How To Use Evidence To Win Hard Vendor Conversations - Tristan Rowland

We talk with Tristan Rowland about leading vendors through a cooling Brisbane market with facts, neutral data, and a clear plan. We unpack how confidence, transparency, and the right words protect relationships while still driving price and action. 
• rebranding to Bright Estate Agents and differentiating in a race to low fees 
• using evidence to move vendors from opinion to decisions 
• handling buyer objections by testing logic and motivation 
• focusing on perspiration, professionalism, promotion before defaulting to price cuts 
• using realestate.com.au views plus saves and shares to explain engagement 
• setting an immediate action plan for every vendor meeting 
• adding neutral market context with consumer confidence and forecasting reports 
• explaining why strong fees and vendor standards improve outcomes 
• staying durable under pressure and using “we, us, our” language 

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Transcript

Welcome And Sponsor

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name is Lee Woodward, your coach and host, and the author of the Complete Sales Person course. Today's program is brought to you by the Agency Portal, Australia's first listed to settled execution platform. This incredible digital platform allows us to use agency design, agency AML, the style funding process, commission funder, agency supplier pay, and agency settlement. Agency Settlement is the Pixar partner that allows the real estate digital transaction to exist. Let's get started with today's podcast. And joining us today, no stranger to the podcast we are selling, although he's changed brands to his own wonderful brand. He joins us today for a very good topic. Mr. Tristan Rowland, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Morning Lee. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Very well. Before we get into our topic on the importance of vendor management and the change of market, take us into the rebrand. It's all been done.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah, all done. We're um firing in a big way now. We um had, I guess, what you call soft launch over Christmas, a couple of things going in our family world, but um we're out of the blocks now, and um it's kind of fortuitous, but a lot of ways that the um the the market has done what it's done because it's given us a real chance to shine and got a lot of market share quite quickly.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

So our brand new name is Bright Estate Agents. Why the name?

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Well, I think one of the biggest things, and it's funny I had a lot of people say, you know, to us, are we gonna go Roland and Roland or Rolland and Bradley? But I didn't want it to be about myself and Samantha didn't want it to be about her. We wanted something interchangeable, and it's got a lot of really fun play and words that can come out of that as well, as we always say, you know, being transparent, letting your vendors zoom into an open home, that's a bright idea. Um, you know, because we will let them literally zoom and call into an open home so they can hear the buyer feedback. Um and the biggest thing is that, you know, we really wanted to be a bit different from everyone else. There's a lot of, I think it's a race to the bottom on fee and a race to the middle of the ground. Everyone wants to be the same kind of you know, brand colouring, etc. The orange stands out, you can't miss it. And we have a lot of market um feedback going, gee, I can't miss your signs, or I I love your marketing. Yeah, probably a bright future for the I think there's a lot of um darkness out there, and you would have seen a lot of stuff in the media in the last few weeks. Um we're we're very different. Very different.

Evidence Beats Opinions With Vendors

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Well, congratulations on that. Let's get into our topic today. Tristan, you've been selected due to your incredible success with delivering facts and evidence to the owner, whereas or owners, whereas many agents struggle to have those difficult conversations, quite often it's their psychology of how they're seeing something. Take us into your marketplace right now, and what are you doing to get the results that you're getting when everybody else is struggling to get the vendors to understand where they are in the market?

