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
How a SEAL-Team Sales Structure Turns Leads Into Lifelong Clients with Josh Sherwood
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Ever wondered how top agents win listings before they step into the lounge room? We sit down with Queensland powerhouse Josh Sherwood to unpack the system behind 100+ sales a year—and why the secret isn’t louder prospecting, it’s smarter service. From the first lead phone call to the final contract, Josh runs a tight, SEAL‑team structure where every role has a mission: the lead qualifier discovers, the buyer manager nurtures, the co‑agent steers emerging sellers, and the lead agent focuses on high‑impact closes. That clarity turns response times into trust and trust into momentum.
We explore how buyer care becomes a listing engine, with clear stages—update and inform, inspection, offers—and call cadences that match intent. Josh walks through a practical nurture approach that avoids pestering happy homeowners, uses weekly email and light SMS to stay present, and moves fast the moment someone engages. He dives into compliance and “property health checks” to remove deal‑killing surprises, plus a property‑centric database built on Salesforce that powers precise, human outreach at scale. You’ll hear how this data lets him genuinely say, “I can bring buyers,” and how that credibility resets a seller’s expectations.
When the stakes rise, Josh prefers to win early: go last, ask not to sign before he arrives, send a tailored survey, and present with insight into budget, timing, and goals. It’s an advisory stance that elevates the outcome and filters for the right partnerships. Along the way, we trade restaurant‑floor analogies, map simple alert systems that keep service sharp, and talk culture—training hard, moving as one team, and tracking the numbers that actually hit the bottom line.
If you want to replace noise with leverage—better stages, stronger notes, cleaner data, and service that compounds—this conversation gives you the playbook. Enjoy the episode, share it with a colleague who’s ready to scale smart, and leave a quick rating so more agents can find it.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the author of the Complete Salesperson course and claiming doors. Today we have a Queensland Agent Edition as we speak to one of our top performing agents in Queensland doing in excess of 100 sales a year. Please welcome to our podcast, Josh Sherwood. Josh, welcome aboard. Thanks for having me, Lee. How long have you been in real estate?
SPEAKER_02:21 years. What got you into real estate? My dad, to be honest, we used to move around a lot as we were growing up. And um, my old man, he used to flip homes. We used to be in a house and we used to be out of it as soon as it was finished. So uh real estate was in my b blood, it was in my background. But that was when we were in England. So when we moved to Australia, we sold a couple of houses here, and my old man saw the process of the agent and what they were up to. Um and he said, You should try and become a real estate agent. And at that time, 21 years ago, there wasn't many young people in real estate. So we I went around and and they said, Oh no, go get a trade and come back to us when you're when you're a little bit older and you know have a bit of a backup plan in case it doesn't work out. But I was like, nah, that's that's gonna be a really good point of difference for me being young and I could do things a little bit differently. So I went for it and got my way in through the door. And that's sometimes all you need in real estate, you just got to get it, get in there and see how it goes after that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, our UK listeners will love that you were from the UK originally. Whereabouts in England where you're from? Colchester, Essex. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:That's about an hour south of London, so much nicer here.
SPEAKER_01:So you mentioned you move round a lot because dad's flipping properties, and then you move countries. So suddenly here you are in Australia. But I I think that gives us our first coachable moment. You're adaptable, a chameleon, and can get on with anyone, would be fair to say, hence uh the success you've had with people, then real estate.
SPEAKER_02:Um, it was definitely a hard transition moving here from England to Australia at the age of 15. Um, it took me a year or so to really find my feet. And um, but yeah, I definitely think that is one of my strengths. I feel like I can I sell a lot of different types of properties these days, anywhere from, you know, a seven, eight hundred thousand dollar house to a three million dollar property. So, you know, I feel like I'm more of a people person, like rather than a property person or a style of property or a, you know, a suburb specific. I like to work with people that like me and I like them. And yeah, and that I feel like that is one of my strengths in this business.
SPEAKER_01:Now, just for our listener to get to know you, you're a dedicated real estate sales professional. You're on your own personal team, but separate to that, take us into your entrepreneur business moments that you're doing at the moment with your group.
