We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
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We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
147 Building On A Century of Trust and Legacy - Bruce McLachlan
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What if the heart of a legacy could be captured through the stories of those who built it? We invite you to listen to the captivating narrative of Bruce McLachlan as he recounts the century-long journey of McLachlan Partners in the real estate industry. Discover how Bruce's grandfather and great-uncle returned from World War I to resume life and forge a new path on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Bruce shares how necessity pulled him into the family business at a young age, driven by resilience and a pivot from his plans to buy a milk-run business.
The story of McLachlan Partners is also a tale of two brothers with very different callings. Bruce and Craig McLachlan illustrate the diverse paths ambition can carve. While Bruce remained a leader in real estate, contributing to regional transformations and enduring market shifts, Craig chased the bright lights of the entertainment industry, ultimately clinching a Logie for his role on "Neighbours." Their journeys highlight the essence of pursuing one's passion and the dynamic routes success can take. Bruce's steadfast dedication to the Central Coast and Craig's strategic self-promotion underscore the multifaceted nature of ambition and achievement.
This episode is a testament to community and legacy, with Bruce sharing invaluable lessons from steering McLachlan Partners to its 100-year milestone. We explore the importance of nurturing trust and community ties and how being embedded locally can be a cornerstone for business longevity. Bruce reflects on leadership evolution, embracing flexibility, and the power of family values in building a loyal and productive team. As we celebrate this enduring legacy, we delve into Bruce's vision for the future—ensuring the brand thrives through new partnerships while staying true to its roots. Join us for a story rich in history, passion, and the wisdom of sustaining a family legacy.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, your coach and host. Today very special program I'm coming to. You live from McLaughlin Partners on the central coast of New South Wales and, for those of you following the social media world, you would have seen me a couple of weeks ago at the 100 Years of Legacy, as McLaughlin Partners reached their 100th year in business, and joining me today is Bruce McLaughlin.
Speaker 2:Bruce, welcome to the program. Thank you, Lee. Thank you for having me on your podcast.
Speaker 2:This is exciting to have you on the podcast because take us back 100 years of business service, take us into the history grandfather and his brother came back from world war one and from france and they survived, survived the war, came back and opened up an office in long jetty, proudly advertised inspections by motorized vehicles and those days the people caught a train to wyong, caught a ferry across tugra lakes, got off a long jetty and the grandfather, brothers, brothers would then chaperone them probably through bush tracks those days and show them blocks of land and things like that around Long Jetty. And that's how it started. They did that through the 20s. They built a guest house. They did a lot of building work and all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:As you mentioned, they rebuilt Long Jetty for what was called then Errand and Shire Council those days and then they ran into a couple of tough years in business. They were called the Great Depression and World War II and so you can imagine the agency practice wouldn't support the two boys or the two families in total. So Doug went back to building and my grandfather went back to work in customs in Sydney but still kept his license used to come up on the weekends, take a room in the Lakes Hotel and sell blocks of land down in the lobby. They sold their land. They did subdivision, sold their land for £40, no interest. Lay-by terms paid money off. When people got some money they would just come in and pay off the loan. We still got the loan books in the office at no interest after pay for real estate Wow ahead of its time.
Speaker 1:Now, bruce, we're actually in the office where the family grew up your brother Craig McLaughlin as well, very well known in the Australian industry, in the Australian community and the office was out the front, which is where I am today. Over this time you've seen so much happen within the real estate industry and that was one of the parts of the interview I really wanted to use today is play it down the line. We've got so many real estate salespeople that become business owners one day. That could be their passion, or they just may stay as a sales professional. But you got thrown into being business ownership very early. You were 22 years of age. Tell us what happened.
Speaker 2:Like everyone, I don't think that you want to do what your father does and I initially had a teacher scholarship and I went to Hawkesbury Ag College and found that I didn't like that. The university wasn't for me. So I often say I did a three-year course in six weeks. So I left it in six weeks and actually went share farming and grew vegetables up at Mangrove Mountain and then to basically escape the business and being a and I traveled around Australia with a bricklayer and we ended up in the Northern Territory. I ended up in a mining camp and I did two seasons up in the mining in the mining camp to save up for a milk run.
