Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
New Financial Year, New You!
As the financial year rolls over, it’s the perfect time to review what’s working in your real estate business—and what’s not. In this no-fluff conversation, we dig into the strategies that set top performers apart.
High achievers know the value of honest self-assessment. How strong is your listing presentation? Many agents rate themselves a 5 or 6 out of 10—risky business when others are presenting sharp, persuasive pitches that win listings. We show you how to spot weaknesses and sharpen your delivery through practice and polish.
Tech is another game-changer, especially AI tools and dictation that boost efficiency. Instead of getting lost in too many options, pick one or two tools that save time and help you stay connected with more clients, without losing the personal touch.
Knowing your numbers is key. By breaking down last year’s presentations, conversion rates and lead sources, you’ll spot what to double down on. “Volume negates luck”—a solid pipeline protects you from the ups and downs.
Finally, what’s your “one thing”? The single skill or habit that, if improved, would level up your business more than anything else. Whether it’s managing vendor expectations, pushing through call reluctance, or nailing your pitch—committing to that focus for the next 12 months will be a game-changer.
These next 30 days will shape your spring. Ready to make this your breakthrough year?
Tom Panos, john McGrath, troy Malton. Welcome to another edition of Million Dollar Agent the podcast. I have to say I do believe we are the longest serving real estate podcast in Australasia. Because I've got to say, john and Troy, I was looking at it when we started, there was none other so we could actually say we were the only, we were the biggest, we were the best. But I've got to tell you, there are so many podcasts, there are so many, even real estate agents. Now I've noticed I don't want to have a guess at the percentage, but there's a large number of real estate agents that have entered the world of podcasting.
John McGrath:None been doing it as long as us, Tommy None been as long as us.
Troy Malcolm:He's pioneers.
Tom Panos:Troy, I often get asked by people how financially viable successful is a podcast. I actually say, look, I'm not quite sure about other people's experiences, but we're revenue neutral. It costs us nothing, we make nothing, it's a zero project.
John McGrath:Tom, you've got to say we hit our numbers. Every year we hit our numbers Exactly, exactly. And, tom, you're coming to us from overseas.
Tom Panos:Thank you for that. Yes, I am coming to you from a place called Maklior in Greece. I'm actually going to London today. I'm going there to do a conference for two days, and I just thought, while I'm going to the UK to do the conference, I'll tag in a bit of Greece and get a couple of weeks, and that's where I'm at. But today is right around the world, though some parts of the world don't have financial years as being ending on the 30th of June I know that New Zealand doesn't, but a lot of the world, including Australia, have this June to July period. I know that a lot of real estate companies were January to June, but this is a good time of the year, john and Troy, to sit back, have a reflection. What's working? What's not working? What are you going to change? What are you going to do more of? What are you going to do less of? Over to you, john and Troy.
John McGrath:Yeah, critical, tommy. I mean I think that's really what we decided just before we were going to talk about today. Look, I know you're big on numbers and ratios and I'd love you to talk more about that in a minute. The things that came to mind when I was preparing for this a that came to mind when I was preparing for this. A couple of things. Number one is you know, one of the key skills, troy, is listing presentation. Right, and when I say to a lot of agents I'm coaching and as you know, I coach a lot of agents and I say zero to 10, 10 being world best, where do you rate your listing presentation? And the number that generally comes up is four, five or six. And I kind of look at that and I think, man, like that is, you know, that's just not good enough. And you know, one of my favorite sayings is in the age of information, you know, ignorance is a choice. Um, there is no excuse now for anyone to have anything less than a nine out of 10 listing presentation, unless you just haven't taken the time to unpack it, think about it, uh, role play it with someone else, rebuild it. So you know, one of the things, tom, I'd be thinking there's two or three things and I'll just jot those down and see what you guys think. Definitely I'd be looking at how do you create a nine out of 10 listing presentation key? Second thing is yeah, this is the age of technology. I'd be looking at what technology and just choose one or two. Don't choose 20 or 30, because it's never going to happen. What technology solutions and I'll mention mine in a second should you be adopting to save time, to increase your scalability, to leverage and so forth?
John McGrath:There's two things that I'm very focused on currently. One of them is AI. I mean, we all know we heard about AI. Some people are using it, some people are right into it. Others are too scared to look at it. I mean, just pick an AI which is the best AI doesn't matter, just find one. I use Claude.
John McGrath:A lot of people use ChatGPT. There's so many good ones. Just pick one and start using it. Whatever the monthly subscription is, subscribe for a year and, just as you're thinking through problems or situations, just start using it to get good at it. So I think AI is just going to this. The next two or three years is going to massively ramp up. The other one I use time is now dictation. I rarely type an email that's longer than a couple of a couple of words. I I go to dictation. I've just I've got a double click. A double click, I've trained one of my keys on my keyboard to a shortcut. I double hit the function key and then I just speak, just like I'm speaking now, and it gets a 95% right, 98% right. But things like emails, things like even using chat, gpt or Claude, John, I'm fascinated.
