EP 145: How to Become a Successful Real Estate Agent - The Godfather of Real Estate

Very early in life, my father said to me and my brothers, whatever you think you want to do, make sure you're prepared to do it for 40 years at least. But more importantly, when you wake up in the morning, you want to go there. And there are too many people out there working in jobs because they have to, not because they want to. And you will excel dramatically in this industry when you're completely in love with what you're doing. Bill Maloof, 30 plus years dominating Sydney's prestige market. He's revealing how to win listings, keep clients loyal and build million dollar agents. So you stop getting outplayed. The worst thing you can do in this industry, everybody turns up with a book about their company showing that we have 80% or 70% of the marketplaces. It's crap, what you should be doing is finding out what's driving them to sell. So it's the personal relationship that you should be trying to build in that meeting. Get a little candle, put it on the table, light it. If you don't put time into that candle, it will burn itself back. What is really important to us is to make sure all of our staff have the right mental attitude. When COVID hit, everybody turned around and said, "We're bugging, this is it. It's not my fault, it's the economy. It's not my fault. COVID said I can't make a say." Everybody looks for that excuse. It's very important that the motivation that we do at our sales meetings so you've got to keep the individuals motivated. This is a great industry for someone to be in. You don't need a university education to be successful. And the only thing that stops you from being successful is you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Bo Scies podcast. We're very blessed to have Bill Maloof back in the building and now joined by Sam Schumann. So welcome both. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. Now thank you for having us here. So it's not every day you get to visit an apartment like this. To be honest, it's bigger than majority of the houses that walk through selling real estate every day. Can we kickstart the podcast about this penthouse we're sitting in right now? We certainly can because I don't think there's any apartment or penthouse in Australia similar to this, which is nearly 1,600 square meters of internal. When I got to list this from Johnny Boyd, it would just bloom me away. In fact, the period of time that Ken Jacobs and I took to sell this apartment, it was a pleasure to walk in through those front doors. I just have inspections here at 11 o'clock at night because I consider this as the most prestige and panoramic carve of years that you just can't repeat. And it's the top three floors of this building with the best security in the world. Because having ANZ bank down stairs, they have to walk around this building constantly even to the top floor externally. So your security is unbelievable. You've got an 8 to 10 car garage with its own private lift to bring you. And I remember when I showed this to Ann Maloof in that one, he said two words, and I'm not going to repeat the two words I said. I didn't have to open my mouth from that point onwards. It was a deal that was going to happen within two days. And I just even now today, which is fantastic because he and his my cousin, I still love coming here. It's just so comfortable. It's in the heart of the city. And Johnny Boyd's vision for what he was going to do here was just absolutely outstanding. Yeah, it's unreal. We've got the keys to tomorrow, right? I thought we would stay here. If we're going to play cards. We heard about the good move. So what's the deal with it now? Is it going for sale? No, this property-- I don't think he in the level sell this property now. But it is up for rent because he does have a number of properties at Palm Beach and down in double bay. So his view is now, look, if somebody wanted to do a long term lease here, 12 months, two years, 18 months, you'd probably look at it at around about the 60,000. But if somebody wants to come to Sydney, bring their family and rather than stay in an international hotel, you can definitely rent this probably at the right short term lease at about 250,000 a week. Nice. Very nice. Are there many potential tenants for a property this substantial? I think you mentioned it was 1,500 square meters net internal. Are there many tenants looking for something like this? Look, when you've got families coming in from the US and especially from China that are the top-notch billionaires, they're looking for something like this. And there are very few properties similar to this. A number of them go and look at the crown. The crown does not compare to the penthouse apartment. And what are-- the buyers out there at that level? But they're-- sorry, not buyers, but renters, as much as I'd love to resell this. But even at the 60,000 bracket for a long term lease, it's very attractive. Being so immersed in the top end, guys, if you'd just take a part, what do you think a property like this would fetch on the open market? Well, let's put it this way. I remember about within six months of Ian purchasing this property. I did ring him by that had seen it previously and said to me, Billy, go and offer him $1,2,1,330. So that's gone from $1,60 to $1,330 in six months. So whatever one might think about this today, and I said to Ian, will we look at $300? Mill? And he said, not in your life, this is unrepeatable. Good on him. May, the last time we recorded was four years ago. You were actually our sixth guest ever. Now, you were previously at another brand, and you'd been there for quite a while. You've then switched and merged with Highland. And Sam Sherman, I believe, you have to in the past few months. Can we just delve a bit into the mindset around why you'd switch when you've built up such a career and a name within a certain brand in a certain area? What the reason is for the switch? What the-- is there a certain DNA? Or is there a certain play that really made it possible? Or