Speaker 2:Milk runs were very lucrative those days. It was government regulated and you could only buy your milk from your milkman. And I soon worked out that the richest guy in the water was the milkman and he was there in the surf at 9 o'clock. So I thought that's it, that's the job for me. I can make some good money and I can go surfing at 9 o'clock. I'm going to be a milkman. So as the central case was growing so quickly and people would build houses and the vacant land would turn into houses, your milk runs a bit like lawn mowing runs. You could sell them off. So that was the plan.
Speaker 2:But I got a call over the radio. There was no telephones in the mining camp, it was a radio phone. It just said mum was on the phone. It said come home, your dad's got cancer, click over. And that was it. So I was on a mail plane back to Mount Isa and then down to home and in those days in the 70s there was no chemotherapy on the Central Coast so I had to drive dad to Sydney for chemo. So I couldn't get a normal job because I had to be available to drive him. And so they said you can work in the office. And I said okay, all right.
Speaker 2:And I quickly saw guys flipping houses and I went, I could do that. So I took an interest in real estate, mainly to buy old houses and do it up. And I was lucky. I bought my first house and I had the deposit from the mining camp. So instead of a milk run I went into a property purchase. I was very lucky.
Speaker 2:1980, 81, the property market doubled. I doubled my money on a house and all of a sudden I thought, hey, this real estate is easy and I think the next three houses I either broke or even lost. That was the drive thing. And, funny enough, we're talking about limiting beliefs. My father, just before his deathbed, said to me go into the business. It'll be a good business, you'll have a nice house and you'll get good holidays, he said. But if you want to make money in property you've got to buy and sell real estate. And I didn't really think about it too much, but basically that's been my career. We've had a nice agency, nice business, had a good life and live on the beachfront and always had an overseas holiday with the kids and all that sort of thing. And, in the back of of mind, all my money has always been made from buying and selling property or developing property. And that's limiting beliefs. It's something that I would warn young agents about. You can get stuck in what you think there would be and we've only got a solo office.
Speaker 1:Now, bruce, you were 24 when you became a business owner, 22 when you entered the business, but your uncle, ian, was the other owner when your father passed away. And then suddenly, here you are as a business owner, but in true tradition of what a great business or how a great business is built. He was brilliant at administration back end and you were not interested in that. You were interested in the front end of the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was totally sales orientated and paperwork was not my forte. And Ian was brilliant and his wife, leone, both worked in the business and both brilliant administrators and good, hard taskmasters. They were very old school. The doors opened at quarter to nine and no one left before 15 minutes past five. That was the minimum because the phone still rang.
Speaker 2:And if you look at the authoritarian business model that was those days to what it is now, working from home, mobile phones, guys rock in, rock out, you know, as long as their appointments are done and all that sort of thing, half the time you don't even know where your crew are. In those days it was, you know, front up the office and do those things. So they were very regimented and they were great training for me because I was the absolute opposite. But it worked really well. I did the sales team, I built the sales team up and you know, in the back end whatever was ever a problem, ian would fix it up. So insurances, all that sort of stuff, you know very brilliant and it was a good partnership over 30 years. Not one crossword between us, even to the point of buying it. I bought Ian out and he still comes in the office weekly, you know, comes in for a day or two and well into his 80s and still comes into the office and the staff enjoy his company and the continuity of it all too.
Speaker 1:But the tip there for our listener we see a lot of I'll use the word young agents, but young thinking, because business maturity lasting 100 years is not normal and there's got to be lessons in there and wisdom. But a lot of people team up because they're both excited and they're both great at sales. But having someone focused on administration is such an asset to the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but having someone focused on administration is such an asset to the business.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think we were just lucky in that regard that we were opposites in personality and we didn't butt heads.
