at, become interested in your property and get them emotionally connected, the more money I'm going to put in your bank account on settlement day. So again, I think that's that's. That's a general overview on how to get the highest possible price and that needs to be, you know, dealt with more detail when you have more time in front of the vendor. But they're the things you've got to get right If you screw up pricing, if you screw up presentation, if you don't market it confidently enough, you're going to struggle to get it sold, let alone get the best possible price.
Tom Panos:John and Troy, as I'm finishing up, mindful of time, I've just brought up Airfares because I was talking to Izzy that's looking after Eric and she was saying, oh, I think some people are thinking the airfares are going to blow. I've just brought up you can actually get fares to. The Gold Coast has got to be the best place in the world to fly to $132. We're talking booking out three weeks out $132 return trips. Now, even if you actually did your open homes and actually finished and flew up on Saturday night, $182 for a return trip to the Gold Coast.
Tom Panos:So that, my friends, is your sign to book your tickets at aritconferencecomau and I'm letting you know that over the two days, in addition to hearing inspiring stories from different people in different fields, you're also going to be getting the best real estate content. We've just touched on a little bit on how you can use AI for vendor reports and for your pre-listing to be learning about the personality You're going to be given so much information that's going to help you come back wiser, smarter, better. Looking forward to seeing you all there. John Troy, I will see you next week.
John McGrath:See you next week. Len, See you, Darren. Bye, Bye everyone.