SPEAKER_02:Obviously, Freedom Property, we started about 12 years ago. And um, we used to be Century 21 and started our own company named Freedom Property. A couple of my business partners at the time started the company, and I was one of the younger sales agents in the in the team. Um eventually I bought into the business and then I took over the business a few years ago. My focus for a lot of my career was on my own sales business. I wanted to be, you know, the best agent in my area. And then as I performed, I started to grow my team, grow my office. That office became the brand. Um, now we have uh 62 agents at the brand. Uh, we've got a lot of up-and-coming people learning alongside those agents. So there's probably another 10 to 15. We call them biomanagers or lead qualifiers working alongside lead agents in Freedom Property. So our team is is growing fairly quickly. We've got a really good office in Darwin. They're probably going to do around 5 million this year in COM, led by a very good operator there named Jacob Reynolds. And um, he's got some really great people in his team. And and then we've got uh a couple of really big core hubs that we run here in uh Brisbane. Um, and then we have a lot of work from home agents. So obviously, I still sell, I still like to be on the tools because it allows me to test my flow, my systems in the background and make sure that how sellers are being handled, how the contracts are performing, how the tech feels. I like to feel that inside my team. But my team runs very efficiently, my personal sales team. And then we grow the officers, we grow the brand, and you know, we take this wherever we can.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely amazing. And that just gives us some really good context into the topic that I want to go into today. And just before we jump into our topic, which is about nurturing that long-term relationship, keeping that listing stream alive. And we've had this conversation a few times this year with different real estate professionals that uh many people are okay if they can uh list it today or next week or the week after. But that uh follow-up system for the future, uh the nurturing process often goes missing. So that's really what I want to focus upon. But before we jump into that, Josh, just take us into your team structure, because you've got a lot going on there. Uh this year you'll crack over another hundred deals again. I think your best year is about 120. This is a lot of transactions, and you just happen to be running a whole company of other people at the same time. But just for this interview, your personal team, how's that structured?
SPEAKER_02:So I believe the like the ideal team if you're running a business of my size would consist of your lead agent. Um, you would have a co-agent, you'd have a buyer manager, and a uh lead qualifier. Um, and if you had an admin person backing you up, that would be unbelievable. But usually I've always got about four people, including myself, in my personal sales team. Now, I don't need to do too much in my personal sales team these days because of the way it's structured. And that's the thing about my life. I can do these other things because I have good systems and good flow around me. Now, the most important thing I think that we're going to talk about today in this podcast is how to manage your leads effectively. Um, and it's how to um manage your pipeline effectively. So for me, I I believe that in your business, the the lead qualifier role. Now, I rather than have an agent and a coagent and they all just running off and doing their own things on listings, what I would rather have is a business unit that all works on those the same listing, but they've all got their roles on the listing. So we have in our uh team someone that answers the phone, a lead qualifier. So my phone doesn't personally ring, it goes through to an inquiry line. We have an inquiries email, and the lead qualifier handles the leads. We have um a buyer manager who would then handle the buyers that would flow into buyers. We have myself as the lead agent who would go out and do all the listing presentations, the appraisals, call the absolute hottest people that need to be closed this month. And then my co-agent would be ringing all of the other upcoming sellers and managing them accordingly and managing the team as well. So I wouldn't have to. For me, like leads are the most important thing inside your business. So if you've got someone dedicated to handling that lead phone perfectly, and if their response time is quick on that phone, if when the leads they're speaking to the lead, something has already gone out to them, like an automatic email that's got a content pack, which would have all of the things about the property, you know, like the floor plans, the form twos, the all everything that someone would want to know about this property, if it's automatically been sent out to them directly straight away. And then if they're sitting on the phone and understanding that the lead qualifier, your role isn't right now to sell the house. Your job is to understand this person. This is a lead that's come into our business, and we need to figure out who they are. So this is the script, this is the play. So you've got to understand who you're speaking to and you need to ask the right questions so we can put these people into the system as either a buying opportunity or a listing opportunity in the right stages so they can be handled effectively. And whilst they're doing all this stuff, you know, if they're speaking to the buyer on the phone and they're saying, you know, like, um, have you made any offers on anything yet? And um, what stopped you from securing that property? If that property popped up again, could you purchase it today? How's the sale of your place going? Um, and figuring out who these people are, creating the buying opportunity, the listing opportunity if they have one, and sending them on their journey and then explaining to this lead what's gonna happen next. So obviously, you rang Josh's phone. Um, he's out and about dealing with all of our best buyers and sellers right now. I'm here to figure out who you are. I've just set up your buying opportunity in our system. I'll put you into the stage of inspection because it sounds like you're not quite ready to make offers yet, but you're out and about looking at homes. We're gonna uh put you into the stage of inspection right now. What that means is our buyer manager is gonna call you once a week. Um, they're gonna give you a bit of feedback on properties that are coming onto the market. But when you are ready to make an offer on a home, we're gonna ramp up the service for you. When you do make an offer on a home, Josh is gonna call you and help you negotiate that deal. So we we spell out the play to the customer and then they understand and then we put them on that journey.