made it the reason why you'd go do this? Because when you've built up, I know, for example, whenever I've switched a brand and it's been quite some time, it's a scary move, but it's also-- you kind of feel like you take a step back. So what's the reason and mindset you've both ended up making that change and switch? Let me put it to you this way. I've said before in a podcast, one needs to sit down and look for what assets are connected to him as an individual. And my assets, and then look for the negatives, what do I need to support my business? And when you try to be all things to all people, it doesn't work. So I sat down and had a serious thing. I said, look, I'm not a back end person. I'm not the dollar and sense person. I can sell anything. I can sell sand to an Arab. And I thought, that's where my assets. That's where I belong. I belong down the street. I belong talking to people. The same area that my son, David, has now turned around, and has an amazing support style. My shortcoming was property management is a very important part of a business such as this. And running that and then trying to run a sales division as an independent, even though I left hookers back then. I thought, I need somebody that can bring the advantage. We also wanted to go into projects. Now, the only way you can get into projects where somebody else has a small project division joins you on a 50/50 partnership. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted to be able to cover Melbourne's, as well as Sydney, as well as Brisbane. And I got the opportunity to work with David Highland on an expensive house in Cranala. That was over 50 million. And David and David Highland were very, very good friends. So when I went and looked at that property, and then David and the owner, Steve Shelley, brought us both together and said, right, I want you guys to work this. And that was about when COVID hit about 2020. And I looked at David Highland's operation in Cranala. And it absolutely blew me away. The professionalism, the fact that they have a loop that runs the project division, we've got a finance division, we've got a recruitment division, when I say, we, well, that's what I joined. And when I knew if I joined this organisation, and David Highland at 42 years old in the relationship, that David and my son would build over the next 10 or 15 years, it was very, very important to me. And I got my accountant, which was Anthony Bell. He said, I think I've got the perfect partnership for you. And Anthony rang David Highland. David Highland was looking for a project division in double-bite. And within 24 hours, we were sitting at a table together. And everything about him. And he's enthusiasm, and he's drive. And the relationship for my son, David, admit that I was leaving this business when I decided to retire. And that's not coming soon. I'm because I love what I do. And then that comes back from very early in life, my father said to me, and my brothers, whatever you think you want to do, make sure you're prepared to do it for 40 years at least. And you will excel dramatically in this industry when you're completely in love with what you're doing, the negotiation, the people that you actually meet, because I'm ex-publicant. And I realized my best client was a drug. So we ran social clubs. We can trips for them, whereas in this industry, you're meeting a cross-section of people. And that's why I decided this was the perfect change for Hookers Double Bay to be transferred to Highland Maloof Double Bay. And it's the best venture I have ever done. Can you build on guys, as I understand it, it's a partnership organization as a post of the traditional franchise? Can you delve in a little bit about the benefit of that through the merge, what you're finding as owners and directors and bringing your teams across and what your teams are benefiting from? What makes Highland so special? Well, I think Sam, as a perfect example of this, I want to throw that one right at Sam. He thinks the benefit of the team's organization. It's funny because when I looked at what we were doing and we were two, we were under the franchise model, it's just being out there just every day running as fast as you can. And you know, you try and build the support systems around what you're doing. But when you can go into an infrastructure like this where it's not just back end, it's legal. We've got in-house council, we've got finance, we've got accounts, we've got everything where you plug in and play. That takes a lot of the everyday stresses from a principal. I had three offices, two, Resian one projects. And I look at what was happening over pretty tumultuous few years of upstounds and just running as fast as I can, as I said. And I've known David Maloo for a long time and we'd previously spoken and I had the pleasure of meeting David Highland. And I looked at what they were doing and what I thought I could bring to an organization like Bills. And it was under that model of going in a partnership structure where you still can grow with the brand. I look at my next 30 years and it's side by side with David and David. And that excites me as well. It's under this we continue to grow together. And that's a pretty exciting thing where you don't relinquish all control, so to speak, but you kind of do. The back end does it, but you're still equally a part of a brand that is just going from strength to strength. And when you brought up before about moving and taking steps back, it's nearly been the opposite for us. It's been, OK, we had a merger and integration period probably four months. It was quick. It was effective and it went through. But the clean space and the clear air that we've got as a team has been amazing. I look over the last couple of months and we've done some serious deals. And I just think to myself, what's next? And what's next year going to bring? And it goes back to what Bill says is this level of excitement about coming in. I put my half of why he wants to come in because of me. I'll get to see Sam today. But it's just a great environment