We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
174 - The Power of Saying Yes: Andy Brownhill's Journey from UK Punk to Real Estate Leadership
Send a message directly to Lee ( Include your details )
Andy Brownhill shares his journey from a 17-year-old punk rock kid from England to General Manager at River Realty. He demonstrates how opportunity can appear unexpectedly when we're willing to say yes and take risks.
• The power of saying yes to opportunities, beginning with Andy's move to Australia at age 21
• How embracing unfamiliar challenges builds a foundation for future success
• The importance of taking calculated risks and trusting yourself
• River Realty's remarkable transformation - reducing staff from 46 to 30 while increasing sales by 18%
• Why stripping back operations saved over $1 million in salaries
• The value of developing effective company lead generation systems
• Why agents should "fall in love with the process, not the outcome."
• How River Realty's customer service team nurtures leads through anniversary calls and property estimates
• Leadership requires maintaining an open mind to opportunities in every interaction
• Creating systems and processes that allow businesses to operate optimally
• The importance of staying curious rather than judgmental in business
Join us at the Complete Leader Conference 2025, where Andy Brownhill will speak and share more insights on opportunity and leadership in real estate.
Hosted by Lee Woodward
Proudly brought to you by Lee Woodward Training Systems.
Brought to you by Nexr
Elevate your real estate business with Nexr – the strategic partner that helps you overcome challenges in securing more listings, building better teams, and achieving faster growth. With over 20 years of experience in developing Tier 1 agencies, Nexr provides bespoke solutions tailored to your unique needs. Ready to redefine the future of your business? Visit nexr.com.au today.
Discover more:
Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. Today. I've decided to take another different pathway. As we consistently discuss, find, list, communicate and sell structural change, time management, but what about the other part of this world, in the real estate industry, where many things happened? Opportunity is actually that, and when we look at the opportunities that are all around us, they don't always seem as clear or even look like an opportunity at first. So today I have a very special guest, mr Andy Brownhill, who is from River Realty in New South Wales, and I'm going to get him to share his own story about opportunity. He joins us now and he's going to be speaking at the Complete Leader Conference 2025. Mr Andy Brownhill, great to have you with us. Thanks so much, lee. I love being here. Being here is a big question and you and I were chatting off air. Take us into your background and how you reflect on opportunity.
Speaker 2:Thanks for letting me be here, because in my mind, I really shouldn't be here. I often have a little bit of imposter syndrome, especially when talking to you and the people in the industry that I speak to, listening to this podcast and will be a complete leader, and I think it stems from I'm still. In my mind I'm still just a 17-year-old punk rock kid from England who likes to skateboard right, and mentally I'm still there.
Speaker 1:Well, we might go back in time. But before we go back in time to how you got where you are today, just for our listener here and overseas, especially in the UK, they'll be loving this accent, andy. They'll be loving it. What do you do for a job now in the world of real estate at River?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm part of the executive team here. I'm general manager, which you can pretty much apply across the entire business. The vast majority of my time, though, is making sure that the engine is working. We've got a lot of support that we provide to our agents. My job really is firm to make sure that our agents are supported in what they need to, both from administration, marketing, media, all the way through what they require to get their job done on a daily basis. So my client is our agents.
Speaker 1:So essential services is that wonderful term that we use, and today, andy, it's been the stickability of the business, where the agents stay long-term. You've had agents attracted to move over to the business because they were doing it all themselves where they were and they can't even get home, whereas under general management, your leadership and also you leading all the people that move the leading parts, that's been a very successful time at the business for the EBUs and solo agents, for them to operate.
Speaker 2:That's right and look, take a quote from you. I just want our agents to find, list and sell. At the end of the day, everything else should be noise to them and obviously they're involved and their input from a marketing perspective is obviously important. But we want to have that engine room working in the background for them whilst they're out finding properties to list and then selling them.
Speaker 1:So let's go back to your early career and take us into the power of saying yes.