SPEAKER_02 2:57

One of the very few upsides to having two parents of prosecutors is your entire childhood is a cross-examination, and if you're like you're in a courtroom. So, you know, being able to articulate those things to people is a a real art form. It's something you need to work on. Um, I always joke, you know, go and talk to a property manager about when they have to go to NCAT, QCAT, VCAT, wherever it is. Um I I love going to QCAT. I had an adjudicator at QCAT and I said the other day, I need to know your background. You don't talk like an agent. Because you thoroughly enjoy this. And I said, well, it's a bit like family dinner in my household. So providing the evidence to an owner is so important because you can have an opinion and they'll have an opinion, but if you've got evidence, evidence is fact, and you can't argue with facts. That's the reality of it. And you know, when we're in presentations, we quite often joke, yeah, the facts don't lie, but agents do. Um, and when you've got neutral data, particularly, and there's a lot of it now, I mean the internet has changed everything. There is so much readily available data. And, you know, it's funny, I was in a vendor meeting only a week ago, and the vendor started giving me all these different stats and facts. And I went, where are you getting them from? And they went, Oh, it's chat GPT. And it's fascinating because a lot of it was actually wildly incorrect. And we're seeing more and more places now try and deliberately create misinformation pages to track to uh trick chat GPT. So if you aren't giving your vendors the information, they'll go looking for it anyway. But worse, they could actually be getting stuff that's highly incorrect. So, you know, providing the evidence to the clients from multiple different sources will enable you to educate them and more importantly, maneuver them out of a market that is beginning to correct. I mean, Brisbane's seen the coldest market it's probably seen in about six years. Um, it's it's already started to pick up a bit with the ceasefire being struck. But, you know, we ran away with it in that last eight weeks. We've gobbled up a lot of market share because we just said to our clients, we're excited. And I think that's the real key to about psychology. If you are nervous, if you are worried, if you're shaking in your boots, your vendor is going, I have got the wrong person. Or this was a flat trap bully that were being carried by the market. And they are already, I've had a lot of other agents vendors ring me going, I'm very much aware I picked the wrong person here. They're lost. Um, I need someone who's doing the you know the deals and more importantly has a plan out of here.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

And how has that positioned you in the market in the last eight weeks? What's been the turnaround for you?