to be in. It's a really good office. And coming back to the franchise model, we talk about collaboration, collaboration, biggest brand, biggest this. We've all been there and we've seen that that's probably not necessarily true. And maybe in some cases, it's a rarity. But it is a true collaboration, not just within the double bay office, but within the network itself. From us to the Gold Coast, drum by Hannan up there for nominal operator. He's on the ground there. And we can trust that when we have our clients that we put him on to, he is going to deliver on every level, same with the Southern Highlands. You see the synergies within the network. And it's pretty amazing. So obviously there's a lot of cultural benefits throughout the organization. But at the end of the day, your clients benefit. Because if you've got such a broad, wide slick ecosystem, the end of the day, it's your clients are going to benefit. Absolutely. Would you guys say that the franchise model is dead? Do you think that it's a bit archaic? Or do you think that there's still relevant-- I don't think it's dead. But what I do think, I think our market has changed a lot, especially in the last eight or nine years. The most important thing from our point of view is your credibility. We're a family. We're not a franchise. And we all say that. Luke and the Boys in Project, Johnny Schwarzer, Laura. And we recognize, even with people in their own office, if you go through periods where you think to yourself, this is not working for me at the moment. You lose your own drive. And with an organization, which is ours as a family, we can see that with some of the people that we work with. And everybody jumps-- sorry, everybody jumps on board to say, right, let's reset this guy's mental attitude at the present moment. We've got new town now, now Peter Callan, who was a very close friend of mine when Pete passed away a number of years ago. And I always kept my eye on that business because Angela is a personal friend of ours. She travels with us, and I felt it's now time that if we can take our brown to cross to her, keep them in for a percentage of the business. We're growing her, and I'm now giving her an opportunity that she doesn't have to come to the office every day of the week. And that's what I mean by the family atmosphere. We go to their sales meetings to see if we can do something. David and my son goes there quite a bit. And this industry is built on respect. So it's no good if the principals out there trying to lecture their sales team. And he's got no runs on the board himself. So how can you respect that individual? So we've got high profile individuals that are performing, that can also help the young guys that are coming through into this industry. And your honesty and your credibility are two of the most important aspects of anybody that comes to this organization to work with us, or in our case, family. And that's what this business is with us. It's a family business that's growing and growing exponentially. And I love every minute of it. The project division, I'm very big on the property management side of the division. And that's run by an amazing guy right across the board with big support. And we're building the brand name. We're building the-- we want to make people feel that they're with us long-term. Yeah, it's not just a short term term. It's funny because having just merged and being a part of it as it currently stands, bringing people in, but Bill touched on it before. But Jenner and Kristen Callan, phenomenal operators. Like unbelievable. They're brought in not just some of the staff members that were with me, but also our clientele. And everyone feels really comfortable. Brad, who runs it across the board, is just you sit down and you say you need something. You know it's going to be done. And in often, like, property management, it's like, oh, we're sales agents. Just put things and forget about it. And it's nearly the opposite. It's the lifeblood of the business. And so if you can get that model right, then it benefits the sales departments as whole. And I think that Highlanders are a whole now, nearly have 50 sales teams within its ecosystem. How do you have that? You've got to also have the back end of this property management doing that and being the real engine that drives it. And having just merged, it has just been unbelievable to watch the skill and the knowledge of these guys. But it's also done with just grace. And that's pretty rare. In fact, where now I think at 5,000 property management in that across the board, which I think would almost be the biggest property management for sure. Independent role. I think you are. And that's what it's about. It's-- you concentrate on what you're very good at. And then we've got other people in those divisions that are smarter and better than what I am personally in the property management. And that's a very important division of a real estate business. And looking from there, I've had some dialogue with David Highland over the past year and made gracious, phenomenal person. Later, you can see the glue and sitting here from you guys. You can see where that cultural fit is. It's very hard to get that right in business when merging, buying into businesses, and have that collaborative approach actually work and benefit the culture. And I think you guys are looking at, like I think of 30% are over the past 12, 24 months, which, for any new businesses, exceptional. So there's obviously a lot of benefits to your marketplace and your agents getting-- it seems like from looking from the outside in there, getting a lot more leverage out of this brand. I see agents coming in doing certain GCIs, maybe doing a little bit better, listing high profile stock. How are you seeing that benefiting-- you know, your 50 sales-- I think you said 50 sales teams. Yeah, so-- So how are you seeing that actually directly benefit them at the table? Because I think that there'd be a lot of agents listening to this sort of sitting at the end of a long sales room, not really sort of assuming their own lane being forgotten, and not really being empowered by their brand. How are you seeing that at the call phase with your guys? Where are they winning more business by being a part of this ecosystem? Where are you seeing that? Absolutely. 