Speaker 2:So I think there's probably a power of saying yes to opportunities that come your way. There's so many different times that I can pinpoint, but the biggest and there'd be no way I'd be able to say this, to have taken this opportunity right now without saying yes to was relocating to Australia. At the time I was 21,. I was already uh, I was already working, I had my own place at the time. But ever since I was a young kid, my parents had always talked about moving to Australia and I was like, yeah, yeah, never going to happen, never going to happen. And then, you know, they they let me uh. I was raised in, uh, in the West Midlands of England and, uh, I turned 21 and they're like, right, we're moving. I'm like, okay, great, see ya, all my friends had moved on to bigger and better things as well, and I just kind of went you know what, let's do it. So, within two weeks, packed up all my gear, sold what I had and came out to Australia with them.
Speaker 1:So the first yes was a good one. Come to the beautiful country, the lucky country. What else happened after that?
Speaker 2:It gave me an opportunity to, I think, to embrace those unfamiliar challenges. When you embrace those unfamiliar challenges, it's often the yes that sets the foundation for future success.
Speaker 1:Love that and that brings us into with anyone who says, yes, you're taking risks and trusting yourself over the logic of it all. What can you tell us about that part?
Speaker 2:There was a time in my life where I took a risk that didn't work out too well. I actually had a pretty decent job working in education, so I was managing a registered training organization. I was introduced to a gentleman named David Smith at the time. Some of us listening to this would know the late great David Smith of Real Estate Academy fame, but I met him before he joined the Real Estate Academy. He was working for a recruitment organization called Jobs on the Coast. He really pushed for me to take on a new opportunity. I got in touch with him. He found this what appeared to be an incredible opportunity. I dove in and he really championed me for that role. I took it. It turned out the role really wasn't what it was meant to be. I took a big risk.
Speaker 2:Doing it at the time Kind of went for the wrong reasons, which was a little bit of frustration from my previous employer and then a better pay packet et cetera that was being passed there. So rather than watering the grass that I was standing on, I thought the grass was greener on the other side and decided to jump over there. But look, as I said, david championed me, got me this opportunity. I took it didn't work out to be what I wanted it to be. And then I found out after, when I was in a bit of limbo about what am I going to do with my life? At that point I was like I don't want to go backwards. What can I do? I want to work and in my mind I was like I want to work for an organization that kind of has my values, has my energy and belief. I didn't really even have an industry in mind and then I heard that David was working for some group called the Real Estate Academy. I was like what a group they are. And look, I'd had a bit of uh dealings from a uh certificate registration and licensing course, uh perspective in in education previously. So I kind of had a bit of understanding about it. Had no idea depths of street training, as you call it, as you, as you coined the term to you know, real training, not classroom training thought I'd get in touch with dave and just just to see what it was all about and he invited me over to the academy just for a quick chat, just to see, see the place.
Speaker 2:And it was like that moment in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they, when the kids see the all the lollies for the first time. And I was like this is the spot, like I I saw. I honestly I remember going there, you went, you went there that day and I remember sitting down and there was just an energy about that place and it was kind of like there's something here about it. There's something here. From that moment on, I wouldn't leave Dave alone and he invited me to the complete salesperson course. I met you and Robin at the Hunter Valley that would have been August 2015, I believe so 10 years ago and I harassed everyone there until you guys gave me an opportunity to give it a shot. So that was a big risk moment for me. I think. Two opportunities there, both David Smith giving me an opportunity at a place that where I probably shouldn't have taken in the long run, but it was beyond my control at the time, and then another risk, jumping. What is this chocolate factory all about?
Speaker 1:Absolutely amazing and just for our listeners overseas, I was the CEO of Real Estate Academy and the owner, along with the other shareholders, and it was. It was a time of real estate where real estate hot topics, the Matt Steinway system, everything was being developed out of that one building. There was steam coming out of that building as we serviced the Australian real estate industry. And then Andy, unfortunately in his very early 40s, david passed away from brain cancer, which rocked all of us it did.