SPEAKER_01:Josh, that is so powerful. And in an industry that doesn't look after the purchasing community well, for someone to experience the education process that you've just explained, and even prompting them to say, you're here at inspection, pressures off them. But if you do make an offer, we'll be ramping up the service. Even makes them feel, well, why can't I ramp up now? And it's like you're creating the excitement around the deal, which is very, very clever. So that sequence you just explained then is gold. And if someone's a buyer seller, which is the greatest lead in a database, they'll say, I've met 20 people this week. There's no comparison to what I experienced there versus all these people took my name and details, never called me back, don't want to call me back. And quite frankly, I don't know why they take my details. So data's king, you're a data-driven business, it's a team-based business. Those roles are so you're not palming anything off. It's I can we can do this together. But we all work on the listings as one, but we've got our dedicated yeah, you're like the SEAL team. Everyone's got their little dedicated role of what they need to do in the database. Separate to referrals and the nurturing process, which we're going to speak about in detail, even though we've started, what would be your number one listing stream that's coming into you that you're recognizing that, geez, we get a lot of business from that?
SPEAKER_02:Buyers obviously are a huge uh thing for us. Obviously, if we're managing buyers extremely well, um a lot of them have houses to sell, but it's not so much even the ones that have houses to sell now, it's our past buyers. So, for instance, if um if you've got an amazing property and you handle these buyers well, they might go and buy off somebody else, but that property, they need to sell it again in a year or two years. And if you've got time on your side, these people are going to remember the service you gave and they're gonna come back to you. So rather than cold prospecting, which is door knocking, cold calling, and doing all the things and annoying all the people that don't want to speak to you every day, these people that really want your help, the buyers, manage them really, really well and they will come back to you when they're ready to sell. They will recommend you to their friends, their family, they will tell everybody about you. So if that service is so, so good, that's what's gonna leak into the marketplace. And if you always know who all the best buyers are, now when you're prospecting, you can actually do what you say you're gonna do. So it's crazy because you know, like agents are ringing sellers all the time and they're saying, Well, would you like to sell? And they're like, Well, you can bring some buyers over if you like. And they've got no one to bring over because they don't know who the buyers are. You know, so what we want to know at any given time is who are all the best buyers in the market? What stage are they in? So if I get a sniff of an opportunity, I've already got my buyers ready to go and I can explain to the seller, listen, give me an opportunity to come and see you. I'll show you my database, I'll show you the buyers I've got for your property. I won't waste your time. If you want me to get them through, I can, you know, and at any given time, we are armed up, ready to go with all the best buyers in the market. So obviously the psychology's got to be right with all this stuff happening as well. Real estate, it's a it's a big psychology game. Not only do you have to handle the buyers well, but in the background, they've got to feel like you're the right agent. You know, so if they are buying into this area when they drive around it, do they see you? You know, if you're a seller and living in that area, you know, do they see you all the time? You know, the psychology has to be right, you know. So that's what I'm really big on. I try to analyze everything that my seller might be thinking. How is the buyer being handled? And then I try to eliminate as many of them negatives as I can. And that's why I have the team in play, because I at any given time can see who my problem is in my team. If I have a hundred buyers awaiting calls in my system, I know my buyer manager is a problem right now. I need to get my whole team onto the buyers, let's get them down to zero. If the leads are building up, I'm like, why are the leads building up? Everybody over here into leads. Let's clear the leads out. If my seller pipeline is building up, all right, leave the buyers for a second, let's all jump into sellers, let's get the sellers down. You know, so we are very clear on what is important in our business. We know who to attack.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely brilliant. Let's look at this uh mainstream marketing process. And what I mean by that is you've got all these leads identified, so you captured the data well, you've sent them good information, you are making sure there's a connection process to them because they're future sellers, they're not here right now. And let's even take a category. Or what are your categories for you've got all these potential sellers in this big pot. How do you divide that up? How do you see it?