100%. But it also comes back to that collaboration piece when you're sitting in a lounge room and you're saying, Mr. and Mrs. Vendor, we can go to anyone within our business. If anyone has a buyer, if anyone has, they are more than welcome to come in. We do not get in the way of a result for you. In fact, it actually benefits you. We're not just, oh yeah, that's our client. It's open book. And when you can look at that as a company, then I think that it just gives us so much more power as a network. And speed. So yeah, exactly. And also everything being in house from marketing, everything, you know, it's speed to market as well. Which really, Nicky does for us is just unbelievable. We have our own recruitment division. And the problem with recruitment externally, it's not cheap. No. It's 13% of salary based. But then they ring that person that you've just had working for you for six months and says, hey, I've got a job for you for another 20,000. Yeah, it's a bunch of people company. Whereas all of ours is done in house by Nicky and she's a gem. And absolutely. And the support staff that we have working for us. And I think the great aspect is we have open book structure. And what I mean by that is that anybody that sells people in our office can cross sell. Now, I get phone calls for properties that are two or three million dollars. It doesn't mean that I think I'm too big to handle them. But I've got other people that are more proficient in that area. I take them with me. I then give that to them and say, right, you go and handle that particular property. I will oversee it from the back end because they're clients that I've known for years. But I want to increase your personal turnover. And we want you to be successful. Well, you're not going to get that in a Franchero's office. They all want to hide everything and say, no, no, that's my client or that's my vendor. You don't own anybody. I remember when eight years ago, before we started our agency, one of the catalysts to us leaving was the directors actually going in the back end of the sand, pinching our leads or going in a praises against their agents. That's really common. It seems to be a national problem. It does happen. It does happen. Not in my think of it. It doesn't happen. But it is a big problem. It is very much. It's all mine. Don't want to help. And especially at the directorship level and that C-suite level, it's-- Yeah, it did not change. That also leads off property management where you might have brought the men. And then the property manager says, oh, they're thinking about selling. And the next thing it's-- It's with someone else. And you're like, that just crumbles culture. Yes, it does. It just-- that is the biggest way to kill a culture. I get if you're coming from not a good brand and you come across the great brand, you're going to have those big increases in bigger years as an agent or a BDM. But what happens if you're a great agent within a great culture and you want to go off and do your own thing? So for example, how much does brand play a part when the agent's good? For example, if David decided to leave Highland and do another office, will he still be successful? As successful? How much does the brand play a part to that? Of course he would. But-- and I learned that the reason I went to Hookers 37 years ago was there was a brand out there. But if I had been up in office with Bill Maloof real estate, it wouldn't have gone anywhere. It's just your credibility. It's about your credibility that you build up over a period of time, which you then-- which is Gavin Rubenstein-- to give you an example, Daddy was with Ray Whites. He then went out and branched out by himself under the Rubenstein brand. He did that because he'd already had about seven or eight years worth of backup from sales. His name's been out in the marketplace. You've got to join in a brand that's got credibility, honesty in the marketplace, and success. And then maybe in 10 years time, you think, well, maybe I want to go and fly on my own. This move that I did four years ago from where I was to highland was for a number of reasons. It was for the benefit of my son. It was a brand that was successful in Kranala. It was a brand that had projects. It was a brand that had recruitment. It's a brand that had solicitors. And when you've got seven offices, you can share those costs right across the brand. But if you're trying to do it on your own and have a solicitor connected to your business and recruitment and all the rest, you're going to sink. You're not going to swim. And I don't see a problem that when somebody wants to go out on his own, but you're not going to do it in a two or three year or five years. You've got to create credibility. And that's what's going to make it successful. Is your credibility and your understanding and the results that you've been able to achieve. Bill, can you share some of your key learnings from your transition from a legacy brand to this new modernised impactful brand? What were some of the key learnings from that transition? You mentioned off camera that you sort of highly successful with the owner of the radar. Now you're sitting on the podcast, doing a lot of social, which is good, by the way. So what are some of those key learnings coming from that legacy brand into a brand like Ireland? Just exactly what you said. I was always raised to stay under the radar. You want to create a successful business for yourself. But this joining Ireland four years ago, for me, in fact, it's almost four years ago today, is their social media side of things I never ever did. And it brings you out there as an individual, the podcast that I do now, the training that I actually do with some young people to bring them in, because I think it's important you've got to give back. And also the fact that I