Speaker 2:He did his thing, I did my thing and, provided the sales were coming in, I knew the back end was looked after and I never had to worry about licenses or renew licences or renewals all that administrative stuff that sales people just don't want to know about and it worked well and the staff always had a deep respect for Ian and their administration and I can proudly say that I've been here since 1980, never been in court with a client, never been in court with a staff member, never been in court with a client, never been in court with a staff member, never been an issue with payments or anything like that.
Speaker 2:So there's not many people in business can say that and I don't even recall my father being in court with anyone. I can't say we've gone 100 years without litigation, but I think the only argument they ever had in the family business that I ever heard about was from my mother was when my father started banking the trust monies in the night safe at Westpac and my grandfather thought that was absolutely ridiculous that you would put the money in a hole in the wall when it sat in the teapot for years, perfectly safe out the back. That was the only major argument I think the family had over where the trust money should be held.
Speaker 1:Now Bruce at 24, business owner. For those that have visited the Central Coast today, it's very different to what it was back then. You couldn't even get here that easily, but you guys entered into massive subdivision of land sales. Take us into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, basically there was one client that had a large holding up at Shelley Beach. I got in to meet him early in my career and kept in touch with him and basically so the Shelley Beach estate, which is near the golf course. We were the marketing agents for that and then he actually bought 50% of the family's holding. There was my uncle and my brother had 50% and my cousins had the other 50% because the two brothers, clyde and Doug, and they had the balance of what was the McLaughlin Avenue estate. So there's five acres left over, and so finally they cut it in half. The cousins had a part in half, we had the other half. He bought the cousins' property and so we ended up with a joint venture partner and so the family did that.
Speaker 2:That's Craig Close, fiona Close, that's named after my brother, craig McLaughlin, and so from then on we did other work with him and other land subdivisions, and then with that anyone else that had subdivision work came to us. So we got known for subdivisional stuff and the rural sales out of Tumbi after Palm Valley Estate. We were the sort of go-to agent for all that sort of thing and so, yeah, so we'd end up doing stuff out of Jillaby. We'd just recently done one at Currumbong, so that has always been a good core part of our business, and then more recently I'm involved in the high-rises down the entrance. So we've always had some major projects running through the business as some sort of core listing or core project on the books or things.
Speaker 1:So McLaughlin Projects was suddenly just born. How did you feel going into high-rise?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I've always done the low-rise on the beachfronts and that sort of thing, the boutiques, the boutique buildings. We were involved in them when I first started, when the entrance started gentrifying and the old fibres were getting pulled down on the beachfront and that. So I was involved with Grant Constructions building a piece in Rockpool and they were the landmark sales. So you know you sold the best units in town. You were the go-to agent for that. So it was good for the reputation and the business and you always had the record sale for the district. You sold the beachfront record sale for the district. So I live in Marina Prairie, blue Bay, so that was my patch and so every sale in Marina Prairie was a record district for those days.
Speaker 2:Wyong Shire I was actually supportive of the amalgamation of Wyong Shire and Gosford Shire. From a business point of view I shouldn't have because there's no longer any Wyong Shire. So I'm not the top agent in Wyong Shire anymore. The Terrigal Suburbs and the Masters and that are higher end things. So we've lost our status for the number one sales in the Shire. But I still think the Central Coast should be the Central Coast as a region. So I'll support you with that against my business interests.
Speaker 1:So, bruce, while you were a very young man running this very big business, your brother, craig, you both lived here in the house. Craig had no interest in real estate. He went off to be his entertainment career. How did that?
Speaker 2:all go. Craig's really expressive and entertaining. He's a total expressive, creative thing. So musical singing, dancing. And then he got a break. He performed a lead in the entrance.
Speaker 2:High school in a musical. They wrote themselves the music. High school in a musical they wrote themselves. The music teacher wrote it called School and it's a nerd getting picked on and turns into Fonzie type character and it's been played worldwide. Now the other schools have done it.