Speaker 2:I'd left the academy by then. I'd relocated to the Hunter Valley from the Central Coast. Again, this is another risk that didn't pay off. But I went to another company doing something completely different. It was in the realm of technology, but also education again, but they were local to the Hunter Valley area. I thought let's try that out. And I remember getting the call from I think it was Christian Arrigo with the Academy at the time got in touch with me and told me unfortunately David had passed away. And I remember chatting to you again at David's funeral. There's something about funerals where people just get back together. And that was when, really, the conversation with Chris Henry, my managing director and one of the owners of River, kicked off and ignited from there. I've got to tell you that was the moment when I thought, look, david Smith is a hell of a recruiter. David Smith is a hell of a recruiter.
Speaker 1:So, andy, you land at River and you are now thrown into this operational role, and you've done a couple of roles there, including lead generation for the team. What have you learned and what do you bring into your everyday moments in finding opportunities at River?
Speaker 2:Having had the opportunity to work so broadly across the business here, it's given me a great understanding of what needs tweaking at any given time. So we don't need to rebuild anything all the time. You don't need any major grand plans all the time. But having worked across the business in different areas predominantly with the sales team and the essential services team, but property management as well you get to kind of see well, what does this business need at any given time? And especially over the past 18 months, where the leaders within the business is the executive team Chris D, myself and Chantala, our executive assistant we've really, like, got down to the micro level of what areas of the business does what, what does it need, what support's required, what needs some energy injecting into it, what needs pulling back. The last 18 months has been so eye-opening, I think, in terms of my entire career since I was 21,. The last 18 months have been some of the most powerful in terms of what I've learned.
Speaker 1:And, andy, I've been chatting with you through that time. Absolutely amazing how, right across the nation, the same conversations seem to gravitate to me at the same time. And everyone was saying to me mate, I've got to strip it back, we've got to be more effective. We grew in COVID and we've purchased things we didn't need and we're on subscriptions we don't even know. And you guys went through and did a massive audit. What was that stripped back moment?
Speaker 2:What were you able to strip back? Some of the things that were stripped back were people actually had left the business as well and it was like, well, do we need to replace that individual? And it turned out that we went from something like 46 staff at one time and now we're down to 30. We are doing better than we've ever done before. To be able to make sure that everything is working so optimally that we can actually improve on a leaner, meaner sort of business has been incredibly eye-opening. I looked at some of the stats and I spoke to you a few days ago about this and we went from something one calendar year with the 46 staff, we did about 280 sales, and then the last calendar year we did 332 sales with 16 less staff, saving over a million dollars in salaries, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2:You know, if you put that into perspective and you take that, if you took that to a manufacturing company and said, hey, we can save you a million dollars but increase your productivity by almost what's that? 70 and 18%, firstly they wouldn't believe you. But it would be a no brainer if you could bottle that and sell it.
Speaker 1:I mentioned lead generation before and, Andy, coming from Academy, you came from service area understanding. You were actually on the phones for us at one time when you first turned up. We didn't have a job for you so we threw you on the phones because that's the income generating department and if you can do that, you can do anything else and you took over other things, but being live in a real estate business for you, after speaking to the agents for so long and understanding their challenges, understanding the mechanism and the system of the course, what have challenges understanding the mechanism and the system of the course.
Speaker 2:What have you learned most about company lead generation that you could share with our listeners? I think a shift in mindset has been major for me. So, obviously, if we talk about agent prospecting and I work with some of our agents on this quite closely and presented to the team on this I really think it's important that agents fall in love with the process and not the outcome. If an agent can honestly say they sat down and they did all of the individual tasks that they need to get done today without the thought of I need to get that listing, I need to get that listing If they can do that every single day, the outcomes will come. It's when people start thinking about should have got that listing, I didn't get that listing, or why did that competitor win that listing over me? That's the wrong mindset to take. I think it's got to be habitual in terms of what they do on a daily basis, and what we all do on a daily basis is to fall in love with the process and not the outcome.
Speaker 1:So, when we look at the listing streams into the business, what seems to be returning best? Do you feel for the company right now?
Speaker 2:We have multiple listing streams, for sure, but we have a pretty robust customer service follow-up and process that I began to introduce when I first joined the business. That's anything from how to nurture inbound leads, how to book appraisals on agent's behalf to get the full information from someone. So, as opposed to hi, I've got Dave. He lives in Morpeth. He'd like to sell his home and pass it on to the agent or forward it straight through. No, we go through a full. What is their requirements? How long have they lived there? What's their property like? What's their favorite thing about the home that they live in? So we know that before an agent steps through the door it's a full concierge service, even if it's just a telephone call. We've got the customer service team also taking care of anniversary calls.