don't have the pressure I had four years ago. I was supposed to be everything to everybody within the business. And property management side is a very special-- - Stressful. - And I couldn't give that-- - Stressful. - Okay, yeah, we have tenants think they're right. The landlords think they're right. And you're brought in to try and settle an argument that you've got no input to it at all. And that takes you away from your personal assets, which is driving the sales division. So I think joining-- I was lucky. I fell into-- through to Anthony Bell with David Highland. And that guy impressed me, especially I had a chance to work with him for about two and a half to three months with the property that we were doing in Kronama. And I went back to his main office. I saw how it was operating. I got to see the property management division. I got to see Johnny that comes to do our sales meetings and goes across to Newtown. These guys are all independently successful themselves. But they've got time for the people that are working for you. And that's what I felt was really good, even though I've got time now to share my time with my sales. And I hope that these guys build themselves to million dollar sellers over a period of time. - It's funny because Bill touched on it then, but everyone does have this open door policy. And like me coming in, I've been lucky enough to work alongside my mum who's been hugely successful over the last 30 years as well. - She had that too, mum. - Yeah, Jane O. Well done. And she's always had a mentorship role within our business before coming across. And it's funny, I've got an associate in Laila, who I think is going to be hugely successful moving forward as a young woman in the industry. And I often see her in Bill's office. And just, you know, she does, did when we were doing the transition across to the merger across, we were, I was doing a lot of the stuff on weekends for the property management. She was helping out Bill on opens and he was just pouring info to her. And you know, you don't have people that have been in the industry for 37 years, you know, giving that much time to a 23 year old that's just beginning and looking at like, holy hell, I'm with Bill Maloo, who last year did 200 million in two weeks. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know, so it's a really amazing, and Bill said, Johnny Schwartz, who's based in the, I was on the phone to him yesterday. And he was pumping me up for the start of the new year. Going, "Sami, this is how many properties we want to be live with. This is what we're doing as a network. You know, we're driving, we're in the back in the second week of January and we're getting up and running." I'm like, "Yeah." And like, I got off the phone, I'm like, "Yes." Like, "I'm ready to go." - Give me a brick wall, yeah. - It's at the end of the year when all you want to do is just clock off and you want to go away and you want to do Christmas with the family. And you go on the phone to someone who is hugely successful in their own right and they're pumping your tires and going, "Let's go." You know, and at any point of the business, whether it be in a West where they've got, you know, Tripodi, who's a fantastic operator, to, you know, every office, there's someone there that will offer time, support and a bit of, you know, accountability to how we can be better. - David rang me at seven o'clock this morning and he's in the middle of a deal and it's hit a little bit of a road bump at the present moment and he didn't want to lose the purchaser. So we spoke on the phone for 20 minutes, which is the option thing that I'd suggested to you. It's a day. Get an option agreement. It'll get past the period of four weeks that this guy, you could lose him, but if he's under an option agreement, you're not going to lose him. He's not going to go out and look at something else and it also gives justification to your vendor that I've got the buyer, but we've now got to give him two to three weeks extra for him to organise what he needs to do. And he said, "What a good idea." So the most important thing from my point of view is to now give back to the people that work for us. It's not about what I do. It's about what they do for the business that I own with David Haaland and my son, because David's a shareholder in this business. Their success is really important to me and that's what I look at now. It's not about what I'm going to do. It's about the team that's around us and the salespeople become successful independently. They've got families, they've got kids. And the only thing that stops you from being successful is your own personal drive. And that's what we want to tune into to make sure. And we all go through ups and downs in this industry like any other industry, but one thing I have learnt in all the years that I've been doing this, in all the years I was in a hotel, like access to all business becomes a bad business. The rot starts from the top. So from an ownership point of view, it is extremely important. And this is where I give David Haaland an enormous amount of credibility. He's always driving. There's the bus we can improve. Come on guys, let's talk about it. Let's work out what we need to do. He gets up, goes for his runs in the morning. I'll get a phone call from David Haaland at six o'clock in the morning. I definitely get it from David Mollipot. (laughter) But it's about how do we make our teams even more successful? It's not just about David or David Mollipot or Bill Mollipot. It's about the drive for our teams. And I think that's important. Yeah, and it's pretty impressive when you get to the sales meeting. And about being as transparent as possible, as well, like we have all the listings, like what can you bring to something that someone else might have? It's pretty impressive, you know, you look at, but also price points from 600,000 to 100 million. And there's not a lot of offices that can, you know, where you can tap in at all levels. And feel as though that you can probably climb that ladder as well. You know, if you've