Selling 170 Homes Without Spreadsheets

Becoming a top-performing real estate agent isn’t always about perfect structure or living inside a spreadsheet. We’re joined by Carly Frost from Harris Real Estate in South Australia, who shares how she surprises herself by taking out number one for the quarter in a high-calibre business, while still working in a way that suits her personality. We talk honestly about results, energy, and why “knowing your groove” can be more powerful than copying someone else’s routine. 

Carly walks us through the Harris acquisition journey and the changes that come when you move from a small, family-style office to a more systemised, high-performance environment. We dig into the real-world mechanics of her pipeline: how many listings she targets, how her team uses co-agents, what a healthy weekly appraisal count looks like, and why too many appointments can quietly cost you conversions. If you’ve ever felt busy but not in control, this conversation gives you practical guardrails. 

We also get specific on lead generation and market share on the Fleurieu Peninsula and the Wine Coast corridor. Carly explains how service area letterbox drops, repeat business, and referrals stack together when you exceed expectations, run strong opens, and communicate daily with vendors. She shares how she keeps sellers informed, how midweek opens change the signal you send, and what she wants to improve next, around time protection and staying connected to past clients. 

If you want more grounded insights on real estate sales, listing presentations, vendor management, prospecting, and building a referral-driven business, hit play. Subscribe, share the episode with an agent mate, and leave a review. Then tell us: which habit would lift your results the fastest?

Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

Brought to you by The Agency Portal 

🎓 The Complete Salesperson Course – Australia’s premier real estate training, delivered nationally throughout the year. Build the skills, systems, and mindset to perform at the highest level. Learn more →

📚 The Super Coaching Program – An exclusive membership providing ongoing coaching, resources, and strategies to support sustained growth in real estate. Join today →

Discover more:

• Next Events
• Lee's New Book – Claiming Doors
• Explore Lee Woodward Short Courses
• The Top 100 Business Stories & Life Lessons Of Charles Tarbey

Transcript

Welcome And Platform Sponsor

SPEAKER_00 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 programme 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 Sign, Agency AML, the sale funding process, commission funder, agency supplier pay, and agency settlements. Agency Settlements is the Pixar partner that allows the real estate digital transaction to exist. Let's get started with today's podcast. And joining us now on the program from Harris Real Estate in South Australia is Carly Frost. Carly, welcome aboard. Now I'm very lucky to have you here. This is not something you do normally, but earlier on this year I had the pleasure of delivering the Harris Kickstart Day, and you were there in the front, and we got to have a chat. And I was chatting to you, and then suddenly the awards happened, and the number one salesperson for the quarter at Harris was yourself. Congratulations.

Adjusting After The Harris Acquisition

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Now, how's that been the journey to Harris? Because that was an acquisition of the group taking over original Harcourt's team, which was like a little family team. How was that for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, really good. Lots of changes. I mean, you do something the same way for six or seven years. You get sort of stuck in that kind of flow. But we had a whole team come across who taught us everything with systems and procedures, how to make our job easier, really, and give us back time. So we had a great um team. They've actually got a name for that team. I think it's like the um acquisition team. And and we had, you know, one person come and taught us how to, you know, deal with the database. One person would come across and deal with how we would, you know, our presentation process for listings, etc. It was, yeah, really good. Lots of support.

Finding A Personal Business Groove

SPEAKER_00 2:17

And how interesting, because and we're going to go through your results and the way you work in this interview, but you've always done well in real estate. But then suddenly you join Harris, and it's okay, we're playing first grade. There's a lot of big players there at Harris, very famous people who've been on this audio before. And suddenly, how did it feel to be number one in the group for the quarter?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Oh, it was surprising because you just don't expect it's going to be easy to get there. I'm one of those people that kind of don't sit back and look at my results until like right at the very end, and you're kind of surprised. So you know you're busy and you know that you're doing lots of work and you know that you've got lots of listings and sales and things like that, but I get right to the very end. I know you're meant to know your numbers, but I don't really track that much, that too much. So it was a surprise. I was really stoked, but I was stoked more for my team because they worked really hard and um they played a massive role in that.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

The reason someone like you doesn't track your numbers is you're tracking the people, you're tracking the lives. Is everyone okay? I've seen that before. And actually, you might start there because when you come into something like Harris, like Phil himself is the most structured human I've ever met. And then you've got Tommy in there as well. But you're actually not like that, Collie.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

No, definitely not. I mean, I'm structuring in a way that I meet with my team at 9 a.m. in the morning. I'm structured that I try and do my appraisals from say 12:30 onwards. I do find it hard to just lock down and sit there and look at my computer. I think that's me as a human, I find that really hard. I'm a little bit ADHD. And, you know, I get caught up in dealing with what's going on around me rather than sticking to, you know, the structure. Yeah, I think that's one thing I'd love to be better at, but I've just have to be honest with myself, it's not my strength.