Speaker 2:It's a story of bullying, basically. So Craig got a. Someone saw him on that and he was only 15 and they invited him down and said come down and have an interview or whatever. But the funny story with Craig is that he's always had a self-belief and Craig never wanted to go into the business. But interestingly enough the business used to be called CD McLaughlin after my grandfather, clyde Dougal. So we named Craig Craig Dougal he was. He was named McLaughlin so he could actually carry on the business name as before. We changed it to McLaughlin Partners, so he was Chris and CD McLaughlin.
Speaker 2:He was probably about 17, 18, and we were having breakfast. One time we were at a cafe with my mother. He was working as a plumber's labourer and Mum said listen here, mate, you get yourself a decent job. And he said, no, I'm going to do acting. And Mum said no, no, no. She said there's a job at Graywell Fords in Gosford as a car salesman. Now you get yourself in there and you get yourself a decent job.
Speaker 2:And Craig said no, mum. He said I'm going to be on the stage next week, next year, as a Logie winner for Australia's Best New Talent. And we just laughed at him. Now, at that stage he hadn't had an audition, he hadn't had a manager, he didn't even have a. I took his first photos for his resume, for his model sheets. He'd run up down to Wimber Beach and I've got the office camera taking photos of him. So no audition, no manager, no, nothing. And he says to us, he says to the family I'm going to be on stage as Australia's Best New Talent winning a Logie. And sure enough, 18 months later at Neighbours, he's on stage and he's got his first Logie. He's got a few. Now that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so after that we never laughed at him, we didn't.
Speaker 1:Seriously.
Speaker 2:He would say to me. He would say to me I'm going to do this and that. And I'd go yeah, okay, mate, whatever, yeah, go for it. Because you never laughed at him, because after that he put us to, you know, but mum said it was a good job, as don't always listen to your mother. And he rang me up one time in London and he said oh, mate, he said I'm really big over here. I said you got to come over. I went, I'll pull your head in. He said no, no, seriously, I'm really big.
Speaker 2:And so I flew to London to see him and the paparazzi lined up in front of his house with the cameras and they're going through his garbage. And that was in the hate. I have neighbours, yeah, and you couldn't walk out of the street and I had the very early big video camera recorders. I was on the way to a surf trip to Jeffreys Bay and I was going to take some surf footage and the big old tapes you remember, yeah. So I spent I think I spent 10 days in London with him when he was doing Grease and I pretended to be Australian TV, so I would run around and interview all the pommies and we had an absolute ball in the backstage, but Craig would always make himself available and you know he would spend an hour after the show out the back just signing autographs for everyone.
Speaker 2:You've got to talk about marketing and self-belief In Australia. When he was signing autographs, he'd actually sign your autograph and he'd go now don't forget to vote for the Logies. And then he'd go yeah, okay, and so he got all these Logies. He'd always ask people to vote. You give him an autograph. And there was the law of reciprocation I'll give you something, you give me something back. And he was good at that. No, he's had an amazing career and some of the stuff that he's done. Lee, you wouldn't you talk about me being humble. He doesn't sing his praises. He would probably be one of Australia's best guitarists and when he was in London, keith Richards from the Stains used to invite him over to his house to jam with, and then Ace Frehley from Kiss would invite him over in LA to jam, just to sit and play guitar with him.
Speaker 1:All from Long Jetty? Yeah, totally. I'm sitting probably 20 metres away from where his bedroom was, which is now property management and all out of this same place.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I'll tell you another story. Craig, when I went into council, as you know, he was probably the only local that never asked me to dredge the lake or deepen it, because where you're sitting, as you know, if you walk outside here and go down the one block, there's the lake. There's also a jetty. So at the age of 12 months I said to my mum can I take Craig for a walk in the stroller? And of course I did, and I went down the jetty and I accidentally pushed him off the end of the jetty in his stroller. So I always say to him you've got your strong vocal voice from me, because when he dropped in the water lucky, the lake is shallow, as you know it was just to his neck and I remember looking down his throat and seeing his tonsils and he was just screaming.