got those people around you and you go, okay, well, I'm a, you know, I normally do a million or, you know, two million dollar sale, but I've been called into a $10 million house because, you know, I feel like I've got the right dialogue. And you go in with someone like Bill or someone else in a particular area like Dover Heights going with Daniel Barron. Great. It was done so much. You know, at the, again, at the table with Mr. and Mrs. Vendor gives you a lot of credibility. What's next for you guys? What's next for the brand? We just want to see, I mean, we're not going to be array white, we're not going to be a hookers and we don't want to be. Yeah. But what we do want is the recognition from the public that these are the people that I can trust with my most important asset. And I had an interesting situation about six months ago. There was a client that I sold there, very expensive, well, our house, and they went into an apartment in double bay and the husband got very sick. So we went out and purchased a one-bed remunade for the staff that were going to look after the husband. And the wife rang me about, oh, 18 months ago, and so, listen, Billy, I have a one-bed remunade, you know about it, you helped us buy it. Who do you want to give that to within your confines? And I said, I'll do it for you. And she said, you're going to do a one-bed remunade worth 800 to 900,000. I said, you've been extremely loyal to me. I'll do this for you. I'll give you all the attention because you never should think you're too big. Where in the real estate can we sell property for a living? I mean, yeah. I was getting financial and some other agents that saying, what do you want for that building of seven units? I said, what building? The one you've got in double bay. I said, I'm selling a one-bed remunade. I didn't believe it. In fact, agents turned up to my auction to find out whether I was going to perform in the auction room. And we did sell it. We sold it for a good price. So never think you're too good or you're too great for a member where you started from. Yeah. You just touched on Bill. You know, you want the public to know that you can be the trusted advisors to get their VBest price for their house at the right time. We spoke off camera about there's a lot of distrust from the market at the moment. There's a lot of overquoting, underquoting. It's rife. And I think the more exceptional operators we have in the industry, the better. Because hopefully that will just weigh in the bad ones out and we can get a better reputation. But how important is that? And what are you guys doing to make sure that you are-- obviously, results are one thing. But what are you guys doing to make sure that you are seen as the trusted advisors that you're not overquoting? You're not overquoting. What do you guys do differently that isn't the standard sort of real estate 101 that a lot of real estate agents are known for? What's your point of difference in the market? It's funny. I think the first and foremost, it starts at the back end, as well. We are hugely compliant. We've got a full division for that as well. And you are held accountable by something that's bigger than yourself. There's no cowboy. And they just don't have it. And again, just coming in, we see that all the things that they have in the back end, then it makes you accountable for how you are to perceive by the public. So if that's right, then it's nearly done for you, which is nice. But in terms of just being publicly facing, sitting down in living room, you have to be honest with the vendors as well. And so this is what you will hear from probably other agents. I will buy the listing with this price. And then, oh, but however, we're going to quote this. We can't control that. Hopefully, the bigger powers do. But we just need to get that we would put everything in place from the back end. And then that keeps us accountable. How often do you get the price for England big listings when there's not many comparables? Not a lot, to be honest with you. I know every waterfront sale that's transacted in the last 10 years at the top end. And if we're supposed to be professionals, and I say this a lot, if I was sick, I want to go to the best doctor that's going to be able to treat what I actually have. I don't want to go because of a cost factor that this guy's at 1% or 1.5%, which is a number of other. We've got to set out standard in fees, and we've got to set out standard in credibility. And I say this to a lot of people. There's no different than a friend of yours who takes you to a restaurant. And you go and have dinner at that restaurant. You didn't know who owned the restaurant. You didn't know who the head chef was. But you had an unbelievable experience. The food was great. The service was sensational. Doesn't matter how expensive it was. But you walked out of that restaurant, feeling what a great night that I've just had. I guarantee you, you will go back with a different group of friends that you're going to now bring to that restaurant. And you're building the reputation of the owner of that business by putting money in his pocket because of your personal experience when you went there. This industry is absolutely no different. It's our personal experiences that when we act for somebody and how we acted for them, for them to stay with us till we actually make a sale. And I've just done a sale with Brad Pellinger in Point Piper at $37 million that started over 60 originally from the vendor's personal expectation. But he never left us because of our credibility with him and we were there every week. And that's what you're building on. That somebody can turn around and say to their kids and their uncles and aunts, you've got to go and use this particular person like because he doesn't like. He'll give you his accurate and honest view on the property. Even though your expectations could be higher than that. Now when I sign a property, I put vendors expectations and I might put my 10% that I honestly feel based on what's been sold around that property, there's where