We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

You Can’t Spend A Standing Ovation with Charles Tarbey

• Lee Woodward • Season 1 • Episode 198

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We challenge revenue worship and reframe success around net profit, sustainability, and personal fit. Charles Tarbey shares hard-won lessons on margins, scale, and why the quiet operators often win.

• profit vs prophet and why hype misleads
• numbers that matter and monthly reviews
• small vs mid vs large business trade-offs
• turnover, splits, and shrinking margins
• learning from different thinkers, not clones
• converting conference notes into action
• leadership duty of care and timing change
• building resilient models over ego metrics

Listen to the full Top 100 Business Stories and Life Lessons of Charles Tarbey.




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SPEAKER_01:

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. Separate to this programme, podcast, We Are Selling, over the last 12 months, I was also producing and appearing on the Top 100 Business Stories and Life Lessons of Mr. Charles Tarvey. Charles Tarve is the owner of Century 21 Better Homes and Gardens Australasia. And now Dubai and India. During the management series of the Top 100 Business Stories, Charles did one episode about profit or profit. And I think this is a really good example for everyone in this industry who battles with how does someone do all that and I can't do this and that company's doing this. Be very careful. There is a lot of noise in our industry. And today I want to feature that particular episode. And in our show notes is the link to the full podcast series. And the top 100 business stories and life lessons of Charles Tarby is a brilliant management and leadership program. But for me, I just loved his personal stories of life that have allowed this individual to achieve incredible results and build an incredible family and business family that he has today. So let's cross to my interview with Mr. Charles Tarby. As we approach our 100 stories, and this has been an absolutely incredible podcast to be part of, not only to present and coach and train and give leadership to this wonderful industry that we serve, but also to be on this side of the microphones learning so much from the man himself, Mr. Charles Tarby. Mr. Charles Tarby, welcome back.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Lee. And uh it's uh as you can probably hear from my voice, uh having done so many podcasts with you. It's almost gone, mate. It's almost gone. It still sounds strong to me. Let's hurry up and finish these, please.

SPEAKER_01:

Each week is so important. Take us into today's topic. What is our title? Profit or profit? Oh, can you just spell that or give us some context?

SPEAKER_00:

Now P R O F I T or P R O P H E T.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, what got you up very early in the morning one day to it's about 3 a.m., 4 a.m. you write these things out. What got you going on this one?

SPEAKER_00:

This was um I was invited to sit on a panel at a seminar, and I was very grateful for it and the organization. It was a conference. It wasn't a seminar. Yes, there were um many, many speakers. And at the end of the day, I took a lot of notes. It just caused me to want to sit down and write this podcast again because I we talk about it so much in our industry, we talk about turnover, and having recently attended the conference, I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of high-profile real estate agents who, from all accounts, based on how they were introduced, which is another thing, how somebody's introduced before they're doing a presentation, sets the stage for either a good presentation or a bad presentation, but from all accounts, uh how they were introduced and the content of the presentation, which suggests that they were doing exceptionally well. And the one point that that kept coming through, this this was a profit seminar, it was a seminar about profit. The one point that kept coming through for me was the strong emphasis on how much they were all turning over. And and these numbers were were well, they were real received by the you know, the o's and r's and and and that that you'd expect when hearing some of the staggering figures these companies and individuals were turning over.

SPEAKER_01:

You're a man of numbers, and I haven't met anyone like you that can rip into a spreadsheet and find the missing cell that everyone missed where the profit was meant to be and the cell was wrong. Someone should write that book. The cell was wrong. The cell was wrong. You could write that about a lot of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And when you listen to those numbers. Sorry, including the one I could have been in when I was a young guy. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

When you listen to those numbers, what's your expectation of returns and profits? Because everyone can talk about the turnover, but is there any leftover becomes an issue?

SPEAKER_00:

I have seen and been part of and worked with so many businesses over the years. And I I remember back in the uh early 90s I launched my first book called Profit Driven Real Estate. And I did a lot of research on it, and I found people that were turning over one-tenth of some companies were making more money. And that the turnover aspect of it was great and wonderful for the ego and wonderful for the accolades and the awards one receives and the standing ovations. But boy, oh boy, did I see some people getting into financial trouble, even though they might have been number one in an organization. And so for me, the numbers became a very, very important part of it. And in our industry, there are only two numbers that matter. And rather than talk about them, if people listen to previous podcasts, there's a very strong section on it. So without going into numbers and boring people, it's an important part of the process to understand and not just how those numbers are, but to understand them regularly. A lot of people, as we've talked about before, set objectives for the year in advance, and then float along and wonder in six months' time why they're they're falling into a hole. Because they didn't reassess their position with each of those objectives at the end of each month and make an adjustment up or down or sideways that would keep them on track. And so, you know, numbers are a very, very important part of understanding a business, putting yourself in a position to grow that business. Now, Charles, give some light to this part of the topic. Yeah, look, uh loads of stories were told, and this is what reminded me of this um around how much commission was being earned. And and again, when you heard the stories of individuals turning over millions in gross earnings, you couldn't help but be impressed. However, for for me, and as we all know in business, uh uh it was mentioned several times in different ways. High turnover, and it was said so many times, high turnover does not necessarily equate to high profits, right? You you said it before. What's the statement you said before? No one thing happens in isolation. No, God, Jesus Christ, I I dream about that statement. It just pops up in my head all the time. You talked about profitability. But anyway, somebody can rewind and listen to it. Still, you know, even though the main topic was profit, profit, I P R O F-I-T, I couldn't help but feel that the focus remained on profits, P-R-O-P-H-E-T-S, turnover. And that from my experience in real estate, there are more people doing it tough than the few who are telling the stories around high turnover. I I think that many in our industry have confused the word profit, P R O P H E T with P-R-O-F-I-T. And that there are many that make a lot of money but have very little to show at the end of the day. The other day I was speaking to a young chap who said he doesn't want to work with this company anymore. He wants to start his own business. And I said, What is it about? That he said, Oh, they're not aligned with my thinking. I said, okay, give it to me in in in one line. What do you mean? He said, they often follow the profit, P R O F I T, rather than the process. I said, wow, okay. Because that's really what it's about. And so far too often uh our attention is is on P R O P H E T S. That's what it's like for me. And I think we need to change that very, very quickly. Otherwise, a lot of people will follow a lot of the top-end performers only to find that that's not in their psyche, that's not in their makeup, that's not something they want to do. And often they'll destroy their lives trying to duplicate what somebody else is doing when it's really they're not in the same position as that person. So you've got to think about from where you're starting and who you want to be, rather than try to be somebody else in your life.

SPEAKER_01:

This is very important because people try and duplicate or copy something. And unfortunately, in real estate sales, someone will say, Oh, that person wrote five million fees. I say, You didn't mention the other five of them. There's six in that unit. That worked in the same unit, yeah. You're mentioning one name. So you can't do that unless you are doing it in the same way. And do you want that? And this is where everyone's got to pick their right way. But Charles, question for you in your incredible journey of business acquisition, helping business owners, running the franchise, you would see that situation where you've got your small, tight, little, beautiful little business that may not be winning the awards, but that if there was award on profit, they'd win it. And then you've got the middle, which is the middle-size business, which seems to be where the pain is, and then you've got these big businesses, 150 salespeople in in one unit, and there can be a difference at the top end of town when it's big, big, but there's different things to it. How does someone decide am I small, medium, or large? Do you want a cheeseburger, the quarter pounder, or the Big Mac?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I I could tell you something though, Lee. One of the most profitable offices I've seen still operating today uh and still very profitable, that have been with my organization for over thirty years plus don't go to awards. The principal never goes to any awards. Not not because he's not courteous, he's a a beautiful man, but he's not interested in awards. He's interested in how his business is going. And he is, to this day, one of the most profitable businesses I've ever seen. You'd never know about him. Quietly moves through uh whatever he does in his suburb, he's well respected. But nobody would really know that this guy makes a significant amount of money with a average turnover business.

SPEAKER_01:

Love it. What should be the returns on these businesses, Charles? Example, let's say someone's written twenty million as a company, and that's a a big outfit. How much would be left over in profit?

SPEAKER_00:

Not much nowadays because a lot of it's been given away to uh salespeople who are demanding more and more. And and so the the bigger your business gets, often the margins are smaller. You might make 15%, which could be a significant amount. You might make only 10%, which could still be very good, but you're putting a lot at risk just to make that 10%. And this is the problem we have in our industry today. Um quite often businesses are run by the staff for the staff, uh, for the benefit of staff. And so a lot of people don't want to go into business. Hence, there's a whole bunch of models that have come out out of the woodwork now where people can list and sell and earn high commissions and not have to have outlay a single overhead. So I think the percentage just is not the issue. I think uh at the end of the day, uh running a sustainable business for a significant period of time that generates good returns is probably where people should be focused. At this seminar, Lee, I I'm going to use this statement uh uh in the next story or the one uh after, but um, somewhere in this you'll hear this story in the next this line in the next few stories. And this line was um blurted out by one of the speakers, and it says, break away from the gravity of small thinkers. All right. Now I wrote that down, I wrote it down, and it was a phrase used by a speaker who I highly respect. Um and and I believe you can learn a great deal, but for me, I believe you can learn a great deal from small thinkers. But I wrote that point down. Uh I thought, so I thought, yeah, oh yeah, I want to break away from small thinkers. Uh but whatever you feel your cause or your mission in life is, uh, and you don't get caught up with others' beliefs, uh, maybe you can do a lot better. Uh so I think that's the point he was trying to make. But I took it on board, I wrote it down like everybody else did. But I want to talk a bit more about that because I believe it's okay to hang with negative people so long as you stay true to yourself. I I believe it's okay because everybody has a starting point in life. So if you break trying to break away from small thinkers, often those small thinkers are people with big ideas. How do you benefit from that? I'll talk about it a bit more because I I I've seen so many very successful people fall to the wayside. Now, this is successful people that have lost their businesses because they actually hung around with like-minded people. Right? So when you say um remove the gravity, or or if you if you say break away from the gravity of small thinkers, I'm just not sure that's correct because these people who are highly successful, and I've watched it with people around me that fell away, they often feel inadequate and question themselves and their abilities when they see somebody in their crowd jump to the next level of of whatever they call success, and they're left behind. And they're we're hanging out with big thinkers, they're hanging out with like-minded people, but they fell over because of that, not because of small thinkers, because of big thinkers, they lost their businesses. So, you know, I I'm really not sure that that we we really understand a lot of these statements. We hear these statements, and we think, oh, that's fantastic, like I did when I first heard it. But when I delved into it a bit more, I started to think it was terribly wrong to say something like that. So nonetheless, um, this this seminar is about profit, and I get the point, but if you take that point the wrong way, you could miss out on a substantial amount of opportunity of dealing with people who are not yet big thinkers, but they've got a big thinkers mentality, but you'll never know that because you to you they look like small thinkers.

SPEAKER_01:

Charles, I love this topic, and when you presented it to me, it made me delve deep into my own thinking, and I've learned more from different thinkers. Yeah. And different thinkers, I'll give you an example. He's listening to this podcast right now, Sam the Coffee Man from down in Melbourne. Uh, Sam and I get to hang out a couple of times a year as he lives next door to a property owned by a friend of mine. And when I'm visiting, I get to sit down and have a chat with Sam the coffee man. But Sam can share a story or explain profit in a different way. But I love speaking to people from different industries.

SPEAKER_00:

You're absolutely right. And and often you treat people differently. I remember pulling up at the car park yesterday at Channel 9, uh, a lovely young chappy there. Oh, hello, Mr. Tarby, in broken English, and I handed him my keys and he moved my car for me and and all that. But you know, you chat, what you know, how long have you been here for? Are you just starting your shift? Are you leaving your shift? You know, all those things, they're lovely questions to ask people. As I'm driving out, there's a guy sweeping some stuff into the bin. And I've got, good morning, how are you? I'll put my window down. All of these people have a start somewhere. We all have a start somewhere. And who was it I was saying to that talking to the other day, and he and he said to me, Oh, yes, and it's actually a guy who worked at McDonald's. He said that the young guy I trained, the young guy I trained at McDonald's is now one of the most senior people in the company. So when I needed some advice, I was able to go and talk to him. How powerful. How powerful is that? Small thinkers for me, and negative people, they can bring you down to earth. Not bring you down, bring you down to earth. They question you, they challenge you, they challenge your thinking, even challenge you to do better. So why would you avoid them, especially if your conviction for yourself to do better shields you? Why? Small thinkers, along with negative people, in my view, can actually make you feel better about yourself also. You could choose to compare position and assets if you want to. So why? Why remove yourself from the gravity of small thinkers? I say hang out with them because you'll learn so much more.

SPEAKER_01:

Charles, isn't it amazing? You had a completely different experience, and people can be influenced by someone or something, or it could be an audio, a book, whatever it is. But you've also got to know how to stand your ground to be your own thinking, which is what you did in that very moment.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I've said to my children, I've I've talked about it before, show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are. And uh that to some degree obviously is right, because some people, if my children are not ready and they're not capable of of um being themselves, being their own person, they could easily be influenced to do the wrong thing. But if you yourself know who you are and know what you want to be, uh then I think a lot of these people can help you. Uh there are so many quotes out there, uh, and I'm gonna talk about a few more of those soon, but we've all chosen to live by. And in the past, in some of the stories you and I have done, uh, we've talked about those, but I'm gonna do my final podcast with you, Lee, on some of my stories, and again I've I've talked about that, but I've challenged these stories. And once again, I want I want to challenge another one because I I live by this one. I used to like this particular one, and and most people have heard it. And it goes like this if it's hard to soar with the eagles, and in brackets for me, and shit on everyone from a great height when you're surrounded by turkeys. Remember that song? Yes. Hard to soar with eagles when you're surrounded by turkeys. And I used to live by this quote. Uh, and uh however, the way I saw many financial successful people behave as if they were better than others, the more I realized that hanging out with the turkeys would actually be much more fun. And at least with them, profit, P-R-O-F-I-T or P-R-O-P-H-E-T, didn't matter. It didn't matter. So I I think there's something in it, uh, and I think you've got to start realizing that some of the sayings that we've had sitting around over the years about motivation, and that you sit there and you write them down, you get really excited. A lot of people really need to look at the underbelly of those statements.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and form their own view for their their own life. And no matter who you're listening to, whatever point you are, and I'm in that position where I I see many speakers. You know, I'm at lots of conferences and in all different parts of the world. And it's really interesting of why is that the message, or what what can the audience do with that? And you've got to be very careful that you are aligned to what you want before you look at that connection to a speaker.