Tom Panos:Can I ask you so? Dictation is that you use it specifically on your MacBook or on your mobile-type devices.
John McGrath:Yeah, good question, both. You know, right now I'm on my home studio display, so I'll just hit it twice and then I'll dictate a letter. I'll dictate a message. I've got messages open on my display. I've got my email open on it, I've got my clod and my AI open. And again, really do I actually.
John McGrath:And you know it's one of those things, troy, I used to think, oh, but it'll get some words wrong, it'll spell check wrong, and then someone will read it and I'll make a fool of myself. You know, dictation's improved so much and yet occasionally the wrong word goes in there. But most people pick up on it and they get the message, and I reckon I spend 10%, maybe 20% maximum, or the same amount of time to get things wrong. So I'll just go to all my messages, click on one after the other and I'll dictate a quick response, just like you do in the car. So you know, just this is the year to embrace technology, and they're just two, but especially AI, that I think are really, really critical.
John McGrath:And the last one, the last one would be it's a really simple one and it's kind of I've stolen it a bit from Tommy Ferry, from Eric a few years ago, but reality is 5% of the people in your phone are probably going to sell their property in the next 12 months.
John McGrath:Why wouldn't you go through and just contact as many preferably all of people as you can in your phone and just check in? Tom just wanted to see how things were going. It's been an interesting and turbulent year for some industries. I just wanted to check in on all my clients and just see if they think there's anything they might need from me over the next 12 months. And just a simple phone call like that. I reckon if you do that every day for an hour and you get, you know, 12 or 15 connects or whatever you're going to get in that period, you're going to pick up half a dozen listings in the next 30 days that you didn't even know existed and you probably would have lost if you didn't. So I think you know proactivity, leverage and scale through technology really critical and rebuild your listing presentation to world-class.
Tom Panos:Thank you, John Brilliant. You said, Troy, anything that comes to your mind right now that you should be thinking of reflecting on for the next financial year.
Troy Malcolm:Tom and John, I think what is important is really to review where your success came from, from the current or the just about to finish financial year. In saying that, I want to know where your listings came from, where the opportunities were for market appraisals that you converted in, Because if you write down those numbers and you see those ratios, you will get a really clear understanding of what's working and what's not and some of the gaps that you need to fulfill. So, for example, if you're really great with past clients and 30 or 40% of your business is coming from past clients but you're not doing anything in regards to social media or door knocking or networking and client events, well, you may need to look at those things to improve. But sometimes it's good to look back and see where the success came from, realize the opportunities and the gaps in other areas of your business, but also to double down on where you were successful in the previous 12 months, because chances are the next 12 months you'll be even better. Yeah, Great.
Tom Panos:So if you do that, troy, if you do that process where you say you look at your last year which often people refer to as reverse engineering and coming back and working out, hey, so I went to X amount of presentations and I got X amount of listings and I ended making X amount of sales and it took me that much longer to sell them, I think you end up getting a really good snapshot of what is working for you, what you should do more of. And also, like, realistically, if you went to 200 listing presentations right, and you signed up 50 presentations and let's assume the other one I'm assuming that they went to market another 150 went to market, which meant that you had a 25% listing presentation to list ratio. That's an alarm bell. That's an alarm bell. That's basically saying 150 properties listed by other companies because they believe that they had a better narrative, a better story.
Tom Panos:John, you used a term on a podcast we did two weeks ago and I'm trying to remind myself it was volume negates luck or it was something like that. Could you remember what?
John McGrath:it was yeah, exactly right, alex Formosi. Volume negates luck, which is, you know, like if you're playing rugby league, there's going to be a few bad ref calls, and just make sure that you know you're not relying on every call to go your way. Same in real estate business If you've got 20 pending hot listings you're chasing today, when you loot a few which you will you're still going to have an unbelievable month. By the way, ethan, your man, your coaching client, 15 listings last week in a week. So well done, tommy, you've trained him magnificently.
Tom Panos:Yeah. So Nathan Ethan is the sort of person that basically works the ratios because he knows that he will walk into a listing presentation and the people won't go with him for whatever reason. He doesn't sit there and ruminate on it because he knows he's a nine out of 10 listing presentation to list ratio. So he knows that one in 10 are going to say oh, thank you, leave it with us. And sometimes they may have a pre-existing relationship. They were fee checking, they were price checking.
Tom Panos:But before we finish off today, I do think that one of the things that really less so at McGrath, because many of the estate agents at McGrath see themselves as running their own businesses. They're contractors running their own business units. But John and Troy, a lot of real estate people this time of the year should be setting a 12-month set and forget plan. That is not your vendor paid advertising, property specific marketing. I'm talking about making the decision. I'm going to invest 30 grand in my community this year. 10 grand is going to go to the tennis club, five grand is going to go to the public school. I might go off and do some portal advertising on the JustSol sections. I might do some billboard ads. I might put on a movie night, but salespeople often forget that they are running a business within the business, even if they're not the principals. John and Troy, anything you want to touch on that.