Speaker 2:From a business's perspective, we encourage the agents to do it too. They built that personal relationship. But as a business we have a dedicated customer service team taking care of those leads as well, because we want to keep At some point. We want them to be fans of River, we want them to return to River when they need real estate services again and we want them to talk about River to their friends. We also heavily promote a property estimate campaign as well. Everyone knows that they're not accurate to the dollar figure and nothing beats an in-agent appraisal, but it gives us an opportunity to nurture those leads as well. A lot of people love to be able to do a few clicks, get a dollar amount, but then we can follow that up and encourage people to get an in-person appraisal if they're looking at selling their property. So we have that listing stream, which is huge for us.
Speaker 1:So, andy quite interesting for our listener here that it's very rare there is a company lead generation program and from being with myself and the training, you know my feelings on this and I've been speaking to principals all week saying you can't outsource, that this is the responsibility of the company and the greatest data in the business is the trust account, because that's the transacted data, it's the cleanest data. But when we look at expected behavior, what do you feel is a good month for the company to generate in opportunities that may be passed back or passed on to the agents In terms of a number of listing opportunities? Yeah, so what's a good month of appraisals?
Speaker 2:I actually don't count them on a per month basis. I base it on a quality amount in terms of it's not just how many appraisals we can generate, Because a lot of the time we've done this before with an in-house lead generator where their KPI was to book as many appraisals as possible, but a lot of those people shouldn't have been having appraisals. There's a lot more value, in my opinion, in nurturing some of those people for 12 months, as opposed to getting an agent through the door and appraising a property that they're not going to list. I agree, the cost of an appraisal can be a thousand. I think we've costed it previously and it's probably more than this now, but we've costed it.
Speaker 2:You send an agent out and take into consideration all the costs involved in that and what they're not doing. Instead, it's about $1,000 every time an agent goes to a front door. So if that person is actually not that interested in listing their property, I'd rather give them some information over it. It could be a desktop appraisal, it could be a property estimate, but they're going to nurture campaign instead and our customer service team will stay in touch with them. They get the relevant information that they needed at a particular time To have someone in that scene we learned from this who was a great salesperson at the end of the day, who was then working in lead generation. They were great at getting opportunities for agents to go to the door, but that was less valuable because those people weren't ready to sell.
Speaker 1:And there's real transactions in the marketplace right now that we've got to do more work with the buyers to get it up and they're not available to do them because they're on fake appraisals Exactly. Love it Now, andy, for all our senior leaders and our managers that absolutely love this program. We've got their salespeople and property managers listening as well, but it's always a good thing when we have someone like yourself in this position. What were the changes in leadership required in the strip back and the rebuilding of River?
Speaker 2:Well, look, we had a bit of a significant change in the business at the start of last year. That forced more. So Dee and Chris really forced them to get into the business more. Those two are the most incredible professionals that you could work with and work for. Chris is one of the most amazing salespeople that I'm sure a lot of people here have spoken, that listening, have spoken to, and D, who's a career property manager and so passionate about property management. You couldn't want a better person in that head of property management role. But through the COVID years and beyond, those guys were so, so busy doing that and then being in the trenches and doing that job that we didn't really have a micro.
Speaker 2:Look throughout the business where money's going, where money's coming in, money coming out, so on and so forth. Where are we spending our money? Where is it best invested? So look throughout the business where money's going, where money's coming in, money coming out, so on and so forth. Where are we spending our money? Where is it best invested? So, over the past, where are we? About 15 months or so, we've really taken an approach to look at everything under a microscope. Really look at where money is going, because we operate two businesses simultaneously River Maitland and River Thornton. We utilize a lot of services in Maitland, so there's a lot of money back to each business and so on and so forth. It gave us a really good opportunity to audit what is going on with our business here and how it can be improved.