SPEAKER_02:People that aren't selling, we call them my community listing opportunities. So these are people that we want in our system, but they do not need your call. They do not want to be bothered by you, they do not want you knocking on their door, they do not want you um hustling them all the time because they're not selling. This is the biggest thing that I see with real estate agents. They don't know when to be a real estate agent, and they're scared to be a real estate agent when people need them to be a real estate agent. Yeah, like anything. Like that person that's not selling, that person that is is happy inside their home does not want you calling them checking in. Stop calling them to check in. They don't want that. They don't even really want to hear from you, to be honest. They're very happy in their home. And when they're ready to sell, they'll go to who they had a really good experience when they needed a real estate agent. So focusing more of your time and energy on the people that really need your help is what's key in this business, I feel. So yeah, obviously, these my community listening opportunities, we nurture them via mass text, we've nurtured them via mass email, by um social media strategies. So we want to be psychologically in the background here for them. But then when they give us a sniff of an opportunity, so if they've replied to one of our mass techs, if they click into certain things inside our emails that we're sending every week, if they interact with us at an open home or give us a call or anything like that, bang, we're on them. And then we're a real estate agent. We figure out if there's an opportunity there. If it's not, we we let them go back. So it's about understanding who in your pipeline is coming on. Like for me personally, how my team works now with my listing opportunities, we have the my community ones that sit over here. Then we have update and inform presentation and appraisal. So if I was to make any phone calls today, me, the lead agent who's busy in my personal sales team, I'm gonna make 10 to 15 phone calls today. It is gonna be who I think I can do a presentation on this month. And if I rang them and I said, Hey, Lee, I know you spoke to my um lee qualifier, Caleb, um a few weeks ago, um, and he said that you'd be ready for um uh to put your property on the market in a couple of months' time. Is that still the case? And they say, Yes, it is. Fantastic. Well, look, obviously, before you come onto the market, there's a lot of things that you need to do. We need to get your house compliant, we need to get the smoke alarms done, we need to get, you know, potentially a building and pest done. Um, is there anything that I can be helping you with?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, love it. So again, it's not about let me in the door, price it, let's put it up. It's education-based approach that you're using. Yep. And there's a lot in what you just said then to unpack for people. And I did pick this up in doing some research on you, that you take compliance to the property very, very seriously versus people whacking stuff on the market and we get a great offer and that back building's not approved. Uh, just take us into that for a moment while you're so methodical on that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you don't want to be dealing with any of those problems as a seller. Um, when you're negotiating your sale price, a lot of those issues that could have been um solved before you put your property on the market. So as real estate agents, like rather than ringing sellers all day, every day asking them for money, why don't you ring them and figure out exactly when they want to put their property on the market and then solve their problems from there? You know, so and sometimes I go over to people's houses and it may not be the right decision for them to sell the property. And I'll talk to them about, you know, are you sure you want to sell this? You know, that this is an amazing property, like, and this is a really tough area to get into. So, you know, if you sell this property, you may not be able to get something like this back again. Um, are you sure you want to sell it? Because the market here, I feel like, is in a good spot right now, you know, like this could be an investment property for you. You could pull out the equity and you could reinvest that and you could turn this into an investment. Like, have you thought about doing stuff like that? Like, I'm not necessarily going over to people's houses to pick up a commission. I'm I'm going over there to build a relationship with someone that I want to do business with for forever. You know, so I'm playing the long game. So my whole business is about solving people's problems and being an advisor for them and making sure that when they come to my business, they are handled absolutely perfectly. It's like when you walk into the the B and W garage, you don't deal with the owner straight away. You know, there's a you've got to go sit in the car, you've got to go test it, you're driving around, then they they walk you into the the owner's office and he's like, all right, you're ready to do a deal now, are you? So I sort of try to make my business a lot like that. I want everyone to be really good at their roles, and everyone has their part in my team, and we just flow accordingly.
SPEAKER_01:Beautiful. So back to this category, we've got our community. Don't harass them, just serve them. If they click, we connect, and we're going to play real estate agent. We take the education process to do that nurturing, smoke alarms, compliance. Let's make sure we do a health check, a full assessment on the property, what would it rent for, building and pest reports. So everything goes to the market with a clean bill of health. It's not an undercooked listing that an amateur took to market without finding out what needed to be done. Those people that are still another year away, two years away, but are selling, what's your communication process or the nurturing process that you use for them?
SPEAKER_02:So psychology again, you know, like if this person says to me, Listen, we're going to put our property on the market in a couple of years' time when the kids finish school, um, I'm gonna obviously record this data on their listing opportunity. And when I ring you, I will say, Hey Lee, how's it going? Are the kids ready to leave school yet? Getting close, exams finished in December. Fantastic. So it's January now, so at the end of this year, you're putting the property on the market. Is that still the case?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's our plan. So you think in November, December? Yep, that could be a good time to start looking at all this. The the kids will be right near the end of it, so yeah, we'll be good to go.
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic. That's a great time to sell. Like, what I don't want to be is one of these annoying real estate agents that rings you every month and hustles you and, you know, uh just steals your time and energy. That's that's not really my style. I like to focus on dealing with all the best buyers in the marketplace, so I'm ready for when you're ready. Is there anything that I could be providing you right now before you make this big decision later in the year?
