We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

Christmas Lay-Bys Cleared, Reputations Shifted with Tristan Rowland

• Lee Woodward • Season 1 • Episode 196

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We share how paying off every toy store lay-by before Christmas reshaped local trust, then pull back the curtain on transparency, pricing evidence, and why negotiation should feel human, not hostile. The launch of Bright Estate Agencies shows how an independent model can support agents while serving the community.

• the lay-by initiative and its impact on families
• cost-of-living pressures shaping buyer and seller sentiment
• community-first marketing that creates trust and reach
• awards, sales volume and credibility as proof points
• the decision to go independent and rebrand to Bright
• honest negotiation versus lazy compromise
• transparency on price guides and comparable sales
• brand perception versus real on-ground service
• team culture, area exclusivity and agent support
• lead generation systems and operational efficiency
• upcoming community programs and local partnerships




Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. If you were following my social medias last week, you would notice I did a post or shared a post saying this is incredible. And what it was is one of the greatest agents in the country had decided to go into their local toy store and pay off the entire lay-by for all the kids waiting for their Christmas presents. And I thought it was absolutely amazing community spirit. And in the world of real estate agents that don't always rank well, it was one of those great moments of our industry. Will he joins me today from Bright Estate Agencies, Mr. Tristan Rowland? Tristan, welcome aboard. Thank you, Lee. Thanks for having me. Thank you for what you did on Saturday. Just take our listener through it, what it meant to you. And just for our listener who knows your name, you've now launched your own independent brand, Bright Estate Agencies. We'll be talking about that as well. But take us into the lay-by.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's something that both myself and Samantha have wanted to do for a long time. And we we've nearly come close to doing a couple of times, to be honest. Ironically, there's probably two parts to it. One, the local toy store we are. There was actually an older gentleman who used to pay it off anonymously every year. And he could have beat us to the punch last year, which is a good problem to have. But anyway, with us going independent, you know, what we said, look, we're not doing it for the extra, you know, 8% to spend it on a new yacht fund or whatever. We want to be able to A, give back to the community, which is a really big part of what we already do and have more things to do there. And, you know, get back to clients. We took clients in Metallica and Corporate Suite the other day and obviously reinvested the marketing for our guys as well. Uh, but we um went down there and we said, Hey, we want to know what the account is for uh the belei by, I want to pay out the entire thing. And I just got a call from the um the head office from Toy World, funnily enough. And he said, Oh mate, we can't be more thankful that you're doing this. And I said, Well, you know, that's a no-brainer. And he said, no, the actual guy who's been paying it off for the last few years, he actually passed away earlier this year. He was an old guy. And we were like, Oh, well, you know, there's that, you know, guardian angel that comes in. We're very lucky to have that locally, but you know, what's the chance of someone else stepping up? And, you know, lo and behold, here you guys are. Uh, to which my response was, mate, can you say, What's the chance of the Broncos going back to back? And we laughed at that. But, you know, for for us, being able to contribute to that is huge. Uh so many other outcome from money. You know, I was only saying to Mark McGill, you know, it took me a year as a kid to pay off a tour. It was a transformer. Oh, we still got it. My son's got it now. It was$32. And I had nothing. I scrimped and saved every 50 cent piece I get here and a dollar there, and it took me 12 months to pay that off off the way by. Sounds pretty stupid now when you're doing decent numbers and fees. But it was a race against the clock. I had to get that$32 paid off in 12 months because that was how long they'd hold it for. Thinking about those kids at Christmas time who may or may not get a present, you know, if mum and dad can't make that sort of, you know, due date of it. Well, yeah, it's pretty pretty good gift. We've got a good income in this job to be able to just wipe that out in one sole swoop. And some of the phone calls we've had have been just mind-blowing, very sad and mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_00:

Take us into some of those phone calls as the community respond to this at a very difficult time with the cost of living out there.

