Latest / Elite Agent - The Edit / Why good people stay: Andrew McCann on culture and the panic hire

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Why good people stay: Andrew McCann on culture and the panic hire · Elite Agent - The Edit

• 0:00
  I don't think that good real estate people leave businesses for commission splits and revenue alone.
• 0:05
  My view is people join leaders and they leave leaders.
• 0:09
  How do we fall in love with the people that keep turning up for us every day and help them to be the best versions of them and to get the careers that they're hoping for?
• 0:17
  I think of this phrase I saw years ago, it said something like, not everything matters, but everyone matters.
• 0:25
  What should leaders forgive?
• 0:27
  And at what point does forgiveness become permission?
• 0:30
  If you got rid of everybody that did bad things, including myself, you'd have no tuning.
• 0:44
  Welcome everyone to another episode of the edit from Elite Agent.
• 0:47
  We started out calling this a podcast, but after our first few episodes, and I think it's caught on, we're calling this a mixtape, a mix of interesting questions, interesting voices, and some honest conversations about the market that we're all working in right now.
• 1:03
  So of course, I'm Samantha McLean and with me once again is my co-host, Chris Hanley.
• 1:08
  Today's question is, what are the good people actually staying for when...
• 1:13
  listings are a little bit thin.
• 1:15
  Chris, before I introduce Andrew properly, he was one of the first names you threw to me.
• 1:20
  You wanted him for this conversation.
• 1:22
  What made you want Andrew on the podcast and what do you think he understands about finding and keeping good people that maybe some other people in the industry miss?
• 1:31
  Well, I like him for a start, Sam, so unless I've been around the bush, I've had a lot to do with his brand jealous Craig, his predecessor Nick Dowling I had a great fondness for.
• 1:44
  Andrew and I didn't know each other until Rise a few years ago when he came across the ditch to Christchurch and helped us raise a bunch of money, and I would think I'd do something that had never been done before and the outcome of that, which is now the Real Care app,
• 2:01
  I think last count there's 15,000 people using that Real Care app now which is amazing but we've had a lot to do with each other over time and I thought he was a natural fit for this topic so I dubbed you in Andrew it was me that's really interesting so you guys were together in in Christchurch Andrew what was that like
• 2:21
  It was great.
• 2:22
  I mean, it was not great as to the reason why we were there, Sam.
• 2:26
  It was a really sad set of circumstances, but it was great.
• 2:29
  And I think one of the reasons that Will had such a call to action was because it's pretty hard to say no to Chris when he gets an idea in his head.
• 2:37
  and the cause was an incredible cause to support.
• 2:40
  And I think for myself and also for Jealous Craig, we're always interested in making sure we get an opportunity to give back, and that was one of the best things that I think that we've done for the industry, and it's been great to see the bond of some of the industry leaders that have been able to hang in there since to continue to do good work.
• 2:55
  For everyone that might not know Andrew, Andrew is the CEO of Jealous Craig.
• 3:00
  He spent more than 25 years in real estate, including leading the groups Donington and Yarra business before becoming CEO in 2024.
• 3:09
  Jealous Craig has continued to grow in what we would call a challenging or difficult Victorian market.
• 3:15
  And Andrew has described that growth as being about bringing good humans together successfully.
• 3:20
  So I guess that's my next question.
• 3:23
  Talk to me about the bringing of good humans together.
• 3:26
  What does that really mean to you?
• 3:28
  And I see now why you and Chris like each other.
• 3:30
  That's pretty hard not to like, Chris.
• 3:32
  Thank you.
• 3:33
  I didn't pay you to say that, I understand, but thank you.
• 3:36
  Well, I think the good humans part is it's actually a value that we have at Jealous Craig, which is where we believe that our business is about putting good humans first and
• 3:46
  With that, it's recognising that we are a real estate practice and we're out in the marketplace serving our communities.
• 3:52
  But to have a strong brand and to be a good business and, in our opinion, to be good operators, you need to have great people that represent you every day.
• 4:00
  We think that our business has grown from doing two things.
• 4:04
  We've been very focused on sharpening the tools to make Chellis Krog a great place to operate.
• 4:08
  And then we've been very intentional about finding the best people in the market to represent us.
• 4:13
  And the two of those things combined has helped us to grow.
• 4:17
  We've, you know, through either technology development or system, we think it's easy to work here.
• 4:22
  And then by developing strong culture, that becomes attractive for people to either stay or to join.
• 4:28
  And that's probably been the chapter of our growth for the past five years.
• 4:31
  And it's hopefully what will continue to be a good, you know, part of our success story moving forward.
• 4:35
  It's interesting, I think, because Victoria has, you know, it's been quite tricky in Victoria.