SPEAKER_01:Um, yeah, I I sort of don't know what I don't know there. Well what what would you suggest we should be doing in preparation?
SPEAKER_02:Well, look, I'm happy to come over at any time and give you like a little bit of a health check and we can have a look at the property and and see what you can and can't do to make more money on it. Obviously, we need to get it compliant, but like if you are thinking November, December, it might be a little bit too early for that right now. So, and the market can change and things can happen. So, look, why don't I give you a call in six months and we ramp things up from there? And as we get closer to December, I'm going to start to call you every month or so, or whatever you think is reasonable. But in the meantime, what I'm gonna do is every single week, you're gonna receive an email from me. In there is gonna be some tips, some tricks, and uh sales. It's gonna have everything that you need to know about this market and what we do. I'm also gonna send you a text every every probably at least once a month, okay? And on that text is gonna be a little bit more information about me, and I'm just gonna check in with you. Now, you don't have to respond to these things, but if you need me, just respond to my text or my email and I'll come back to you straight away. But what I don't want to do is I don't want to steal your energy and time right now if you're not ready. But if you wanted to do it sooner, please do let me know. I will always have the best buyers in the marketplace because I spend all my time focusing on the best buyers. So when you're ready, let me know and we'll wrap this up.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely brilliant. Josh, are you doing a lot of off-portal sales or is it all all on portal?
SPEAKER_02:We can. Yeah, we're happy. We we'll sell whatever we have to. Obviously, I would rather the seller go to market, but if the seller says something to me like, um, listen, I'm gonna list my house with Remax and um I've got a really strong relationship with this agent. Um, it's my mother-in-law or something, and you know, I just can't beat that relationship, I'll say, well, why don't you just let me run some people through? Let's see how we go. I will always advise the seller to put the property on the market to do it correctly because I haven't got the crystal ball. I I don't know if you would have got more money or not. But if I'm gonna lose that listing, and if I don't feel like I've got full control of the listing, I'll sell it.
SPEAKER_01:Very good. How many buyers would you be managing at any given time as a team?
SPEAKER_02:Uh there's about 600 buyers in my system right now who are actively looking. Obviously, probably only about 15% of them that could probably make an offer on the right house today if it popped up.
SPEAKER_01:But you're clear on that category of who can buy today, that that is tracked?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So we've got offers, inspection, update and inform. Update and inform are our coolest buyers. These are people that need some love, but they don't need a call every every week. Uh we probably call them once every three weeks. Uh, we got the buyers that are in inspection, uh, we call them every seven days, and then we've got offers, we call them every two days.
SPEAKER_01:That was really well put. Can I just get you to step through those categories again for the listener who's just pulled over their car and say, Lee, just ask him that again. Take us through it.
SPEAKER_02:So that this again comes all back to that lead phone call. So when you're speaking to the buyer, assess where they're at on their journey. Figure out if they've made an offer on anything yet and if they can make offers today and how motivated they are to buy a house. Because when you are speaking to these people, you might put them in inspections right now, but then you ring them and you say, Hey, Lee, you made an offer on anything yet? And you might say, Well, yeah, I did. I made an offer on this property, then you need to change that stage to offers and you need to stay all over that person. Because remember, we're going to war, real estate agents. You're going to war for your sellers. So if you know all the best buyers in the marketplace and they say, Well, I'm looking at this one over here, you say, Well, yeah, it's not too bad, but you know, I think I've got a better one coming. Yeah, very good. So you you can sort of control your marketplace a little bit better because you know who all the best buyers are at any given time. And remember, they they start to trust you, these buyers, and and we actually like want to help them because they're our future sellers. So we are going to guide them, we are going to help them. And for a seller, we know what these people can spend because we're speaking to them every single week. We're logging every single call. So these people that start in update and inform, they might move to inspection, they might move to offers, they might move back to update and inform because you know what a the journey of a buyer is like. But if they purchase, they're closed. See you later. But now we create a listing opportunity on them on the property they they purchase, and they're in my community. They're gonna get the email from me once uh once a week with all the things that are happening in my world. I'm gonna tell them my story, tell them my journey, tell them the properties I'm selling. I'm also going to hit them with a mass text every three months that says, Hey, Lee, how you going? It's me again. Hope you're well, hopefully you're loving your house. I'm here if you need me. You just summon it simple. And that's again just the psychology, you know, like they drive around the area that they've just purchased in, they'll see me, they'll go on their social media, they'll see me. I'm here.