SPEAKER_00:

Very much so. Um a long time ago I wrote uh down some words that just came into my head and and uh somewhere else in the book, I'm sure. We are all in a different place at exactly the same time. Okay, so how we interpret a message uh may be completely different than what the the concept of the message being delivered is, and I I think we need to look at that. And as I looked around the conference room that day, I saw people writing down small gems that came from different speakers' mouths, j just as I was also writing them down. But I can't help think and wonder whether they may ever be looked at ever again, or if they are, and the person was not ready for the change or in a position to execute change, those gems could be damaging.

SPEAKER_01:

Charles, writing it down connects it to your brain. And in your world, that might make your diary for that notes that day. And being a record keeper as you are, it will live on. For most people, they don't live on. The the act of writing it down and then, okay, back onto life as normal becomes the challenge. For myself, I I just come back from a conference in New York, and every day I wrote down my notes, things that connected me for whatever reason. And quite often from the female speakers, I was getting most of my gems there of things I really loved. But then at the end of the day, I go to my hotel room, put all the little post-it notes on the wall, and just do one audio voice note of my and I'm looking for my tone, my tempo, and so forth. But I can just click on that audio note now, I can tell you it goes for 23 minutes, and it's the whole four days. And some of those things were what people said to me in the audience. Uh, I had a CEO come up from a very large organization, said they've been enjoying your podcast. I said, Well, there you go. What are you enjoying about it? And it was the transparency and genuineness of the program, which is very different to what usually happens in speaking. I'm not selling anything, Lee.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the intention is clear. You know, um and uh it's great that you're in that position. Most people aren't in a position that you're in where you can actually record and document because you've set yourself up in an incredible way that you can do that. And uh that that's an incredible form of being able to put down everything that goes on in your life. I mean, your your diaries, your stories in the future are going to be incredible. They're going to be detailed because you've taken more time to do that. Uh, unfortunately, a lot of people don't do that. So I think from that perspective, what you've just done or just told me, I didn't know you do that, is incredible. But you know, Lee, as we've spoken about before in other stories, other podcasts, uh speakers such as yourself, we all need to be very careful with what we say because unconsciously, as I heard that day, we could motivate someone to get started on a project that they're in fact not ready for. And I've been guilty of it myself in the past by pushing people to do more. You know how you can do more with your life, you change your thinking, or et cetera. I thought I was helping these people without really knowing that their current financial position might have been A, their emotional position might have been B. And what I said to them could have been dangerous. And it's something we talked about uh or we talk about in the podcasts, uh, other podcasts, and and one that's titled, you know, uh talking about how we influence others, you know. So I think at that day, um, when I looked around and I've been to so many talks, I thought that, you know, we we are in a world now where people really need to be careful what they say, and people who are listening need to be careful what they take on board, and they need to be careful how it's interpreted, because a saying might say what one thing, and then when it's read out again, it might mean something completely different. So, from my perspective, trying to motivate people with good intention, however good the intention might have been, you could have destroyed them in the process. And I always believed that you can get what you want in life, and that goes both ways, meaning that if you can't see what you want, or you envy those who seemingly get what they want, you can become negative and you can get what you wish for others rather than what you wish for yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

How profound, how powerful. And when you have these moments and you're going through it, uh actually there was a a din a small dinner party that you had to attend to take me into that.

SPEAKER_00:

I I I remember expressing this view at this at this dinner party, uh, where I was announced to the table and I announced it in a very positive way and probably arrogant way. I was in my twenties at the time, that in life you can have whatever you wish for, right? This female guest decided to challenge me. And she she did. She was arguing that she strongly felt I was wrong. I asked her to explain. She said, Well, you can't have me. That's what she said. You can't have me. So your theory is incorrect. And so luckily I was on my game that night as I looked her dead in the eye and I said, You obviously didn't listen to what I was saying. As I said, you can have whatever you wish for. That uh wasn't my finest moment, but I got my point across. Back to small thinkers. To me, small thinkers and negative people. Well, you know what? What I like about them mostly. I was a small thinker when I first started because all I ever wanted to be was a millionaire.

SPEAKER_01:

Mr. Charles Tarby, another wonderful week of audio podcasting. We're getting very close to the end now. As we come back next week, thank you for joining us.