you're priced. You aim for the maximum that you can get. But you've also got to not misslead people. And that's going on at the present moment. And the Department of Fair Trade are stepping their foot on. They will turn up in your office on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They would have sent somebody to Europe in front of you. They will check your quote figure against the agency's figure. And my view is, if you're not doing it right, you should be kicked out. Your license should be gut. Because this is the most expensive asset that most people have. And they should be treated like it's the most expensive. And it's your responsibility to get the maximum for it. Yeah, if you want. Because when that guy comes to sell it five years later, they've got to come back to you because you've created the record that they paid. And now they want a record for them. So this game's not difficult. Oh, great. I was-- we spoke again off camera about this is another-- this is another problem, I guess, in Amory District, which I think everybody that's doing good job is doing good job at raising the bar. But when properties go live, agents are calling the vendor trying to derail the campaign. This is-- and it's from 600 grand to 600 million, right? You're around because it's incredible. And you've just nailed it, Bill. These are sometimes people not only sell once, twice, three times in a lifetime. And you've got agents and agencies. And I hope if you're listening to one of the agents that do this, you need to stop doing it. But to actively try to derail a campaign, you're really playing with their livelihood. Goes back into that position of trust. It is such an important role as an advisor to make sure you're diligently doing everything that you can. Can you touch on during that process from-- at least thing to getting the sole vote-- how imperative is the reporting? So what are you telling your vendors? What does your reporting look like? What does your communication look like with your clients that the listeners can take and implement into their business? There's two ways of handling this. I know David, after every item for inspection, writes down. Obviously, we keep a list of everyone that comes through the property. And the Monday and Tuesday, we then ring everybody back and find out what did you think? Is it within your budget? You keep those figures, the statistics. I'm old fashioned. I meet with every one of my vendors every week, religiously. If it's not going well, in fact, on Saturday, on a very high profile individual, I'm representing at the present moment, we got nobody through. Now, I know most agents would write down three or four names just to protect themselves. [LAUGHTER] It's so common. That's horrible. Here, I rang him 15 minutes after I finished the out and transferred. He said, Bill, how do we go? I said, we had zero. Workshop that with us. So how can you deliver bad news in-- how can you deliver a shit damage, basically? Very simple. You tell the truth. Yeah. People avoid it, right? So you just always tell the truth. We had nobody. So I dare you. Yeah. We had seven people through last Saturday. Maybe everybody's at Westfield this weekend. Yeah. But I've got people turning up to it at 12 o'clock today. And this Saturday, it's constant movement. It's our responsibility to go through all the lists that we have of potential buyers in certain ranges and make sure they get to see what we're handling. But I think you're honesty and your credibility with your vendors is extremely important. Because it's not only them you're going to ruin yourself for. It's your reputation to their friends. They say, I've just had a bad experience with that company. Do not go near them. Yeah. And it's not what we say about ourselves. It's what people say about you behind your back. It's funny, because you also got to deliver the good bad, the ugly rod. And because when something does happen, they need to make a commercial decision. So if you're going and saying, oh yeah, there's three or four people coming through when there wasn't and doing that. And you do get someone through that does want to buy it. And you've given that, oh, well, we've had 15 people through in the last three weeks, but you've had two. And someone's willing to give you an offer. How do they then make that decision? They go, oh, we'll have 15 more. But you won't. You'll have two. So you've just got to deliver the good bad, the ugly we've got one at the moment, an amazing owner. And we're not having many people through. But we've got to deliver that news, because we are constantly looking at what else is within the business. There might be something in another suburb, say, Darling Point, that they would look at, say, Pots Point. So we call them and say, come and have a look at this. If we get someone there and they're willing to put it down, she will know that we've done absolutely everything possible to get someone there and then get them to perform, then they'll make that decision themselves. But you can't just, you can't just bullshit for the sake of it. Last question, because I know you guys got to get to your 12. Now, based on the fact that this is a nine-figure apartment that you deal a lot with clients that can afford this type of property, is there a common denominator that makes these certain people exceptional? And if there is, what is it? The buyer you mean exceptional? Where the property is. I think when you're dealing in something like this particular pen house, its uniqueness is the speciality. I mean, the person buying it. Yeah. The person buying it is also somebody that wants their privacy. They want their own private parking. They don't want to share the lift by themselves. They make themselves. They're very wealthy individuals. And they're looking for something that distinguishes their personality with the marketplace. And I had somebody that looked at this. They came very close and purchased it. This was going to be his showcase for his board meetings. Not his office. This, because this rings with success. And that