From Retail To Real Estate

SPEAKER_00 4:12

But what I think's really powerful about that for anyone listening to this, not everyone is like that. And you and I were chatting off air about everyone's got their own little business groove, the way they do it. And you know, you're doing close to 170 sales a year. Whatever your groove is, don't change it. Because I've seen people do that where I should be doing this and they go backwards versus know your strengths, play to those, work on your weaknesses, but whatever you're doing's actually working, and that's where I might bring it in from the beginning. Carly, you came in from retail, which is a different set of skills but has proven very good for you in real estate. You were only 18 years of age. Take us into that time.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

I um moved up to the Gold Coast, moved in with a bunch of friends. That was a long time ago. I'm 47, I was 18, so with no mobile phones or anything like that. So you just roll in with your resume. And I started in a surf shop, lived up on the Goldie for a little bit, and then came back and went to a couple of different surf retailers and ended up working for Samity Music. And then from there, I went into rep work. So I run a fashion agency, funnily enough, with my sister who now works with me as well, where we would present the latest Rusty Range to these retailers in like a showroom kind of setting every single season. So I think from there I realized that sales was my thing, but I was also very good at organizing and making it all come together. I actually then went on to be a personal trainer and ran boot camps. I moved back up to Byron Bay for a little bit and then came back. And it was funny. I was sitting there one day and I had a funny conversation with my husband and my mother-in-law, and I said, I'm actually a little bit disappointed in myself. And they said, Well, that's a funny thing. Why would you say that? And I said, I just thought that I would do more with my life. Like, you know, you don't earn much money being in retail. And I just, you know, was 37 years old thinking, what am I gonna do? And then real estate came to my mind. I thought, I'll give that a crack. And away we go.

Selling The Fleurieu Wine Coast Lifestyle

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Absolutely fantastic. Take us into where you sell real estate and how that type of property is available.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, so I work on, I call it the Mid Coast. Some people call it the South Coast, it's actually the Mid Coast. It's Fleurio Peninsula and like the wine region. So we actually Harris Wine Coast. So we've got like really beautiful beaches, and then inland from there, we've got the wine region, so McLaren Vale, Wallunga, and then you've got obviously the Aldinga Beach, Selix area. So it's coastal with vines and love it, it's a beautiful space to live. So I started at Harcourt's Wine Coast pre-Harris acquisition, and I was introduced to Sandy Mount, my principal, via Chris Cotton, who was a friend of mine and sort of gave me the nudge to get into real estate. Started there in a very small office. I think there was only about five salespeople, and it was very small, very family kind of environment. But there wasn't really anyone in there that was doing like big volume. I think the most anyone was sort of selling was 30 properties. So it was all very much more casual than the environment we're in now. You know, we had a great time and I learned a lot over those six or seven years. But I was really excited when it came to the acquisition because it meant that we were going to learn a lot more and get to that next sort of chapter.

Listing Volume Targets And Team Roles

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, it's worked out well for you in sequence. And just for our listener, especially our listeners in the UK, how many listings are you carrying at any given time? And what are you converting each month?

SPEAKER_01 8:17

My kind of target that I set for myself is around 14 listings a month for myself. I've got a team with two other, well, three other listers. One might list 10 a year. She's the person who deals with all my buyers and just keeps things smooth. She's amazing. Um, and then I've got two other co-agents who their targets are. One of them's got four a month and the other one's got to two a month. So we're trying to get up around that 20 a month. But last month we did 32, no, 34. I think, you know, we're tracking to do maybe close to 30 by the end of this month with listings. So um I would really love to get it to 30, but at the same time, you know, if we don't get there, it's okay as long as we're still enjoying what we do.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Why do you think the community's engaged with you so much as a real estate professional? Obviously, that method of introduction, referral is bouncing off walls everywhere. Everyone's got their own little reason why I think I cut through or I I think I get connection. What would you say that is for Carly Frost?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Well, I've lived here my whole life, apart from my quick sort of stint up on the Goldie and Byron. I've lived here my whole life and I do have a lot of connections down on the coast. But I think if you do really, you know, obviously you go in and you you win the listing and then you do what you say you're gonna do and you exceed their expectations, you know, you're enthusiastic, you're dynamic, they have a great result, your opens, you know, you slick at the opens, you're creating a great lasting impression on the people that walk in. I think it's just natural that you end up getting a lot of referral and repeat business, and I think that's probably where it started. If that works well for you, you just double down on that.

Letterbox Drops And Social Lead Flow

SPEAKER_00 10:14

And what about generally generation? What works for you on the promotion side? Because coming from retail, it's about promotions. And one thing you would have had to do early was learn to speak in front of people because you were presenting to people who are looking at buying the range, the product. So what else is a listing stream coming in separate to the referral side for you?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I do a lot of service area letterbox drops. That's something that I've done from day one, and I think that really helped me initially. I think service area is definitely my main listing stream, 100%. And then I would say it's actually it's probably that and referral and repeat business. It'll be social media. I am starting to do more in the cut last couple of months. I've got someone taking care of that for me now.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

And when we look at service area, which is that we're servicing an area, what's the catchment for you? How many doors are you targeting?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, so I've got just over 4,000. I'm in the Port Nalunga through to Moana area, and I have a good market share across. I think I'm either the number one agent or number two. And that just is due to only having 300 doors in that one suburb. I've only got like a little bit, which is fine. I don't want any more. I'm happy with what I've got.