Speaker 2:As you can imagine, a 12-month-old baby, big, goofy baby. I jumped in the water. I couldn't get him out of the stroller on that. So in the end I pushed the stroller through the lake, up through the ribbon weed, up through the mud and he came out looking like the Loch Ness Monster and then ran him up the road and he was still screaming like a siren and I got to the top of the driveway here. Mum came out of the office and I just pushed the stroller. She said what's going on? I just pushed the straw to mum and it was about 8 o'clock in the morning. I didn't come home until the streetlights came on that night because I knew I'd get a flogging. But Craig never swam. He didn't swim until a later age. He would not go near the water. He was never one of the real great surfers in town and that, unfortunately, was probably due to me dropping off the jetty at the age of 12 months.
Speaker 1:When me dropping you off the jetty at the age of 12 months when you were at the 100-year legacy, 1924, that business actually started for any of our agents to be future principals now. What would be some of the biggest lessons you've had from running McLaughlin's?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all I mentioned limiting beliefs and that sort of thing. But I think in the early days I was very hardline. If the people turn up for the sales meeting late, I used to close the door and not let them in and try to be regimented. And I think it's like holding a bar of soap If you squeeze too hard, it just slips out of your hand. So I finally got the philosophy.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, my friends rang up and said do you want to play golf? And I said no, I'm too busy. And he said don't you make mistakes? And I said yeah, and he said well, let your staff make mistakes and come play golf. And so basically my philosophy in the office. Now I say to people when they make a mistake, I say that's okay, it's not a mistake in the office that I haven't made myself, just don't do it twice. So I've never been too hard on people, but if they make repeated mistakes, so that's some good advice to someone that's starting out and looking for perfection. There is no such thing as perfection and I think the human factor comes into it. Put your sales team's family first, and things like that.
Speaker 2:I got a lovely letter from Tony Heath who did 27 years from me and retired and sent me a nice letter in retirement saying things are going well and that he said I really want to thank you for sending me to watch my kids play football. So Tony used to do Saturday morning open houses and that sort of thing and was very regimented. But the kids were playing football, rugby league for the Entrance Tigers and I said go and watch your boys play football and they said no, no, that's more important than the open houses. And only recently we sold a house for one of the kids' coach's family, you know, because of Tony's involvement. So that was 15 years later.
Speaker 1:Bruce, you still win business today. You're the director of the company. But when we look at these methods of introduction where opportunities come your way, what have you learned about the listing process all of this time that you'd passed down the line?
Speaker 2:I think it's a transfer of trust. I think that's the bottom line At the end of the day. People have to trust what you're doing and they have to hand over the key to you. And if you can't transfer that trust to someone to give you the key to their house, well then there is no listing. And that's always been a key indicator for me in recruiting staff. If you don't feel you could hand over your key to that person that you're interviewing, then the clients will have that same feeling. And this came from Philip Webb, robert Bevan's seminar in the 90s. Philip said he looks for someone who can hand over the key to and someone who would allow to pick his kids up from school. Unless your salespeople can pass on that feeling towards a client, all the marketing, all the whiz-bang presentations in the world, all the follow-up calls, all that sort of thing they will help and you've got to do it. If you can't create that transfer of trust and belief that you're the best agent, well then there is no listing.
Speaker 1:And being so embedded in the community as you are like being at the 100-year celebration. The place was packed. There's people listing their houses straight after the event. I say this a lot in seminars that you're either on the edge of the community or you're in the community, and McLaughlins have just embedded themselves in the Central Coast community for so long and it returns.