Buyer Objections And Agent Confidence

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Uh, it's been crazy. Like I've listed, I think, eight in the last week, and we haven't got a single bit of outward promotion going out at the moment. That's just, you know, and I I've always said, you know, when the market starts to cool off, your soul stickers aren't compulsory anymore. You're not everyone wins a prize. And you start seeing for sale signs and for fail signs very quickly. And it's like the soul will fail. Now there's nowhere to hide if you're out moving it. And so I I people are starting to get attracted to the agents that are A, doing the deals, seeing what's moving online, seeing the sale prices. Were they, you know, pushing out the door on price or are they moving it on method? And also, people talk, and I think people understand estimate how much angry vendors will talk at a barbecue. And I'm getting listings from my happy vendors talking to other unhappy vendors at parties, and a lot of agents copied it behind the scenes more than they realize. I think the other thing, as well, is that now you'll probably notice a lot more vendors are going through your open homes, researching the market or researching the other agents and seeing how they're conducting themselves. And I'm getting so many vendors say to me, the way you're handling buyer objections at the moment is second to none. Second to none. I mean, I I had one on the weekend where the the vendor said to me, I found it really interesting that the other bot the buyer who went through three other agents' open homes, because I saw them all, basically criticized the kitchen and a couple of the other agents, basically teared up about the kitchen, like they didn't build the kitchen, silly, right? But your response was, okay, great. So if we completely change the kitchen, would you buy the property? We can just build it under the contract. And they went, Oh, no, actually, I haven't got the money. So it wasn't even a matter of, you know, the kitchen was an issue. They were just trying to browbeat the agent down. I had one other gentleman who said to me, I reckon the market's gonna, you know, fall by 15%. And I just looked at him and I went, Well, let's say you're right. And I went through early on doing mediation, take someone to the end of their argument or the insanity of the argument. And he went, Yeah. So mate, why are you here? It was like 27 degrees on Saturday in Brisbane, not a cloud in the sky, it was a cracking day. Like, mate, why at the beach? I could think of a million places I would rather be than an open home if I wasn't going to buy a house. If we truly believe it's gonna drop by 15%, just come back in December, buy a house then. And he went, Oh, well, actually, I do need to buy something because our pre-approval is gonna lapse soon and the wife goes on Matt leave. I said, Well, it's irrelevant then. Let's just buy the bloody house. So and he made an offering in. And so I think as agents, we kind of get sucked into the buyer rhetoric, et cetera. And as much as I think agents, transcripts, and dialogue, somewhere there's got to be a buyer dialogue school and a vendor dialogue school, you know, that I'll just rent it out. I'll just rent it out, you know. You know, that every vendor meeting I ever open up with, and you know, Aaron Bonjour taught me this, and it's so true. Before we kick off, Mr. Vendor, do you feel like there's anything else I can be doing from my end? And they're like, no, tristing here every five minutes, you know, you're doing this. As soon as the answer is no, you can go hard as you like for that meeting because you've got the blank check to do so. They've acknowledged that you are doing everything right, and there's nothing else from an effort point of view you could be doing. But if that vendor goes, well, actually, then you've got some work to do, and you probably need to have a look at what you're doing inside your own day-to-day business. So, you know, for me, I say to my vendors, there are four ways agents sell properties. Perspiration, how often are you working at opening it, et cetera? Professionalism, how you're executing those leads, you're just flicking out an email back from REA or AI autoresponder, or are you actually doing your job and having a proper conversation and how you get the inspection? And then promotion, how hard are you marketing it? So we've got a listing right now. We'll go open our socials today. It was on the market with two prestige, I won't say the name, two prestige agencies for the last nine months. We've had it on the market for a week. We had more people through that property on the weekend than the other agencies had in nine months. It's the number one listing in Australia on realestate.com for views because we absolutely send it to a different stratosphere in socials. We actually had 7,000 people click out of Dubai being expats coming out of Dubai at the moment. It's fascinating. Those vendors think the sun shines out of us. And again, the transparency, we're screenshotting all the social media reports, realestate.com. But, you know, it's it's how you work, but we out promotes promote perspiration professionalism. And the fourth one's how there's price. And most agents just price it into a sale. And I've always joked to my owners, you know, that's like going to the doctor and going, I've got a hangnail, and I go, well, we'll amputate it at the elbow, and that should fix the problem. Well, I mean, it kind of fixes the problem with a much bigger problem, doesn't it? Right? It's lazy. But let's let's at least look at a few options before we go down the most extreme route. And Voyager, where the first vendor meeting you ever have, it's it's a bit like a DV situation. They're almost as waiting for the lack. And when you don't hit them on price, you go, well, let's let's change up the open home schedule, let's flick the photos around, let's promote it more. You know, and I uh a great auctioneer, Peter Burgen, um, said to me once, you know, go to every vendor meeting with two auctions, you know, uh adjust the price or let's pump up the marketing, you know, let's go and do an auction campaign or whatever. And probably three in ten would go, you know what, bugger it, let's pin our ears back and go hard. And there's one vendor who was really obnoxious, I've got to say, I wasn't a pleasant person to work for. And I said, mate, when this offer at 530, I think it's a very good offer, which it was at the time. I mean, it's not buying it's worth, you know, at least 580. And I said, Well, mate, if you really believe that, give me 12 grand in belief. And I put a full curry mail campaign in front of him, and this is during the GSE. Um, and he went, snatched off me, done, and signed off on it and gave back to me. I remember his wife looked at him like, what the hell are you doing? But he kind of didn't want to lose the argument or lose his ground. And I remember I came back to the office and I said to Peter Berg, I said, I don't, I don't really know what to do here. It's quite funny. Like he actually signed off on it. And he said, Well, mate, now you owe him 12 grand with the effort. He gave you 12 grand of the belief, you know 12 grand with the effort. And you know what? We jagged 610 on that. Um, we ended up getting an amazing bar off the back of the editorial. But I did the right thing and I worked the hell out of the inquiry. I didn't have any evidence to suggest it was more than that, but to his credit, he backed himself. And I quite often direct to my vendors, I have been wrong in in a good kind of way. But if you give me the tools, I'll go and find you the result.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Tristan, take us through your thinking when you're going into these vendor meetings, because I'm getting so many phone calls where people are just so concerned, they're having an exaggerated need to be loved, and they're looking at the times when they had all these buyers coming through and all these offers coming in, and real estate's simple. We're not in that time now, and this is where the true agents who can who are good at the difficult conversations do really well. But take us into the facts and evidence and your thinking behind your delivery.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