Speaker 1:And that would have been, I think, for any business owner. We've all done this at some point. Where you go through and you think I can't believe we're subscribing that I don't even know what it is. We took it up seven years ago when we were doing that. I still don't know what it is and it is embarrassing. We've all done it. I've found many, many things of computer softwares or whatever it is, and the person's not even here anymore. So it's quite an eye-opener and a big one for everyone. Listening to the program of, I've got one leader and you'll respect this, andy who cancels his credit cards every year so that all the subscriptions have to come back to him, and then he'll say, oh yeah, I don't mind that one that can go on the new card, but every year he cancels it and opens up a new card.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny, dee, on a monthly basis and she'll be okay me saying this on a monthly basis she'll say to me do we need this? And I'm like yes, dee, that's our Microsoft licenses.
Speaker 1:Fair enough. So, andy, take us further into this wonderful role and what you do on a daily basis. Now You're managing the units, the people underneath you, which is this incredible essential services team, and you're right across that. What else has been encouraging an opportunity of mindset for you?
Speaker 2:I kind of approach every single day with an open mind. I know that there's opportunities everywhere, in every conversation, in every meeting, in every email. There's opportunities everywhere and you've just kind every meeting, in every email there's opportunities everywhere and you've just kind of you've got to look for those moments where you can grow and connect or innovate. And I think that's a mindset that I believe I know it's shared amongst the executive team here, but I believe it's shared throughout the entire team. We're not just about chasing those big opportunities we love those big wins, we love big listings and we love big sales but it's actually about cultivating that mindset that recognizes the potential in everyday situations.
Speaker 1:So, andy, great interview and such a different one for us to have on this particular program. I have this question for you before we sign off. There's a lot of people listening to this right now who may suit general management or operations. They may be in a sales role or a property management role. What does it take, in mindset and understanding, to do a gig like your own? What would you recommend they work on or do, or what should they be aware of, to be in consideration of integration into a role like yours?
Speaker 2:I think you've got to have an open mind Again, I'm repeating myself here but have an open mind towards those opportunities. As I said at the very beginning of this the program I really shouldn't be here. I've never sold or leased a piece of real estate in my entire life be here. I've never sold or leased a piece of real estate in my entire life. I don't intend to. That's not where my skill set lies.
Speaker 2:I learned a lot from leaders like yourself about building processes and systems. Looking at frameworks that you've created before and all of your real estate models really opened my mind up to working in systems and processes. So if I look back at everything that I've done at River, it's all about creating new systems, new processes, and that sounds really boring, but it's not. It actually gives you the framework to operate as optimally as possible. Framework to operate as optimally as possible. Our listed to settle process, for instance. I mean we started off very similar to the listed to settle checklist that you've promoted previously, but now we've got automations in there. We've custom built it. It's designed for our platforms that we utilize, because not one business is the same and I was like I'm not going to utilize the listed to settle process from the CRM that we utilize, because we don't operate out of a CRM for everything.
Speaker 2:So I think, having an open mind to new opportunities, new innovations, tools at your disposal, people around you, more talented people than yourself, I think often people are threatened and scared of of other people's talent. But I'm like, no, these people are way smarter than me. I'd rather I need them working with me, building my systems and and advancing my processes. So, like, if you if you can sum it up it's something I heard the other day, I think it was. Somebody said it was from a tv show but don't be judgmental, stay curious. Yeah, that's really what it comes down to on a daily basis. If you can work in an environment that gives you the opportunity to kind of stretch out a little bit and be creative and solve problems in a really proactive way, I think if you can stay curious and not judgmental, then absolutely anyone can work in this environment.
Speaker 1:Well, Andy, great interview. We look forward to having you at the Complete Leader Conference and where to from here.
Speaker 2:Who knows? Let's see what opportunities come our way. And this is where, again, we've got a shared goal here at River. We don't necessarily want to be the biggest and we don't necessarily want to transact the most. We just want to give every single client the best experience, and I think that starts by creating a workplace where everybody that comes to work has a great experience to be able to pass that on to their clients. So where to from here is just keep doing an amazing job for our community and kicking goals that way.
Speaker 1:Andy Branhill. Absolutely wonderful interview and thank you for joining us on the program. Thanks, lee.