Speaker 2:I remember growing up my dad did ads on 2GO. This was in the 70s and I could hear that on the radio and it was a program that they did with business leaders through the coast and it said spend your money locally and your money will come back to you. And they would interview people and the jingle would say spend your money locally and your money comes back. So they were trying to get people on the coast and do business on the coast and keep the money on the coast. Growing up my dad was in the Lions Club. He was treasurer of Tugger Lakes Golf Club, a life member up there, and so we've always grown up with a sense of community and giving back and in those days the networking side of business was that was the business. Dad probably sold more houses out of the golf club than he did in his office. So that was an important part of business, but it was also. There was Apex, there was a lot of different clubs around and that was a general way of doing business those days. And we've lost a little bit of that in the hardness of business these days. That charity side of it has waned a bit.
Speaker 2:We're well known in the little charity auctions we did before each auction and that came about. I had a staff member that had a terminally ill child in their family and at the funeral they said don't give any flowers, just give donations to the kids' wards. And one of the team, mark Smith at the time, said why don't we do a charity auction before the auction? I think the very first one we did. We had a nice bottle of wine package and that sort of thing. Auction went great for the wine and that and then we didn't get a bid on the house, but the atmosphere of that auction was great because they actually saw an auction, saw bids, saw this. That it was when registrations first come in and people were very tentative about bidding and so we said, oh, that was a good warm-up. We'll do that every time. And then we've done it ever since and you know, over the years we've just had up a tally Once it gets to $5,. When they see us in the field they know that we collect money for the kids' awards and things like that.
Speaker 2:Next Saturday I'll be down at Toowoomba Surf Club at the Toowoomba Swim and we're a long-term sponsor there. The flags will be on the beach. They make me swim. I've got to go and swim a kilometre next Saturday. I usually do two kilometres but I think this year I'll only do one, you know, and basically we'll be involved in that event and that sort of thing. So people know us. And then I ran for council and, to my surprise, I won the pre-poll. At the entrance I got the most preference votes out of all the councillors, out of the 15 councillors, and had I been the popular elected mayor, I would have been mayor of the Central Coast.
Speaker 1:Now. Had I been the popular elected mayor, I would have been mayor of the Central Coast Now. Bruce, you actually made my book Claiming Doors with your wonderful terminology around. When we talk about bringing deals together in real estate, I have a duty of care. I just love how you explain it just to our listener that hasn't listened to or read anything about that. But when you're bringing deals together, you've always stayed very calm in how you do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I learned in the recession Keating and that where prices we got slammed 20% overall, some streets down here went 40%, 50%. I saw values go from a million dollars on the beachfront down to $350,000 within two years and that sort of thing. So a lot of agents never experienced a heavy downturn in the market. And then you have vendors who could have got a price one year and in those days the price was severely dropping. And then they would come back and abuse you two years later because they dropped the and you had an offer on the table two years earlier or early in the agency. I remember one guy coming in to me and saying you should have made me take it, you should have made me take the offer.
Speaker 2:And how often do agents have early offers that don't get accepted and then they move on to the second agent.
Speaker 2:The second agent does the deal at the price that the first agent has been rejected. That's so common in the industry, so early in the piece I thought I'm never going to be abused again. So I basically said a letter or whatever, that I had a duty of care to tell you that the market is dropping and this and that there. And if you don't take the offer, then as a duty of care, I must tell you that you may not be able to get this price again, and don't blame me. So basically it was a don't blame me letter, it was a full disclosure and that sort of thing. So if people didn't take an offer, I would give them a duty of care letter and say look, I confirm, I've advised you that the market is this and that there and the offer is this and that there, and you may not be able to reproduce the offer in the future time. So if anyone ever did come back and say, look, I lost, and there was agents that actually got sued, I think, for a loss and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:How amazing you look at fluctuation in price a million to $350,000, and then the area's gone through its transition again.