The point that you made there about need to be loved is one of the things that we'll say, they'll push a lot of agents out of the industry. So you know, I think Bob Wolf on said he goes, Oh, you got into real estate, do you like people? You get into real estate, do you like houses? Great, three months, you'll hate both of them. And uh, you know, for me, I don't need to be loved, but people love me because I actually care about them a lot. Yeah, and you know, I have a really good connection with my vendors because they know that at the end of the day I'm working for them, and I had some incredible messages over the last few weeks and vendors going, wow, you know, you said just keep calm and you got it. But I've I've been through this before and in a much worse market than where it is now. You know, we didn't have 30% of the workforce lose their job in the last four weeks, so we're going, okay. The need-to-be love thing is interesting. So my my cousin's a cardiologist, a place cardiologist in Queensland. And I've had so many interesting conversations with him about doctors and how they operate. And I think there's a lot of parallels we don't realise. Um, and I said, you know, like I couldn't imagine being a doctor and having to tell someone, you know, you're going to die. Like, literally, it's a bit more permanent than the financial issues, right? Or, you know, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. I said, you know, what do you reckon makes the worst doctors? Um, and he said, well, it's not what you think about, like your physical ability to do surgery or anything. It's the ones that don't want to have the hard conversations. They always end up falling out of the industry. They're afraid of telling someone, hey, you know what, this it sucks here, but you need to have this surgery. Because if you don't, you you bet you will die. Like, yeah, it it's it's a hard conversation to have, and you might not like this conversation now, but the alternative is a lot worse. And you said, imagine if you found out that your doctor saw a lump, knew what it was, didn't tell you in fear of upsetting you. And by the time you worked it out for yourself, it was now terminal, right? That is no different to when an agent knows the vendor's overpriced, knows the things need to be happening, but they won't have that hard conversation, maybe because they walked in and bought the listing. I don't know. But by the time the vendor works it out for themselves, I guarantee you eight or nine weeks have gone and that number they could have had is no longer there. You've now cost them a couple of hundred grand. So you need to walk into those meetings, understanding you're not trying to pummel them in price, you're trying to protect their price, protect their value, you know, and minimize the damage, you know. And we're talking to now prioritors kicking off. So, you know, I say to my clients all the time, in a hot market, it's my job to get you in the market as quickly as possible and tell you to stop mucking around because every day goes past, it gets more expensive. In a correcting market, every day I get you out earlier saves you money in hemorrhaging. I need to get you out as fast as possible now. Um, you know, and I understand I'm telling you this because it's going to save you money. And the worst thing about the market when it's a bit like it is now is that the drop is so subtle, you kind of don't really notice it week to week. And I've always jokingly said to my vendors, you know, if a guy called the market, rolled up to your door on a Friday afternoon and went, not, hi, I'm the market. I'm taking 25,000 and off of you, what? I'm taking 25 grand every count. I'll be back next week, see ya. After four weeks, you'd be like, that guy's a jerk. He's taking 100 grand off us. And you'd move your house so he couldn't come back and get you next week. It is the exact same thing, but you only realize how much it's dropped when you look back four weeks or eight weeks down the track, and then you realize you've missed the margin. So getting it and getting ahead of the market particularly is really key. So I said on my vendors, you know, price it below where you think it's going to be with an offers over price. You'll find out the truth in the market, but you'll also stop the hemorrhaging. And the best part is when you get it at that level, you will create a boilover. And if you're a newer agent and you're listening to this one, this is your time to shine. You will you can't out-experience agents. That was me back in L8. I'd only been doing it for three years, but you can out and soze them. And all the old dogs that get a bit older, I'm 43, I'm still lucky high energy, but if they're not going to do that hard work, they will get found out. This is a chance to really build a business. But, you know, explain to the owners, look, if we can get ahead of this now, we'll be able to stop the hemorrhaging and actually get that emotional boiler. We might actually get back to where we wanted to be through disemotion. Um, and if you don't know how to really articulate that, maybe take an experience agent with you to a couple of vendor meetings so you can actually have it explained in front of them. But boy, do your clients thinking because you the case studies, and I mean on this role again, case studies left, right, and center at the moment, and that's the thing, right? And go, look, if you had, especially if you've got a client who'll actually take a phone call from a current vendor, that is incredible. Like if you don't believe me, I'll ring this person right now and they'll tell you that. And they go, wow, really, yeah, really. Like this is real. I'm not making this up. And they'll say, listen to Tristan. You know, thank God we did, we would have been wiped out financially. So articulating the why very early on is very important.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

What reports or facts props do you use that allow you to give that facts and evidence?