• 4:42
  And I know that the maths around commission and things like that is complex.
• 4:47
  Like, you know, volumes might be down a little bit, but there's still plenty of opportunities, as Chris has demonstrated over the years, to grab market share.
• 4:56
  But let's just say I'm a salesperson.
• 4:59
  I'm struggling in the GCI territory and the recruiters are circling as they do.
• 5:04
  What are the good people actually staying for?
• 5:07
  I don't think that good real estate people leave businesses for commission splits and revenue alone.
• 5:13
  I think if you have a good business and I think the best agents and certainly what I see with our cohort, and it's the only place that I've ever operated, so it's really all I can talk about.
• 5:21
  We believe in having a tribe and having a culture and a community at Jealous Craig that is more than just transacting or managing property.
• 5:28
  And if we create places that are safe environments for people to come and be themselves, that provide them with personal development opportunities and then provide them with some fun and some reward and some recognition and also some visibility about who they are, then it's not just about the money.
• 5:42
  And I don't think that anyone ever leaves for just the money if they feel all of those things.
• 5:46
  I'm pretty fresh today, but some of my colleagues aren't.
• 5:50
  We had 600 people for our Jealous Craig Awards night last night.
• 5:53
  And to me, that was a great demonstration of celebrating people
• 5:57
  outcomes, you know, and not all those wards are just sales or property management related, but that tribal exercise is, I think, one of the reasons that people stay and one of the reasons that people are attracted to certain brands.
• 6:07
  My view is people join leaders and they leave leaders.
• 6:11
  That's my view is.
• 6:12
  I know people talk about brands, and I 100% agree with Andrew about the splits and those things, but my view is if they're leaving and they're saying they're leaving for the splits, I suspect there's other reasons they're leaving, which might involve bosses and other things.
• 6:29
  Andrew, culture is my favourite topic, and when I've asked people about you,
• 6:34
  One of the things they say about you is that you're really good at this topic of culture.
• 6:41
  And when I think of you, I think of this phrase I saw years ago, it said something like, not everything matters, but everyone matters.
• 6:50
  Not everything in a business matters.
• 6:53
  Not every part of the process, you can't be all over every little step.
• 6:56
  but every person does.
• 7:00
  With the culture that you've, you didn't build it, that you've helped contributed to over the years, but you've now sitting in the seat for two years, a bit more.
• 7:09
  How long have you been in the CEO seat?
• 7:11
  Coming up on three.
• 7:13
  Okay.
• 7:13
  And obviously part of the organisation for a bit before that, but...
• 7:16
  Okay, it's grown a lot since you went there.
• 7:18
  Did I see 10,000 transactions?
• 7:20
  Is that what I saw recently?
• 7:22
  Yeah, we went past 10,000 for the first time, so we're just under 11, 10,784.
• 7:24
  So we missed the 11, but we've had a great 12 months.
• 7:27
  When Nick first took over...
• 7:33
  There was nine officers or nine boss or something, and I'm going to guess there would be 100 people back all that time ago.
• 7:41
  How many now, are you jealous, Craig?
• 7:43
  So there's 45 officers in Victoria.
• 7:46
  We're a Victorian business alone, Chris.
• 7:48
  So you would have been around 100 people, and we're 1,200 people now across those 45 locations.
• 7:53
  Amazing grace, and I've observed that you've built some beautiful, wonderful big offices there, and culture seems, this is a thing that's occurred to me, Andrew, over the years, interacting with so many of your people.
• 8:07
  I'll tell you, I'll give you a cultural example.
• 8:10
  indicator marker here some both of you I send stuff to you you know I do and I've got this list of people I like right and there's no system to my sending right there isn't I wish I think we know that yeah there's no system whatsoever if I like you and you're on that list I send them to you but here's the thing it's a cultural issue it's cultural because I'm not sure if you're
• 8:33
  Your mob has this weird thing where nearly everyone in your mob that I send stuff to over a lot of years says thank you.
• 8:40
  It's 2026 and it's a weird thing, but some other people you can send things to weeks and months.
• 8:48
  I'm not sending it to get anything, but it's a cultural issue.
• 8:52
  When you sit with a group, I'm interested in this question, whether you sit with one of your individual officers or your whole network, talk to me here about...
• 9:02
  Is there a cultural plan?
• 9:04
  Do you do it office by office?
• 9:06
  Do you bring in outside people?
• 9:08
  I remember years ago, I got my own business tested with an anonymous culture test of all the staff, which gave me some data, which blew me away.
• 9:18
  I wasn't as good as I thought I was at the time.
• 9:20
  It was very raw, I might say.