SPEAKER_01:

I I always joke, people always thought we're a bunch of wankers, and cause but social media just alleviated any doubt for a lot of people. You know, at the same time, you can use that in the reverse. We start with a handicap from the outset where people just think we're all ego and whatnot. And yeah, in the world of really this cost of living is crazy at the moment. Even if you're on a decent income, it's really nuts. To be remiss of that, and you know, there's a lot of boom, we sold this for that and great prices. But I look on some social media posts, and whilst there's sellers going, you be, there's other people going, fantastic. Thank you for making housing more unaffordable, like we control the supply and the government policy, but people blame us for it, right? So we've got to spend a bit more time combating that negative image. And so, you know, cost of living is a really big thing, and we really wanted to make sure that people know we're trying to do at least something to help with that. Uh, some of the phone calls we've had have been mind-blowing, and we didn't ask for that, but obviously they ask at the toy shop who is this loon kick that did this or lunatics, myself phone, Samantha. One lady particularly, you know, it was very um exciting, sad, and frustrating all in one's phone call. She said, you know, I promised my kids, you know, that Sandra would deliver uh for those who kids in the cars into podcast. And I didn't want to break their heart when, you know, that may not happen because she said, I put this lay by on. She says, you know, it's a swing set and about$650 outstanding work. And then only it was last week, her boss sent the company insolvent, but also took everybody the last three weeks pay for everybody on the way out the door. And she said, now I was having to make a choice between groceries or the kids not missing out on Christmas Day. And you doing that means that I don't have to make that call anymore. If you haven't come from a life of hardship, you'll never appreciate those are the decisions you need to make. You know, I was only saying to one of the younger guys in my office this morning, I she had a lady a tank of fuel last year at the 7-Eleven at the road, it was like 20, 30 bucks. She was in tears. And I said, You're right. I work at the Port of Brisbane. My dad lives past Morrowfield. I was having to choose between going to work this week and seeing him on Christmas Day. I can't afford to fuel my car twice. That is the margin for some people. So, yeah, little things can make a gigantic difference and it goes a long way. It really, really does.

SPEAKER_00:

And the video clip was so well done because it was the way you shot to camera like that, and yes, the brands just changed, but it was done with a natural response to it. And hence I shared it, and I've had lots of people ring up about it and thought we have to cover it this week on the program.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And things like that are community-based marketing. You look at what people invest money into over a year, bear bus stops or whatever they do, and then something like that has impact. I think in the world of marketing, actually, tomorrow night I've got to do a talk for local business owners on how to market a small business. And I won't be speaking as legal to the real estate trainer, speaking as a small business owner of how we market the business. Because marketing's way too important to be left to the marketing department. And many people are investing money in all different things, but there's no return or impact. And I think what you did there is a great example. And I'm going to show that clip tomorrow night, Tristan, just so all the business owners can go, wow, that's what someone's doing in real estate. And I think it's an absolute credit to yourself, Samantha, and the team. But let's talk about yourself, Samantha and the team. Firstly, for those that don't know you, you've just taken out the award for Queensland. What was the award?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh RIQ salesperson of the year for a second time. Yes, which is um, I'm still shaking my head at that. I still don't believe it, to be honest. But yeah, that never happened before. Two in a row.

SPEAKER_00:

Two in a row. And how many transactions did you achieve for the year? In that year, I think it was 92. Top minute. 92 sales. And when you look at the fees available in the marketplace, 92 is a lot of deals. Take us into this rebrand of the business. You've left the franchising world, you've now got independent. What was the thinking behind it? And the branding looks stunning. Oh, thanks for mm-hmm. Take us into bright estate agents.

SPEAKER_01:

It's funny, like, we didn't we couldn't show anybody the branding. And I I had this honestly in my head more than six years ago, this visualization of it when we left our previous franchise after that. Um, but it was just a bit that time, it was a bit probably uh we're in rushed to do it. And at the same time, I think what really clinched it for me was when we went with our previous you know group, and they're very heavily based in New South Wales. You know, my my biggest concern was are we going to, you know, get that support in Queensland? Obviously, you know, New South Wales is a big focus. No one knows them up here. We are going to be the brand. And a lot of people actually messaged me and said, Oh, I thought that was you guys. I thought that was your brand because we sort of brought it out of you know obscurity to the forefront very quickly. When everyone thought it was our own brand and we were independent anyway. I had to really learn to fight focus just what we were doing, not so much the um the franchise all's message and this is what we do as well, okay. We regardless of that, here's what we're doing on the ground. And it really said to me, you know what? If you went independent tomorrow, you'd be just fine. You don't need a franchise group behind you. Everything you do is at a very high level. Even the last year that we were in that group, my team was number one. Again, we did double the GCI of the number two agent. And and that's not the here at City and Skype. It's just we're just playing at a level, different level and a different, I guess, pace, but also the delivery is there. So we went, all right, well, let's go down this path. It was it's very different branding. We wanted to be fun and, you know, I guess really against the mould of the stuffiness of of most of the industry, not as rigid and talk at a human level. And that's one comment we get from people all the time is wow, you guys are so different to most agents. And I always joke, I take that as a great compliment. Things like a buyers come through and you can't give a price guide. In Queensland, you legally can give a price guide. It's actually in our agency agreements, you can give comparable sales, etc. Agents, I think it is either very difficult for the sake of being difficult, or they walked in, bought the listing, and then they're just sort of, you know, hiding behind, hoping to get a few low offers to straighten up your own as the campaign goes on. It doesn't have to be a difficult process. It truly doesn't have to bought a house in the last 12 months, it gave me a reminder of how insanely difficult it can be if the person in the middle wants to make it that way. Do you know Chris Boss, the FBI negotiator? I do. So I got to meet Chris here's a guy. And I heard the funniest analogy I've ever heard in my life from him was to say if you were, you know, half a million bucks an hour doing big Forbes 100 company negotiations, you make a lot of money as an agent. And he said, Oh, you always laugh at you know the whole agent negotiation because you know they're not actually negotiators, they're compromises. You know, imagine if I went up to the hostage negotiation, right? Right, you got 10 hostages, how's this sound? You kill five, I keep five. Boom, hashtag real estate, right? And he said, That's not a negotiation, that's a compromise, right? And he said, you know, you guys are gonna easy deal. He said, If I ran up the, you know, like I said, it's a terrorist and hey, here's the deal. Instead of going and kill those hostages, you're gonna get to go and have a really nice house at the Hamptons, you'd be like, oh yeah, buggers, gee, they're better off and going and going to the Hamptons. He goes, I've got to convince them that a two-meter-wide jail cell at Guantanamo Bay for the next 20 years is a good idea, right? He goes, You've got it's an easy transaction, they've got money, it's nice, you've got house that's nice, trade, that's it, the end. But it gets so overcomplicated in the middle. And yes, there's a lot more points to it, and there's it's it is somewhat an oversimplification. But I think as an industry we make things so much more abrasive. People kind of arrive at uh on the um back foot at your open homes, your inspections, but even just today, it's funny. I found that that video has gone nuts. I am amazed how many views it's had across multiple different platforms and pages and whatnot. But even just talking to people today, just the difference in energy from buyers and sellers has been really interesting. Really interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, real estate can be seen as very one-dimensional. That as an industry we lack depth, even with this underquoting war going on across our industry at the moment, and how that's being handled and what people think should be done. It brings about the challenge in itself of transparency and how humans who have to live in a home get communicated with. And there is many people who contact agent, you can't find out the details. Whereas in some states now, in the buyer booklets, we're putting six surrounding sales evidence. So for those people that live out of area and they come in area, you don't know if it's one million, two million, or three million. And Tristan, I'll give an example. I've been running this little video clip of a property at the complete salesperson course, and I say, Oh, you guys are all professional people, and it's in New South Wales, and I was in New South Wales when I was doing it. Let's watch this video clip and you tell me what it's gonna be. So they all watch it and I go, okay, what do we think? Five million, six million, two million. I go, yeah, it's guiding 900. And you are 100 professional real estate people. Your challenge, you imagine being a consumer who where is it? Like where a property sits in this country has a significant difference to the value that the comprises of the square metrics. You know, there'll come a day where properties will need to go to the market with a for building and purchase report, a bank valuation, and the agent estimate and the agents agreement on display, because the owner can sell it for what they like, but that opening up to the nothing real can be threatened would be a wonderful part of our industry. What's your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, massively, and and transparency is one of our core values here, right? And it's funny how many people go to me, man, you're like really weirdly honest and transparent, and that's how that is. One of the very few, and hold out of my mother if you ever listen to this, very few upsides of having two prosecutors for parents leave. When your whole childhood is a cross-examination and you grow up with a sniffer dog in the house, yeah, there's no lying in there. Uh and it's actually funny. I was I was talking to one of the REIQ judges after the awards. Because everyone's like, oh, you know, you're winning these awards because you're a great negotiator, or you're a great, you know, you're doing heaps of volume. It has nothing to do with that. Yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm good at what I do, but I'm looking at how we can do things so differently. And one of the core values, what I understand that made a difference is here in winning, was I have a policy of my own's, and this, I've got to say, knocks a lot of agents over at the listing table. The conversation I'm having with you now about price is the exact conversation I'm gonna be having with the buyer with price. And you can chic or shop me. I encourage you to do that. For me, I'll happily video call you into the opener. And I've owners owners go, What? You can see the conversations in real time. I couldn't care less. It's say it saves me a lot quicker callback after the open eye and you're like, Phil, I was there, right? As a Wainswell quote for you young ones. But the point was that I don't mind because everything I'm saying in front of you, I could say with you both in the same room. And there's a lot of two versions of things going on. And I firmly believe a lot of agents never get past four or five listings because they can't spin 15 webs simultaneously. You can't hurt the truth, as he said. I just say, guys, look, this event for this and that went for that, and it's going to be at least this. And they go, Oh. That makes so much sense, Tristan. But having the transparency in the conversation, but it's all based on evidence, right? All based on evidence. And if we start getting to that level of transparency, if the idea of having that kind of rails put around you and open and scares you, it's probably time to find a new gig. You're probably not doing everything right. You know, if I I know I know secret shopping you scares you, and I get a lot of listings from other agents where the owner secret shopped them and they got caught doing the wrong thing. Then again, you wonder why people don't like our industry, both as buyers and sellers. And I'll go say the one thing I noticed going independent, even for prior to that, the amount of people that would oh, you guys, by that being a franchiser group, you don't give price guys, or you auction everything, or you like I don't have that because we're totally different to everybody else. You know, like you do have that predisposed. This is how your brand runs it. And even within, and I've got friends who work for all different brands, and they couldn't be any more polar opposite if they tried, but because they're on the other side of Brisbane. Like I said to one of my vendors who were rebranded, said, Oh, do you think it's gonna have any negative sort of impact? I said, mate, they could do 58 million, they could do five bucks. You wouldn't know because it doesn't make any direct impact on you, right? And like there's some great agents down southern stone, but what are you doing at the coal face? Did you turn up on Saturday? Are you handling all those inquiries of the best degree? That's all that matters at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00:

Tristan, take us into, and this is my final question for you of this important interview. What is the direction of bright estate agents? What's the theme to the market? Because it's very bright. Yeah. And you've just repainted the building, very bright. You cannot miss it. What's that marketing theme behind it?

SPEAKER_01:

There's a lot to happen. We haven't sort of really hard-rolled everything out yet. You know, we do a little bit of sophomore because everything happening as we are now, and then we're going to go really hard over the next couple of weeks. We are a very different, I guess, sort of model. We don't really have any intention of going franchising. I don't care if it's just one office or whether it's six long-term. If anybody comes onto us and wants to do, you know, partnership in an office, we'd love to do that. But pulling those resources, particularly, is a big thing. We want to support people around us, you know. But I always joke, people said, Well, why has John been with you for a decade? So do the absolute opposite of every principal I ever worked for. I don't steal from him. John went to England that started here and came back and I'd signed a couple of listings up for him in his area. And he said, You're the only principal I know who would not steal from my area and would actually just go and sign up and go, they're on your desk, I've already got the photos done, just have at it. Right. I didn't even bother him with it while there's a way. But uh, John sold my house for me. It's an easy pitch. So it's about community, transparency, uh, media see something you're big on, making it as efficient as possible for my team and my staff to do things quickly. It's obviously a you know, a well-serviced client is a happy client. And then really, uh, exclusivity is a big part of that. If you've got an area, it's your area. You know, no one's gonna compete with you in there. Yeah, let's wherever you like. But if you're gonna be putting the money into building that profile, not having people internally within your brain sort of kneecap you. And that's worked so well for myself and John and Nick's just joined us as well. You know, people don't ring up the office line they used to, they don't ring up the head office group anymore. They they they're going directly to socials or to web and the profile of that agent, you know, as a business, I think it's more about support they provide. You look at what Dave Bray's doing. I mean, he what you're providing for your people at the back end. That I think ultimately is going to be the role of the franchise or or the you know the business owner. How can you keep them happy? How can you keep them sane? Really, you know, you keep them busy. Our lead gen program's amazing. You wait to see what happens to our numbers the next three or four months. Just having that level where, as a salesperson, you can come up, do your job every day, go home and slam the door and know no one's undermining you. You can't move forward if you're always looking over your shoulder. That's one thing I've always said to people. So there's a lot going on, mate, and the community stuff will pay back in kind, and we've got so many things planned over the next eight weeks already. But just make people want to realize that whatever you give to us, it'll come back tenfold to the community. That's really important.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Tristan Rowland, great interview. Your third uh for this year. You've done some wonderful work on air for us. Want to thank you, and could not at all. Congratulations, and we look forward to a big 2026.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much, mate. Appreciate it. Happy Christmas to everybody.