As the real estate landscape continues to change rapidly, many property professionals are perpetually seeking ways to grow their businesses bigger and faster.

However, Mr Travis Wentriro, Network Manager NSW/ACT, Raine & Horne, advocates that business owners, sales managers, and agents would enjoy more valuable results by concentrating on getting better before focussing on getting bigger. 

“Traditionally in business, once you become better, your customers will demand that you get bigger,” Mr Wentriro contended. 

“At Raine & Horne, we are attracting younger, entrepreneurial business owners to our Group. These people are usually champion sales agents or property managers, but their primary desire is successful business ownership.”

Taking a leaf out of the Google or Atlassian playbook

In 2021, the successful real estate principals are those who are taking more time to work on the business than work in the business, observed Mr Wentriro.

“Those working on the business are building an asset and are looking at what the best organisations are doing, whether it’s Atlassian, McDonald’s, Google or the local fish shop.”

He continued, “The leading principals have stopped thinking like a real estate practitioner and are making decisions based on the overall customer experience. Like how Uber which has transformed car riding services, younger Principals are disrupting the real estate customer experience.”

Using social platforms to engage with communities

The younger principals are also taking a different approach to the way they engage with their communities. “Even five years ago, agents and owners were using letterbox drops or pages and pages of newspaper advertising to engage with their communities,” Mr Wentriro said.

“Now social media and digital marketing platforms such as Amplify are enabling agents and principals to engage with more real estate consumers faster and smarter. 

“Using digital technology allows savvy agents and principals to gain broader traction and the perception of more significant business scale. Once the community is engaged successfully, appraisal, listings, sales, and market share will quickly catch up and add up.

“The digital and social tools and resources available to the savvy agents and owners today gives them the breathing space to be better before they consider getting bigger.”

Building an attraction business for recruitment

According to Mr Wentriro, younger Principals have also recognised that empowering their employees is a truly cost-effective way to promote their business. 

“The old days of the office hierarchy are gone, and owners are getting staff involved and engaged in many aspects of a business such as building culture and recruitment.

“In turn, with the help of empowered and engaged teams, the office becomes an attraction business for recruitment because people want to work there.”

Take Raine & Horne Dubbo, led by Ken Mongan. “Ken predominantly doesn’t list and sell property,” Mr Wentriro said.

“Ken has a very successful business because he works on his business as the Managing Director. He supports every member of his team but still is across every cent and dollar that comes into the business and goes out.

“Unlike some offices where the principal competes against the staff, Ken has a great business with a great culture and fully empowered team.

“Ken has genuinely created a business where people want to work for him because they are provided with support and clear goals. At Raine & Horne Dubbo, new team members know what is expected of them and what they can achieve from the get-go.”

Mr Wentriro continued, “The better offices work this way and then by default they get bigger because more people want to work there, they get more listings and more market share. Ken does this very well at Dubbo.”

Looking for new income streams

The new-age agent and principal are also looking at new revenue streams to support their sales and property management activities. 

“This could be as simple as running sales conferences for their local small business communities,” said Travis.

“Let’s face it, who better to teach subject matter experts such as builders, plumbers and even graphic designers how to attract more leads to their SME than real estate agents who know a thing or two about landing a lead and closing a sale.”