Personal Evolution

Written by Acme Mag

JS: The biggest hurdle that I came across was in mid 2017. It was the Easter period and I think I had missed about 13 or 14 listings. It was a challenging time in my career. That sparked something for me, so I pretty much had to change everything I was doing; and I can’t take a lot of credit for it. Josh Phegan, my coach had a majority of the systems already in place and I just had to replicate everything there. For me, the way I run my business now is about automation in life – I just try and find ways to automate everything. Any time something goes wrong more than once I think it’s a checklist, or it’s a system or it’s a person and I just think about how we can continue improving the business.

JS: It’s obviously a very high pressure industry. I think that in life in general, we have a lot of responsibilities as well as a lot of pressure for everyone to perform at their best; -I just think you’ve got to go and have fun with it. The clients, your consumer, your friends, the people that you work with just want to see someone that’s happy. There’s no point getting upset or, I guess, frustrated with not being as successful as you want. If you put in the work and be patient, you will eventually get there, it might take a little bit longer for some, and for some it happens a lot quicker.

JS: Look, to be honest with you I had no idea what it entailed. My boss pulled me up and, it was sort of a sad reason why I took over, Keith Soames (Senior) who opened the business 50 years ago, unfortunately passed, and then his son, Keith Soames (Junior) approached me and they needed a licensee for the business. One of the main reasons I accepted was because it was one of those amazing opportunities to take over someone else’s legacy, and as I said, Keith Soames (Senior) was the licensee and he built an amazing business.

I felt that being the licensee meant that I was taking over that role, so that was the reason I took it on. It was obviously unexpected that I had to do all of the actual licensee stuff, which revolves around compliance, making sure the office is running the way it should be… I had no idea that I had to do all that – I didn’t even ask the question, I just took it on because of how privileged I was to be offered that opportunity.

JS: Yeah (laughs), that ah, definitely puts it into a sentence!

JS: It’s never ‘not worked’ to be honest, however, I wouldn’t say that I knew exactly what I was doing when I put my team members on. I’ve always, without it being cocky or arrogant, known that I was going to do well and that my business was going to do well. The only reason I knew that was because I realised quite early on that if you work harder than everyone else then you’re bound to be successful. So that’s what I started to do and the wheels started turning. I was gradually becoming more skillful, and understanding what I was doing. The hard work with the fact that I was learning, both of those things put together meant that I was just going to do well regardless. Now, what I realised in the early days is that someone has already done what I wanted to do, so I just had to go and learn from those people. I went and put myself in situations, whether it be with business owners, sales agents, people that have built big teams – not just in real estate but any type of business – and I’ve taken those businesses strengths and then implemented them into mine, instead of making mistakes. Now obviously, we still make mistakes, but I could overcome the majority of those by not putting me and my team in a situation where we were going to be set up to fail.

JS: So there’s my process towards it and then there is what other people actually want to do. I go and put out there a whole healthy thing, which is everything I’m about and a priority of mine. Now, whether my team follows that is completely up to them. I’ve made mistakes early on and that’s my biggest take away about building a team – you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. You’ve got to allow people to grow within their own time, and the way I look at it, you give them the tools to go and do it and it’s up to them as to whether they actually use them. For me, the philosophy is that if you want to be healthy and you want to look after yourself… I know that if you’re feeling good and you’re healthy, your energy is higher and that’s my number 1 priority. 

JS: It took me a long time to actually understand all this stuff, and it’s really about managing people. For me, I’ve put my people’s goals and vision before the actual business because when their personal goals are clear it means they are not likely to be sick often, it means their energy will be high. The fact that they may come into work a little later (due to their personal goals) means that they may stay back later because they still have that energy. I think it promotes a clear mind and everything runs better if you’re feeling good and looking after yourself.