Speaker 2:What's a beachfront worth here now. Oh, I think the last sale in that street I'm talking about was 6 mil. I think so yeah, and I think it'll crack 10 mil soon. There's people actually spending 7, 8, 9 million on their build after they've paid 6 mil for a block.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:So you know the actual construction costs are more like 15 million. But the market will eventually get there for the new cost. That always catches up. But with the beachfronts I've always looked at the northern beaches and saw where they were and then if their prices are mobile at 15 mil or whatever, or 10 mil, you'll know the next cycle that's where the central coast will be and that's been the history of all those. Every cycle we'll catch up to where the northern beaches were.
Speaker 1:Now, Bruce, you're a keen surfer. You live beachfront yourself. How did you and Craig end up living next door to each other?
Speaker 2:Well, that's an interesting one. And you talk about the 350 sale. That was my own purchase with Craig and I tried to buy beachfronts. I had a salesman at the 100th that I thanked, and on one of the very first caravans on Multilist we went down to a brand-new beachfront arena parade. I stood out the front of the house and as a 22-year-old I said, wow, I'd love to live here. And John Thoreau turned around to me and said to me very, very seriously, bruce, why don't you make that your goal? And so it just resonated with me and so everything I did then was a goal to actually buy a beachfront property and so every investment I did, everything I put towards, was a goal to get to the beachfront.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I had a client that had the property for sale for a long time, was open, listed with everyone in town and it was a house across the double block built by Coddy's Cord time. It was open, listed with everyone in town and it was a house across a double block built by Cotty's Cordial. It was a retirement home for the Cotty's family, lovely old bungalow across a double block of land on the beach Blue Bay, two blocks still separately tidal, but the house built over, never amalgamated. But he wouldn't sell one block individually and he'd only sell the two and I couldn't afford two blocks. I rang my brother up in London he won't mind telling me this Craig was earning 50 grand a week in London. Wow, and that's it, sir, doing Greece, he had the highest contract for anyone on the West End. He had a slice of the action, the house, and he was earning great money and anyway.
Speaker 2:But I rang him up and said Craig, craig, you've got to buy this property. And he went, oh, you know, and he was a bit hesitant. I said, mate, I said go hards on it. I said you know, and he said trust me. Anyway, so Craig bought the site unseen. He didn't come home for two years until he saw the property he bought. And now the two of us live side by side on the beach and we have done some ceiling ideas and that's been a great sort of. It's not the Kennedy compound, but everyone knows where the McLaughlins live and all the kids have had Australia Day parties on the beach and things like that. But yeah, it's been a nice family, nice for the kids that grow up next to their uncle and things like that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely amazing. So McLaughlin's reached 100 years. It's still going strong, got some great young team members coming through and, bruce, when you look at that, you must just be so proud to reach this moment.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. It's been a milestone for me to stay in the business and get to 100 years because, lee, as you know, I'm third generation and that's the generation that usually stuffs it up. So in the back of my head, if I've got to get to 100 years and then no one could actually say you got it there.
Speaker 2:You made it all right I steered the ship to 100 years and I didn't. I didn't um, lose it and uh, and so that was in the pillar. I've asked me for years now I'm 67 this year and when are you going to retire? And I've always said you can be an old estate agent but it's very hard to be an old bricklayer.
Speaker 2:So my grandfather was mid-80s in the office each day and used to come in and, as I said before, ian's in his mid-80s now comes in at least once a week and that sort of thing. So I think I've got quite a few years left and I've got a great team and we kept the name McLaughlin Partners. Even though I bought Ian out many years ago and at one stage we were going to go McLaughlin just as a thing. I thought no, I'll keep the partners McLaughlin Partners because that will allow new partners to come into the business and it's open knowledge that I've invited the team to come in as equity partners and it's a pathway for people there if they want to come into the office as equity. My attitude was I only ever had 50% for half my career with them, so I'm sure there's room for some non-family members in that.
Speaker 1:Well, what an incredible brand that's embedded in the community and lives on and still today, so many people are referred on, be it solicitors, lawyers. There's something exciting going on on the Central Coast. You're involved. But congratulations, bruce, and thank you for sharing your story on our podcast.
Speaker 2:Great.