Sacrifice & Success
5 March 2020
Written by Acme Mag
This month Acme Magazine sits down with Kate Smith to discuss being a top performer and why she’s more than her prior career in Australian basketball.
Kate sits opposite on a vibrant velvet couch in the Harcourts Smith office, a fierce yet approachable demeanor written across her features. Just before the interview starts, a local of the Semaphore area pops in for a chat; something that would become a pattern throughout our interview. As our time came to a close, I realised that not only is Kate Smith a real estate agent in Semaphore, Kate Smith is Semaphore.
Kate Smith sells more property along the Le Fevre Peninsula than any other agent, which in itself is impressive. Furthermore, she’s also No. 2 in Australia for the highest number of sales by a female agent in 2019. When queried about the feat she says, “I rarely stop and reflect … you saying that to me now though, it does feel impressive”. Kate goes on to state that although the achievement is impressive, it’s an achievement that reflects the hard work, sacrifice and hours of time that she and her team have laid down.
High sales volume isn’t the only awarded achievement that graces Kate Smith, she’s also listed in REB’s Top 100 Agents as well as the Top 50 Women in Real Estate. As someone on both lists, we questioned whether one had more perceived weight in her career than the other:
“Over the last few years getting a ranking in the Top 100 was higher on my goal list than what the female list was. That’s purely because we’re going up against some of the industries top male performers and from an industry that has been predominantly male dominated, to see females ranking in that top 100 is exceptional and I think, also the future of real estate.”
An enviable career in real estate wasn’t the first pick for Kate Smith as a teen, with her heart and talents squarely focused on basketball. Kate Smith spent 3 years living at the Australian Institute of Sport and although she loved her teammates, they were also her immediate competition making the environment hugely competitive. A competitiveness that gets ‘inbred into you’ she says.
After being cut from the Australian team, Kate Smith turned her attention to real estate full time, after working part time in her mother’s Raine and Horne agency. Not long after, the real estate bug truly bit: “there’s a turning point where you ‘become’ real estate and it becomes everything. When it becomes that, it’s all consuming and I know that doesn’t sound the best, but that’s what it is”.
On the change from Raine and Horne to Harcourts, Kate states that there is no love lost between her and the former brand, rather the decision was based on her local market: “I have a lot of love and respect for the brand and we did exceptionally well under the brand, however I have found that the demographic of my local area is changing and it’s changing rapidly. What I love about Harcourts is that the branding enables me to showcase my clients properties to the zenith degree”.
The change in franchise brand also led to a change in operations tactics for Kate Smith: “It (Raine & Horne) was still my agency but I was coming off the back of my family having owned the agency. (Now) it’s something that I’ve bought in from the ground up, whereas before I was taking over from someone that had previously owned and run their way. The advantage of that is we’re now able to implement how we want to go about running it, opposed to taking over someone else’s input”.
However one thing that hasn’t changed for Kate Smith is the importance of marketing. In 2013 Kate began working with Identity Marketing on the recommendation of real estate trainer, Josh Phegan. Planning and automation have been cornerstones of her marketing mantra leading to more productivity hours and a stronger focus on real estate success: “That obviously takes a lot of the load off of your shoulders so that you can focus on what you need to do”.
Success is no walk in the park and it takes a lot of sacrifice, something that Kate Smith has certainly come to terms with as she notes:
“It’s a lot of sacrifice, not just from me but from my team as well. There were several years in a row where I committed myself completely. I did the 5am starts, I was in the office by 7am. You sacrifice your social life, your love life – all of that goes on hold. What I love about real estate, is if you do the hard work early you will get rewarded for it. It comes down to your self belief and self power, if you’re prepared to make the effort and do the work, then you will see the results”.
After yet another local excitedly pops in, the question begs to be asked – Is this a normal day for Kate Smith and the Harcourts Smith office? Kate humbly explains to us that it’s the community, not so much her: “Semaphore is different, we are the ‘pop-in’, everyone pop’s in and it’s always been that way. All of our landlords will pop in, buyers will pop in, vendors will pop in because you’ve got that community aspect, so you do get a high level of foot traffic”.
However Kate’s Executive Assistant, Sarah chimes in with “Kate gets recognised on the street like a famous person! When we do the community street fairs and obviously Kate is a huge sponsor and when she walks down the street at these fairs, every 10 seconds she’s stopped like she owns this area! (laughs)”.