Vendor Management And Open Strategy

SPEAKER_00 11:38

So, Carly, take me into vendor management. How are you managing owners now compared to how we were with this transition and feeling of the world of how what everything going on around us? What are you doing well there?

SPEAKER_01 11:55

So we carry around eight properties per week in my team. And of that, eight of them might be mine, and the other two might be of one of my co-agents. So I'm making sure that I'm communicating with my vendors every day, as we should, just to keep them up to date on what's happening. Also, getting that vendor report out, hopefully on a Monday, if not a Tuesday. But we offer both weekend and midweek opens just to see that they, you know, they know that you're working really hard for them, not just rolling up to opens on the weekend. That's something that's only really started in our area in the last couple of years. Agents mainly did just weekends. We do midweeks as well. But just keeping up that communication with them every single week and calling them directly after the open, I think, seems to keep them happy. I think there's some vendors that are obviously a little bit more, for want of a better word, higher maintenance or need to know more and you just need to up that frequent frequency in in you know communication. But um texts, emails, but definitely calls every day.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

And what about buyer management?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

So at an open inspection, I'll be there with my co-agent, but during the week, when we've got buyer appointments and private private appointments, uh the co-agent that works alongside me on that property will take care of that because I'm obviously out appraising properties or negotiating. Um, and that's always something that we platform the vendor to early on when they list with me, that they get a co-agent and they are expecting that a co-agent is going to be bringing buyers through also. It won't always be me if I can great, but generally a buyer appointment's done with my co-agent.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

And just as a guide for our listener, because everyone thinks they're flat out, what is a decent number of appraisals for you that you're expecting to fit in in a week?

Winning Presentations And The Harris Database

SPEAKER_01 13:54

So I always like to have at least seven. If I haven't got seven, I'm sort of going, oof, what's happening? I think seven to ten is really nice for me, any more than that. Unless they are hot, ready to list, or they've specifically asked for me, I'm referring the business on to my co-agent because I actually feel like my energy can only cope with maybe, you know, max 15 in one week. So I think not last week, the week before, I did 17 listing at listing appointments, and it was just too much. And some of those I lost, and I believe that was due to my energy and my inability to, as Matt Steinway would say, sell the feeling because I was tired. So I gave those listing appointments to my co-agents, and I feel really confident when I send them out because I know they're either going to come home with a business because they're, you know, really stoked to have that listing opportunity. If not, they'll follow it through until that vendor is ready to list.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

And what type of presenter is Carly Frost? What do you do in there?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

I'm fairly enthusiastic, and I think that's how I get a lot of my business. I've always asked, you know, when I do get the business, you know, why? I also ask when I don't get the business as well. I've always had them say enthusiasm and confidence. So I think, you know, that paired with them, you know, saying, you know, they've seen my my past sales in the area has really helped me as well. But I think as long as you walk in and you're client focused and you're giving them a process of how, you know, and understanding what they need to get out of this um transaction, I feel like that's definitely going to be well received by them. I'm super enthusiastic about enthusiastic about their home, even if it's not the most amazing Esplanade beachfront home. I find the things that they obviously feel are important and that they love, and I focus in on those. But yeah, I think just being in dynamic and enthusiastic and client-focused.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

And what's been the change in the signals you're sending in these presentations from being hardcourts to Harris? Has there been any change there?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

You know, I think my presentations, my listening presentations are pretty much the same. The only thing that's different is that I can focus in on now. Database is we're a network, not a franchise. So we've got 150 agents working together with one big database. I think that's really helped me. But apart from that, pretty much the same.

Time Protection And Future Focus

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Well, Carly, absolutely amazing information. Final question for you. You're a person that is interested in what you do. And I say that because when I met you, I didn't know you're about to be the number one agent at Harris, and we were just chatting away. And then next thing I watched that. But you and your team, front row, you're you're there at the learning table. What are you interested in for the future to further progress what you do and and the team?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

So, what I love about this industry is you can always improve. And I and I love that there's so many, you know, uh Harris especially is always um giving us opportunities to to learn more, like having people like yourself and other presenters come down and give us great information to get better. I think the main things that I would really like to focus on, really just get better and better and tweak and get better at what we're actually doing really well. And some of the things that we're not doing so well, and just being really honest, I really want to get better at feed protection. I really want to get better at managing my time so I can protect my time so I can have working with past clients more because it's really easy to get caught up in the next deal and doing what because you're busy, you know, and I just want to get better at making sure people remember me for the next time round and refer me to their friends and family.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Absolutely amazing. Carly Frost, congratulations, some of the best results we've got in the country. And I love the background, the connection, the acquisition. And I'm sure we're going to hear more from you in the future. But thank you for joining us on We Are Selling.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Thanks very much, Lee. It's been lovely.