was important to the individuals that was looking at the property. I'll rephrase it. Is there something-- is there a quality that these people have that gets them to the point where they can actually afford something like this that's common throughout that? That's 1%. There, available-- there, wealth has determined their success. So I mean, you're dealing with company directors that look at property like this. Our individual that went into Bitcoin 10 years ago with Bitcoin was absolutely nothing. And have traded in America. There's some serious money that's been made out of that area of the marketplace. And people have lived a very comfortable lifestyle from it. You're not going to be a 10 or 20 million dollar person or even 50 or 60 million that you're going to come and spend on a property like this that's probably over the $200 or $300 million today. I mean, they'll spend 10 or 20% of their natural wealth. Now, their natural wealth has been built up on companies that they've created like Amazon and other areas like that. They're the ones you're looking for. But you also, as an individual, has got to have the credibility that you now had to handle those people. And you've got to have the respect that they're going to see what you're asking can be justified. That's also important. Well said. Very important. Very well said. Guys, give us a run home for Highland. What's Highland look like coming into the end of 2025 and what's the start of 2026 look like? Well, at the end of the year, the last couple of quarters that I've been here, it's just been going strength to strength. The sales team as a whole has just jumped on the back of a relatively tough market, to be honest. And just got down to the nitty gritty and the old school just pick up the phones and get it done. And that's been really amazing to watch. But I can only see what strength the next 12 months is going to be in probably an up and down market as well. But it's a pretty exciting journey to be on with the team. Four 12 months-- in six months' time, will be my first 12 months. And when you've got that sort of vision, it's an exciting place to be around. So I reckon jump on board and let's have some fun. It's going to be a wild ride. I think Highland mentioned that you guys have got 200 auctions signed off already. Yeah, it's from the company. Yeah, for the first two years. That's good. It's-- get a little candle, put it on the table, light it. If you don't put time into that candle, it will burn itself out, right, within two or three days. What is really important to us is to make sure all of our staff had the right mental attitude. When COVID hit, everybody turned around and said, oh, we're bugging. This is it. It's not my fault. It's the economy. It's not my fault. COVID hit. I can't make a sale. Everybody looks for that excuse. It's very important that the motivation that we do at our sales meetings and the individual, we keep that candle very much alive. We look at the individuals. We find out what's going wrong with them because we've got vendors that expect a result. And we will get together as a team and make sure that result can possibly happen and that we've got the credibility. And it's very important. We're going through interesting times here, especially in the unit marketplace over the next two years with what's going on in the eastern suburbs. So you've got to keep the individuals motivated. People think they lose their negotiation skills and things aren't coming together. You've got to look for those things that are going wrong. You've got to support them and go with them when they do presentations to a buyer. I go and we'll sit with them and listen to what their presentation is and see if I can fine tune that presentation. It's like when you go in and you're the only one talking and you're not listening to the vendors' expectation, the reason you're talking all the way through that is you're so nervous that you haven't got new properties that are going to be coming on the market. And I learnt this very quickly. There was a property when Brad Pellinger was working for me in Malara. The vendor rang and said, "Listen, I want to sell this and I'm not auction-oriented." Right? He said it publicly to us. We went to that presentation. Everybody else of the top players in the game were asked to the presentation. Every one of them pushed an auction. We pushed an expression of interest because he made it very clear to us from the phone call to me when I took Brad there and said, "We are not talking about an auction scenario. He has anti-oction. So we've got to make it comfortable with the presentation that we're going to do which will be an expression of interest." The worst thing you can do in this industry, everybody turns up with a book about their company showing that we have 80% or 70% of the marketplace. It's crap. What you should be doing is finding out what's driving them to sell. So it's the personal relationship that you should be trying to build in that meeting and very few of them do that. Brilliant. That's great. I want to know why they're selling, why they renovated. What's important to them? What's important to them, why are they leaving? That's important. Where are the kids going to school? I'll sit down and discuss that for 25, 30 minutes because I want to build a bond between them. I want to build a relationship that they're going to say we found the guy that we can trust. That's brilliant. That's what we try to do. Well, that's generational advice guys. That's relevant to everybody. That works. More clearly. Yeah, well done. Appreciate you both. And big shout out to him and David Highland as well, guys. Congrats on all your success. Thanks guys. Thank you. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another side of the podcast. I just want to say a big thank you for the support up until now. If you've got value from the episode, could you please go like and follow us on the social platforms, for example, Spotify and YouTube, as it will help us continue to get better quality guests. Bye for now. [MUSIC PLAYING]