SPEAKER_01:Excellent. Uh Josh, uh the nurturing process, you've actually nailed that part of the in view. And one thing I'd like to uh flow onto is how you've structured the dwellings database of your area. And this is quite an interesting conversation. Most people in real estate chase people. Yet the dwelling of the area is one high street, is always going to be one high street. And the only thing that changes is the new owner every three, seven, fourteen years, whatever it is. But that record is a dedicated record in the database. How did you approach that for service area? Like we've got your data categories and structures really well explained today. Do you have your own tech or are you using shelf tech?
SPEAKER_02:Uh we've we've got our own tech, we built it on top of Salesforce. Um, it's called the property platform. So, but yeah, it's um it's a really high-end um system. But the the thing about um your area is the properties, they don't change too much. So, like you say, like the owners might change, but the house stays the same. So what we've done is we've gone around the whole of our region and we put um the block sizes, uh, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, pool yes, no, on all of these properties. And we encourage our agents to continually update those things as they know them. So these features stay the same. So now the owners might change, but what I can do is I can with those my community listing opportunities, and we call it mass communication. So I can grab all of the my community listing opportunities and I can dissect them. So what I can then send is a mass text that says, Hey, contact first name. I was in suburb the other day and I drove past your place at street name. How you been going? So I can do stuff like that. I can also dissect my database and say, hey, contact first name. I've got a buyer that's specifically looking for a bedroom, bathroom in suburb. I thought your place at street name would work really well. Would you like to sell? And I can pump that out to like a thousand people, like boom straight away. So again, data is in my business is the most important thing. Um I'm I'm a real big data man. I like to make sure that every single agent in my company is really focused on their data, that they're trying to manage their database perfectly. Because I know the power of this thing. Once you get a really good database, I can prospect form real, real quickly.
SPEAKER_01:Josh, it's a massive commitment you've put into your career, which has now become a platform that other people can profit from because not anyone can just do that, what you've just done, because it takes physical sweat. How long did it take to get that data, the service area database in clean? Because it's forever been cleaned, I understand that. But the initial dump of dwellings that would have been brought in from one of the data providers, but then once it's in, have you got some sort of API that's cleansing it, or is it physical manual cleanse?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, a bit of both. So yeah, that's a consistent thing that has to happen. You know, we've got um offshore people that that help us with that. Um, but we also, like I say, we're encouraging the agents. So every single time they create a listing opportunity, they're they're updating the features. So bedrooms, bathrooms can change, but owners, you know, they can change too. But if we can get this right on the properties, we're laughing.
SPEAKER_01:Let's say we've done all this completely brilliantly, as you have, and the owner says, you know what, I'm ready to go. But I must advise you, Josh, I do have four others coming in as well. So now, games on, grand final. Take us through Josh's winning sequence for winning business. What do you do?
SPEAKER_02:But most of the time you can probably win the listing before you've even got there, you know. Like, I feel like I'm just going over to sign the listing up a lot of the time. Like, I don't feel like I feel like they've already chose me, and I feel like they're deciding whether or not that I am who I say I am in this meeting, you know. And like I I train my agents, like the first phone call is so, so important. It's again that lead phone. If that person rings you and says, Josh, we're ready to sell, fantastic. You know, was there anybody that recommended me? Um, I like to, you know, reward people that um that mention my name. Let me type your phone number into the system here. Oh, okay. And then I go back through them and I tell them, we actually met four years ago. You came through this property over here. I'm I've I've made some notes here and I see that Caleb and my team spoke to you a couple of months back and um you said you weren't interested in selling then. So obviously something's changed. And I like to really slow down on this first conversation before I've even gone over to the listing presentation because I can win it right here, right now. Um, I usually like to go last at a listing presentation if they are meeting with a few people because and I ask the seller on the phone, I say, look, just promise me you won't sign with anybody. I usually like to Go last, but that is risky for me. But please just promise me right now you won't sign with anybody because I want to come over and I want you to have already met the other agents so you can understand why I'm different. Then I obviously before I've gone over to their property, I have had something land on their uh doorstep, like a nice gift. Um, I've also sent them a survey before I've gone over, and that survey has got the heaps of questions about the what they're needing from me. So I can customize my presentation based off that. Like one of the questions on that survey is what's most important to you? Is it achieving the most amount of money? Is it keeping your cost down, you know, low upfront investment? Because if I didn't know that and I dropped a$5,000 marketing package on someone that had no money, that could lose me the listing straight away. If I don't know how much um this seller wants for their property, because one of the questions is, how much would you like to sell it for? And they don't answer that question, I could lose the listing straight away by saying the wrong thing. You know, on the one of the questions on the survey says, when would you like to put your property on the market? And if they said we'd like to get on the market in the next seven days, two weeks, then I can really go hard on the close. But if it's like, if it says three to six months, I'm not gonna be trying to go in there and close as hard. I'm gonna assess them first. So again, understanding who you're sitting in front of um is very, very important. But then when I'm at the listing presentation, again, I just like to build rapport. I just like to use reverse psychology to make sure they really want to sell the home. I want to make sure they understand that I don't, I don't just, I'm not just here to sell their property. I'm here to get the most amount of money. I really care about them, I care about the marketing their property well, I care about how their buyers treated. Um, and I care about my business, you know, and I want to deal with the right people. Not everyone's gonna want to do business for me, and that's fine. But my goal here in this moment is to see if we want to work together. And it's not just about them choosing you, you have to choose them, and they've got to feel that as well.