Reports And Data That Educate

Fees, Standards And Serious Marketing

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Yeah, so there's there's a few. Um, one, and look, you know, I'm I'll take the words from Andrew Dean here. I don't believe in hate mail. You know, they hate the curtains, they hate the blinds, they hate the carpet, they hate the street, they hate, they hate they it doesn't serve any purpose. You know, Andrew used to always joke, you can't argue with someone who loves you. So, you know, oh, what do you reckon? Oh, they all love the house. Everyone loves it, they just love it at different prices. He loves it at 1.1, he loves it at 1.3, he loves it at 1.33. Because you can't argue at that, but if you go, the buyer doesn't like the curtains, they'll be like, get me somebody who does like the curtains then, even though that buyer could still be a hundred grand north of everybody else. So I don't I'm not a big person on there. There's a couple of things I do from an education point of view, and the keywords education. So the realestate.com reports that you get out of Ignite, if you aren't using them every week, you have got rocks in your head. And I don't do like uh CRM spit out reports anymore because one people think it's made up. And I gotta say, I have seen some reports that were manufactured by other agencies and brands, so I would be highly skeptical myself, right? Um, the REA one you can't fold it, and like quite often I'll show you the screenshot it sends them by vendors on their mobile as well as the market goes on. I'll also um uh take it to vendor meetings, but what we do is we print them out. So my I've got to pile them here on the Monday, I put them out in the Monday morning. Um, and if I'm a young person, I'm getting in at seven o'clock in the morning and I would be getting them all done straight off the bat. Print them out, write your notes on it on the night report. Um, and there's a few things I like to highlight for my my vendors on that report. So the first one is obviously the views, and I write little handwritten notes like excellent or you know, average or very much concerning. Um concern is such a good word. It's one of the best words, honestly. If you're if you're sitting with your doctor and he goes, hmm, that's concerning as he's looking at scans, you're going, uh oh, right, you know. Um worried means I don't know and I'm lost. Concerned means I'm I'm I'm concerned, but I've got a plan to get you out of here. The other one, and this is a really important number, is the saves. So saves and shares on realestate.com. So how many people have saved the listing to their realestate.com profile. Now, the reason why this number is so important is you could, for example, have uh a market, let's say you went to the market without a price and we do that as we always launch. Then when you put it on the market with a price, you know, let's go out there, there's been 300 saves. The statistical chance of someone else being higher than the current interest we have is pretty good. Let's let's put it out there and see what happens. And then you'll see the upswing in the traffic or the drop if it's not at that kind of money. But if you had a property that has got a price on it and you're still not getting the engagement, at least you can say to the vendor, look, there's 300 people watching this and they like us. They like the house. That's why they've saved us. They just don't like us at this price. But the biggest issue with realestate.com, and I've got to say, I've noticed this so much more now compared to 08, is that realestate.com is house tinder, right? People go, yes, nope, yes, nope, yes, no, swipe, left, swipe, right on it, about what they're going to not look at on a Saturday. Not so much going to look at it, but not look at on a Saturday. I always joke to my male vendors, my my male vendors get this wine better than the female vendors. We need to get them on the first date before we tell them all our bad habits, right? We've got to get the buyer there. Get the price to a point where it's going to get the engagement and more importantly, some excitement. And you know, you talk about FOMO, fear of missing out. Well, I'll give you another one for other agency out there. Foo, F-O-O-P, fear of overpaying. If you've got a market that is looking like it's going to correct, but also you've got rates going up, which you know, no way, we didn't have rates going up, they're going down, not up. But rates going up, cost of living going up. We've got a bit of a trifector of misery at the moment. So, you know, people are going, God, can I afford to live? Oh, and also my mortgage could potentially go up three more times with the rates this year. Oh, am I overpaying here? And what if it goes back by 10%? I'll feel stupid. There's a lot of things there. So when you get it back into the zone where the excitement price is, not the logical price or the emotional price, the excitement price. Like if I I said to one of my vendors a couple of weeks ago, I know it's going to sound really, really dumb, but we need to get offers over 1.1 on it. And they said, okay, and we did that, and we just sold it for 1.25. Because 1.1, no brainer. You don't have to think twice. And I guarantee you, the buyers are still there. You can see it in the traffic. They're just not engaging or moving like they were. But as soon as we've got the excitement price, then we got back up to the logical