John McGrath:Yeah, it's a good point, Troy, and the reason sorry, tom, it's a good point because I think the reason that a lot of people got that mindset is we teach that very much that you're in business for yourself. Even if you are on a debit credit or a commission, only if you're not a contractor you're still in business for yourself. Most businesses and we've got in this industry agents now that are starting to hit 2 million, 3 million, 4 million but most businesses at 2 million would be probably retaining 15% margin and investing the rest in activities to grow their business into the future. And yet a lot of agents they balk at a 10 grand marketing plan or sponsorship plan for a year. So I agree with you totally You've got to see your business as a long game. You have to understand that it's critical for you to be the top of mind default. So, whatever activities you're going to do, get some advice, get some, get a coach. You know, go through what you're going to do. But, troy, I think it's really critical and I know when you're coaching guys you go off and through what's your marketing plan and I just think it's so vital to be contemplating what activities are you doing to to reinvest back in the market.
John McGrath:You look at Troy, you look at Coca-Cola. A lot of people could say, well, they could stop advertising because everyone knows them, you don't need Coca-Cola. You could save hundreds of millions a year by stopping advertising. But even Coca-Cola knows that it has to keep making sure that its brand is associated with fun and lifestyle and activity or whatever. It wants to purport itself to be Bad example. I know because I'm not a fan of those sugary drinks, but you know what I'm saying that even billion dollar companies that are worldwide brands continue to market themselves to stay top of mind. Troy.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, and John, you're exactly right, and you've got to remember as well. You've got to create a business model that people can find you when they decide to find you. It's no longer just push, push, push out there with letterbox drops and just announcing to the world what you're doing with EDMs. You've got to allow your consumer to digest it when they feel like the time is right. So the way you do that is obviously having a couple of different strategies, one of them being a digital campaign and having a lot of social media so people can really understand the power of your brand, even when you're not probably proactively out there pitching for business all the time.
John McGrath:Yeah, tommy, before we go, two things that I wanted to add in. Um, you know, and these are concepts that the three of us have taken from other great people. One of them is the one thing concept. Just ask yourself the question if there was one thing, one skill, one activity, one thing you did brilliantly, better or much better than you're currently doing it, or you became a black belt of one particular thing in your life that would propel your business ahead and faster than anything else, what would that be?
John McGrath:For example, a lot of agents. They're terrific agents, they work hard, they've got good work ethic, they've got a polished listing presentation, all that sort of good stuff, but they cannot align vendor expectations with the market because they fear they don't want to be a bad person. They haven't developed the dialogue, they feel guilty about it and all this sort of stuff that you know. Your one thing may well be your ability to have a business conversation with a vendor to align them to where the market is, and that could be your one thing. It could be prospecting, getting over the fear of rejection, it could be building a great listing presentation, but inevitably, for each and every one of us there's one thing. So I'd think about that as well for the year. And the last idea Tony Robbins said years and years ago. I went to one of his great seminars and he said most people underestimate. So they overestimate what they can do in three months and they underestimate what they can do in three years. Well, I'm going to say 12 months for today.
John McGrath:A lot of people think, oh, if I do this and this and this, in 60 or 90 days, by spring I'm going to be doing record months. Well, maybe, maybe not. I've got to tell you, if you adopt some of the things we've spoken about and you, in a disciplined, systematic, non-negotiable manner, you continue to do them throughout the next 12 months, you will hit absolutely new highs and new levels of success. So stay at it. This is not a I'll go to the gym once and I'll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of thing. It's fantasy. That doesn't happen. You have to be playing the long game and it's around consistency and showing up every day with your new skills or your new strategies and applying them, and in three months, your life will look probably similar. In six to nine months, you'll be seeing a change. In 12 months, you'll be a brand new human being or a brand new business.
Tom Panos:And that's beautifully said when you were saying that we've got a common person we've known it's my ex-employer and I know that he's a friend and you were a client of his company Michael Hannan and I remember my first year setting a budget, when I went in and working in the media for Kurian newspapers. I said to Michael I said, michael, I'll be honest with you. I said I come from a world where we didn't set up 12 month plans and budgets and targets and he just said, look, all you got to do is this If you only had a 30 day period to achieve your 12 month goal, write out what are the things you'd be doing. And then he goes. Then do 12 of those and you've had the best year of your life. He goes don't complicate it, don't think about the sixth month, the eighth month. Just create 12 good 30-day projects and you're set.
John McGrath:Yeah, gold, I love that too. Good man, michael Lanner. Good man.
Tom Panos:Yeah, so Troy and John, I think we might finish off on that point, but I will say this does remind me a little bit of November, december, when you know that January, february, there's a bit of stock that's going to hit the market, people hold back and they say let's wait till spring. And I just want to remind all our listeners those people that are going to be listing their property, signing a form six of signing an agency agreement, in July and August, are people that you're having conversations with right now. They don't spontaneously just come out of the blue. They've normally been on an Excel sheet you call a chase list, your CRM system. So please remember, what you do in this 30 days is going to affect your whole spring.
John McGrath:Yeah, well said, tony, travel safely. Thank you, see you next week, see you soon. Thanks, mate, see you, bye guys.