SPEAKER_01:Josh, that was so powerful. And, you know, in our preparation for today, which you didn't really have any time to prepare for, because we told you yesterday afternoon that uh that an opening has come up in the studio today, so I really appreciate you doing the turnaround for us. But what you just explained is so in line with why we're speaking about nurturing because to turn up to these shootouts on fees and there's no facts or evidence that's not what real estate is about. That is just a shootout, and everyone you know, I use that comment. Every day we wake up in real estate, we have a choice. We can whinge or win. Uh it's this fork in the road every day. Are we whinging or winning? But when you're nurturing and that's why that question sounded a bit odd to you, I don't really go into these four people shootouts and have to spin round like a ballet dancer to see if I'm the best turner. I've already got the connection. And the connection is where the game is won. Uh but a big pickup for our listener that you do incredibly well is the detail of those notes. And you see agents with first name, surname, no notes, no nothing, because they don't think it's important. And the discipline of notes is everything to say we actually met four years ago. Oh, did we? Where was it? It was the property down at Somersville Street, and I m remember your comment about this, and they go, Oh, right, I remember that house. But you can imagine how many agents they've seen in that time frame. But the fact you can draw from history, the fact that I pinpointed something is the evidence that yeah, there's no comparison here, compared to the shootout agent who doesn't call you back.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and I just um if you even if you don't have that data on the person, you could even be googling their property as you're speaking to them. And you can say, Oh, look, yeah, I know your property, you you got the two-story. You still have the big side access, don't you? And they say, Yeah, yeah, we do. And you say, Oh, you guys, do you have a pool? And they say, Yeah, we do. You say, Oh, okay, okay, great. Yeah, no, this is really exciting. I'm really glad you called me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and having that uh interest in the person in their story. And I've got many notes from today's session here, but you beautifully work in line with one, love the one you're with. So the data you've got is you know, like chasing strangers is exhausting versus uh and that lead person who's managing leads for you is probably the key role, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Of you know, everyone's important in this team, but uh who does that? I remember Chris Hanley telling me the story. He was over in Vietnam at this big signature restaurant and they did a a guessing game where they said, okay, who's the highest paid person in the restaurant? And they said, the chefs, no. Uh the Maitre D, no. Who is it? The people who go to the markets to pick the food. They're the highest paid. Because if we don't have the right produce, we can't create the greatest meals. And the highest paid people in the restaurant are the people that go to the markets early and know what to buy to bring back to the restaurant. That lead moment is like that. Like that role description, everyone needs to have. What have you learned most about that particular role and who suits it?
SPEAKER_02:It suits someone that is all in. They have to be all in because that, like I say, the response time on leads is so, so important. We need them to be at the office, you know, and even if something comes in after hours, they're they're on to that phone, they're they're on to that email, they they have to be all in. So I I like it to be like a younger person, to be honest. I I like it to be someone that's so motivated and just eager, but they don't start in leads with me because they're not ready to handle that phone straight away. So what I do is I spend about six months with them and they and they they're just in buyers with me, you know, and they're they're focusing on buyers, and I I keep them close and I train them and I guide them and tell them what to say, what not to say, and and then I slowly start to involve them in on the lead phone and I make sure they understand how important this lead phone is to me. So you're you're not here to solve problems, you're here to get information. And this is where a lot of agents go wrong. They they get the phone call, they don't even take the details, they're rushing around, they may have taken that phone call when they were at a restaurant or wherever. They've just absolutely wasted this amazing opportunity. Like the amount of money that agents are paying just to get leads, and they're probably the leads that they're receiving have probably rang them like three weeks ago. And they're like I use this uh analogy with um Tom Panos. I was I spoke on his show a few years ago, and I like to use the restaurant analogy in our business. And um, and you know, it's like if we're a restaurant and someone walks into our restaurant and they sit down at the the table and we go over and we say, What would you like to eat? And they say, Well, we're not quite ready to choose anything off the menu yet, but yeah, give us a bit of time, and we say, No worries. And then we never go back to them. And that's what a lot of real estate agents are doing, but not at my restaurant. So, what my restaurant does is we go over and they say, What about this? Check this out. Have you seen this? Look at this, check this on the menu. And eventually they say, Listen, there's nothing on the menu that we like here. We're gonna eat across the road, but I tell you what, the experience here was unbelievable. And I'm gonna tell my friends about this restaurant, and if we ever need to eat again, I'm definitely coming back here. And the crazy part is if you don't do this, what happens is that the the restaurant might get something new on the menu. And we go, Oh, we've got this amazing new thing on the menu. Buyers come in and check out this amazing new thing, and they're like, nah, your restaurant sucks.