price, which probably was about 1.2 because that's where it listed at. And then we got 1.25 because the emotional price. So getting that engagement, explaining the saves, the saves on realestate.com, you'll be able to show the buyers are actually then. And this isn't you saying this, this is just the markets, right? Um, but then scanning that report back in and sending it to your client with your handwritten notes on it. And I always write my favorite letters of IAP, immediate action plan. What do we need to do next? This, that, the other. And if you say to the vendor, okay, we need to first do it at realestate.com or do a social media campaign or maybe we just do something else. But if you've got a plan, it's over to the vendor then, right? Because there's only so much you can do. But if they're not going to give you the tools to go and get them the best outcome, well, what what more can you ask for, right? You've done everything you can do from your side. That report's very powerful. Um, if you're not checking the Rui Morgan Consumer Confidence Index every week at the moment, you're off your head. Um, you know, to explain to people, look, you know, we were literally on par with the COVID lockdowns three weeks ago. Like this is not small, right? And again, neutral data. Um, BIS Oxford um is amazing as well, uh, for those that aren't familiar with it. Um, that buying that BIS Oxford report back in L8 was the greatest two and a half grand I've ever spent as an agent because it look they literally predicted the drops in the GFC by 0.2% every year. And I was going into not only listing presentations, but then the meetings with that, going, This is what's going to happen. These guys are accurate. And you know, it's funny. One of my clients once said to me, they're not right. They can't, I don't agree with them whatsoever. I I know what's happening, they don't. I said, Well, I mean, that's the best news I've ever heard. And he looked a bit perplexed. He goes, What do you mean? I said, but well, that's the case. You're like a hundred million dollar company and you don't have to sell your unit for 310 anymore. Just drop what you're doing and queue this for a day job. Because if you're more accurate than them, then like you're killing it at life. I mean, the only guys more, but they put their money where their mouth is more often than them a sports bet, right? Because they have a bet every week. But that then that came from my market analytics background at AIM. But um, give Marshall and BIS off. Because those reports are critical. And again, it's neutral data, right? And like I said, the consumer confidence index just telling your client what we're up against. You're gonna have a hundred buyers through, but a statistically, 98 of them aren't gonna buy a property no matter what you do. Then it's your job to locate those two and then put them in a position where they're gonna commit. Um, so simple but very very important. And also, um, and I was saying this off air, um, using the realestate.com uh backend tool for your market insights. So I don't know how many people actually use this, but if you go to your um uh your insights and then you do like your market it's the traffic, so our bio traffic, like we're slaughtering everybody in the last eight weeks, particularly, because you can filter by time. Yeah, we had 2,000 inquiries, the average fair area was 159. So we're out inquiring everybody. But the interesting one was the sell side. So there we go. As of today, this is literally as of today, we are currently at 10% market share in in Brisbane. Uh the 6.67% when I was um talking to you about it. Uh, literally just looked it up now, it's currently 10%. So you say to your vendors, you know, we're doing well. You're in the safest of hands, and we actually use less words. We are in the safest of hands. We are the number one agency in Brisbane for sales right now. This is our jam. Like when you get excited, the vendors feel very confident. If your cardiologist walks in and went, let's save some lives today, how many bypasses I've got, you'd be like, shit, this guy really enjoys his job. I'm a pick, I'll pick I'll go okay here. But if you walked in and went, how many people have I got today? I had to say sorry to three people's granddads yesterday. That's that's not what you want, right? So having that data and showing you vendors that no matter how much, because agents are still trying to sign jump, which I find quite comical, but you know, oh, they're ringing you. Well, ask them why they're not moving them because as much as they carry on saying they are, they're neutral data from realestate.com, which is we're number one in Brisbane at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Absolutely amazing, and so much content within that part of the podcast. Tristan, as you were speaking then, I had something come through my mind. And in Brisbane, we've seen a drive down of fees enormously, yet your little customer experience team-based unit, uh, the specialist unit, you're you're charging way above the other agents' low fees. I'm not saying you're a high fee, but it's way above the low fees. Do you think that's helped filter the better vendors who are investing good money to have your team on board that that they listen differently versus we paid them nothing. They didn't really know what they were doing, they didn't get that quick result that I was expecting. So I don't take any advice from them.