SPEAKER_01:I don't want to deal with you. What a great analogy. And you just triggered something in my brain. I just got back from Amsterdam. I was over at the International Broadcasting Conference, and I went into this restaurant that was probably 150 seat restaurant to grab something at eat at night, and the lady came out with this lamp and she said, just turn the lamp upside down, it turns red, and we'll know to come and help you. And you look around and there was not many reds because they were on top of it. And then you want to order another drink or something, you flip it over, it goes red, and they were there. And you think, out of all the places I've been in the world, how simple of a notification system versus you're trying to get someone's attention and they just scan the room and they can see the reds and they're out there. A red alert that the customer needs help. And Josh, absolutely uh brilliant to see your structure, your sequences, and that it's working. Everybody else is trying to tick tock to the top, look for that shortcut. And if you're gonna take a shortcut, uh, in the famous words of Tristan Rowland, you might hit a tree if you're looking for a shortcut, so be careful of that. But Josh, thank you for joining us. My final question is this what are you passionate about for the future? You've achieved so much, you've structured yourself, a company, a platform, others. What's on your project list for the future that keeps you inspired in what you do?
SPEAKER_02:I'm doing this for my friends, my family, the people around me, you know, like it's very, very rewarding um having someone start in this business and you just see them blossom and become um very successful, not just in uh real estate, but in life. And, you know, everything for me is about community. It's about being around people that I want to be around every day. And I've got so many of them here in my company, and hopefully a lot more of them to join us and to come. And every day we just we just go after it, you know. If we're here, we go hard, we train hard, we work hard, we play hard, you know, and we just surround ourselves with good people and we're just having a crack, you know. Like we're not um we're not perfect, but every day we just try to get better and we try to make our business better. Um, and whatever this business needs, we're just gonna keep doing it, you know. So yeah, we're just taking every day as it comes, Lee. And um, I'm enjoying the journey. And I still feel like I've been doing this for 21 years and we have achieved a lot, but it it I still feel like we've got so much further to go. I just feel like we're we're scratching the surface right now.
SPEAKER_01:And Josh, you actually uh we were chatting off air before coming on, and you listened to the top 100 business stories and life lessons of Mr. Charles Darby. You know Charles, obviously you're at Century 21 um before what you did now. What effect did he have on your career?
SPEAKER_02:Well, Randall Curry was my um coach uh growing up, and he and Charles had a very good relationship. So recently, over the coming years, I have uh spent a bit more time with Charles just because um I look at his business and I see what he's created, and I think um, you know, what a great mentor, what a great person to be around. So I've been reaching out to Charles a lot more over the last few years. And we went to dinner recently, and I played golf with him and he's um on his amazing golf course over there in the mountains, and he's a really, really good character. What I love about Charles is um he's so funny. Like he's just like when you're with him, you're just like, this guy is hilarious, but he understands business. And what I really liked about the top 100 stories there with Charles is you know, like when you listen to a lot of these podcast shows, that's everyone just talking about like marketing or they're talking about, you know, all these, all the same olds, same olds. Whereas that wasn't, that was talking about, you know, how to increase the bottom line and how to track your numbers and you know, a lot more business-y stuff, you know, which I think this real estate world needs a lot of help with. I think everyone is so caught up with the big number at the top, like I need to make X amount, but then the what do they take home? Where's all their money going? You know, so I thought for any other like principals or office owners or just people that are wanting to uh improve their business, you know, those home those stories with Charles are perfect.
SPEAKER_01:Great feedback and uh thank you for joining us on the podcast We Are Selling. I'm sure we'll hear from you in the future. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, sir.