Staying Durable In Tough Conversations

SPEAKER_02 24:30

I I I couldn't agree anymore. Short answer is absolutely. Um, I always joke, my high fear is a bouncer for the idiots, like a nightclub. It really does sort out, sort out the really bad vendors pretty early on. Every so often one slips in. I've got a few clients own nightclubs, there's one crazy one that gets in occasionally, but it really does sort them out. And I think part of that is also we have a standard. Like you talk about, you know, a standards for the agents to work to. Well, we have a standard in which we expect our vendors to work to. And what was really interesting was a comment from realestate.com, you know, that said, you know, you've got all these showcases on realestate.com. So we've got 13 different showcases. We can put our properties on um 13 adjoining suburbs, and it costs us a lot, it costs about 20 grand a month at the moment. And in a hot market, we go, look, this is why we do it because we get all this peripheral traffic and we get buyers from more expensive areas to go to cheaper areas and so forth. And people go, oh, that makes sense. In a hot market, it increases the price and you've got to demonstrate that. In a market where it slows down completely, it really is making a difference at the moment. And, you know, all these agencies go, you don't need that. And that's one thing I think agents need to learn the terminology a lot better, right? Oh, you don't need that to sell it. You don't need that to sell it, right? I could sell it without it. Mr. Vendor, the subtitle is I can get paid without that. I don't need that to get paid. I could sell it off market, I can get paid off market. You're not selling, you're just transferring the title, they're getting paid. To get the best outcome, to maximize the price. I guarantee this is why you need to do it. And coming from someone who was in that paper era, you know, they go, there are other agents that I don't need to do 10 grand to, you know, um to sell it. Oh, I agree. I I I I agree. But if you offered that to them and said I'm going to do it anyway, I reckon they'd do heel clicks. All they're telling you is that they don't need that to get their pay packet. So, you know, is and and if and with all due respect, if the career mail didn't work, there wouldn't be a couple of million dollars of ads in it every Saturday. There's it's got to be working somewhere, right? So explaining to those vendors, you know, that there's a reason why we're structured and like I'd say that the all those things we put into place, minimum building your pest prior product sale, all these little standards, it has just protected us from this bobble in the market. And and I I've explained to a few other vendors, it's a bit like when you hit turbulence in the airplane, you'd be glad you've got your seatbelt on, right? So there's a bit of turbulence, and I don't think this is long term anyway, but if you haven't got these little fail safes in, they'll enhance you in a hot market and they'll protect you in a correcting market. And um, there's a great Warren Buffett saying, when the tide goes out, you see who's been swimming naked. Or there's been a lot of agents who are swimming naked. Um, and they're getting exposed. And that's one thing I saw in our wait, and I've got a bit of wisdom behind me now because I'm a bit older, but you know, I saw so many agents who looked pretty damn good, and then the market 180'd and they got found out very quickly. Um and there won't be a lot of ages will leave the industry now, which is a good thing in my opinion, um, especially when you introduce all those AML stuff on top of that. But this is such a great market for honest people, good people, and and caring people. And the one thing I will say to a lot of the young agents is don't aim own the blame for something you haven't done. You didn't cause the war in Iran, you didn't make the rates go up. Um, you know, I always joke out angry um uh uh owners, right? Like, yeah, I can't believe they put the rates up. You're telling me I deserve my my cousin is a member for parliament in this government. I'm like regularly going, can you please stop talking? Can you please stop missing a telling policy? Can you just tell charms stop? You know, and I I say this both tongue in cheek and seriously at the same time, but we didn't create the scenarios, and it's the anethodist client of mine I was joking about before off air, where he's a he was a um uh ethodist for 30 years and he specialized in epidurals. And I said, I have no idea how you would spend all day getting yelled at by um uh by pregnant women at in labor. I couldn't think of anything worse. And he said, Tristan, it's very easy. And he said, I'd say, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't yell at me. I wasn't there for conception. This isn't my idea. If I'm there for the fun part, don't yell at me at the not fun part. If I can be there for the fun part, yell who you like, yell at him, this is his idea. And it's the stop them dead in their tracks, right? And that's the point, is like I during the GFC, I'd do a yelling at me. Not that I've done anything, even during the flood, because you understand, and I guess being an ex-chef, I'm pretty robust. Until the vendor throws a fry pan at me across the kitchen, it probably won't worry me too much compared to some of the chefs I've worked with. But you know, you are at the coal face and sadly probably the most accessible person in the crosshairs, right? You know, banks hide over the phone, over the internet. And when some pretty shitty things happen to people in life, you're probably gonna get a bit of it. Don't don't take it personally. And if you do act like take it personally, people then think you own part of the blame or you've done something to undermine their result. So you've got to really learn to be careful on and uh pretty durable in the scenario. And like I had people were yelling, and don't be afraid to stand up for yourself. I'd be yelling at me during the GSE. I can't believe he's saying to take this offer and no, no, no, and they weren't angry at me, they're angry at the situation they were in. Right. And I just said, guys, a little jurisprate. I didn't tell you to buy half a million dollars worth of shares against your mortgage. That was your financial planner. And I'd say ring him, but he's probably bloody hung himself this morning, like half of downtown planners in Brisbane, the downtown planners' financial planners in Brisbane did. And then it's almost instantly simmered down and go, you know what, you're right, I'm so sorry. And people would apologise. And I have clients messaging me afterwards, particularly during the GFC, going, Oh, I'm just so glad you had that hard trapped mule. Thanks for not telling me where to go. Thanks for not giving up on me because you know, you saved me from oblivion. And I'll tell you now one thing in this market the best time to ask for a vendor review is three months after it's sold. Not immediately, three months after. Because, and I send a text to all my vendors in this market, right, four weeks and then three months after. It's called the thank God you'd listen to me. Hey, I'm so glad you listened to me about taking the offer. Did you see the one down the road that you thought was comparable to yours has just solved 200 grand less? Yeah, what? Because most vendors just switch off after the sale, right? Yeah. Remember how I said that they can ask whatever they want, they ain't gonna get it. Well, they didn't, and that could have been us. If we had let the Joneses run our campaign and not me, we would be 200 grand out of pocket now. They go, Oh god, I'll be wiped out. Yeah. So I I just really appreciate you listening to my advice and and taking that on board because obviously we'd be that we would be in that situation. And I really want to point this last bit out. Use your words very wisely, and this is from someone who's taught negotiation mediation. We, us, our are the most important words you will ever own. And the words you never want to use are I, you, me. I think you are overpriced. Pack up your ball, and you're gone. You'll be out the door if you create an adversarial um relationship. Yeah, I inside to say I, I think we could potentially be overpriced, and that's gonna hurt our overall outcome if we don't adjust the price. We, us, our. And when I have a vendor meeting, I'll actually try and sit next next to them. So in presentation to sit opposite someone, but it's actually a very adversarial. It's like a job interview, right? When I have vendor meetings, I'll like snuggle up, meet someone on the lounge. I want them looking over my shoulder at my phone with realestate.com, looking at the buyer inquiries. Like screenshot buyer feedback all the time and text and send it to vendors, redact the phone number for the love of God. But um, yeah, it's that those words will set you free and will protect your relationship.

Closing Thanks And Key Message

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Tristan Rowland, I knew you were the man for today's podcast. As I get this rhythm of the marketplace, and when you work naturally, you get to see it in all different places. Absolutely brilliant work. Congratulations on the rebrand. And for those of you that are listening, your wonderful wife appeared on our podcast only five or six weeks ago, which was a brilliant operations uh interview. And I want to thank you for joining us on We Are Selling. Thank you, mate.