• 9:22
  But what are you doing in that space?
• 9:25
  Because you can't sit still with culture, Andrew, can you?
• 9:28
  So what are you doing in that space?
• 9:30
  One thing that we certainly establish is that culture is led, Chris, and so I think that you can't accept that culture just develops because you put groups together.
• 9:38
  You have to...
• 9:40
  You have to lead.
• 9:40
  Culture is a set of standards and it's a set of beliefs.
• 9:43
  Well, that's certainly my opinion and our opinion at Jealous Craig.
• 9:47
  But it's not my job to fundamentally drive that culture on my own.
• 9:50
  You know, I can't have 1,200 people on my back just trying to run to the beat of my drum.
• 9:55
  Firstly, you know, my ego doesn't demand it.
• 9:57
  But secondly, I just know that it's not how you get outcomes.
• 10:00
  So we're really strong on bringing our leadership group together regularly to talk about what we believe matters.
• 10:07
  And it's there that we set our values and we talk about what we think environments need to look and feel like for people to be the best versions of themselves and then the best operators that they can be for our customers.
• 10:19
  but also be the best versions of themselves in the environments that we operate in so that our businesses are calm and pleasant places to be.
• 10:28
  That sort of comes down to themes of celebration.
• 10:30
  So at Jealous Craig, we are quite intentional about not talking about money and revenue too much.
• 10:37
  We celebrate community performance and we celebrate growth and we celebrate people and the effect that they have in our groups.
• 10:44
  And then those conversations really flow through consistently
• 10:50
  officers or people or leaders.
• 10:51
  And I think that we develop over time a language and a style that is what grows into culture.
• 10:58
  So hopefully that sort of answers it a bit.
• 11:01
  But I believe that it starts with accepting that our leaders are responsible for it.
• 11:06
  So we have to get
• 11:07
  them on board and have them have a belief set that is somewhat, it's never going to be 100% the same.
• 11:14
  But if you've got the fundamentals right with your leadership group, then that should trickle down across our business.
• 11:19
  And I think, again, that's where we have, I think, done it well so far.
• 11:24
  And that's what we're really strong on, making sure that we protect on a daily basis and then moving into the future.
• 11:29
  I've got a field report for you, Andrew.
• 11:31
  So I've sort of been listening to that.
• 11:32
  Number one, I spoke at your event a couple of weeks ago, and I've got to say, as a speaker, you walk into some rooms and you know you're going to have a good time or everybody's going to laugh at your jokes.
• 11:46
  Like, you know, you get a vibe.
• 11:48
  And, you know, like I got a lovely vibe from all of your property managers that day.
• 11:53
  That's number one field report.
• 11:54
  And then the day that I happened to be in Melbourne, I put a few stories on my Instagram saying that I was a jealous Craig.
• 12:00
  And all of a sudden, I get some messages from another agent saying, oh, you in Melbourne, I'm in Melbourne, too.
• 12:05
  I'm looking for a house for my daughter.
• 12:08
  She said, and this is something I find right, because I'm in Melbourne.
• 12:11
  I deal with, on a day-to-day basis, I think I deal with the best of the best in real estate, elite agent.
• 12:17
  We're always talking to the top 20% or whatever.
• 12:20
  But then when you get out there as a consumer and nobody knows who you are or what you do, you experience everything.
• 12:26
  And she said, you know, being on the other side of real estate is very interesting.
• 12:32
  But, you know, fun fact, Jealous Craig are the best people I've seen all day.
• 12:37
  Well, that's great feedback, and thank God for it being a positive.
• 12:41
  Thank God for that.
• 12:44
  Look, I'm forever proud of hearing those stories.
• 12:47
  I'm never the smartest person in the room.
• 12:50
  We're very grateful for people like yourself who've got expert opinion that can come and help us to think differently and think better.
• 12:56
  But where that comes from is that, again, with the cultural part, we really get clear about what our role is.
• 13:02
  And I think sometimes in real estate, people can get a bit confused about, you know...
• 13:07
  how you get paid and what your social responsibilities are in your job and that's to help people through their property journey.
• 13:13
  And we don't deviate from that too much.
• 13:15
  So we're not trying to create technology that we can monetise.
• 13:18
  We're not trying to create four or five different revenue streams.
• 13:20
  We're really just trying to be the best that we can be around human connection and interaction and then helping people.
• 13:26
  And I think that if you're going to have an attitude of help and assistance, it actually does create for a more positive engagement, which I'm so thrilled that you had when you came into our group.
• 13:35
  And our property management team are, you know, they're the backbone, the heart and soul of our organisation.
• 13:39
  And we shine light on them as often as we can for that reason.
• 13:43
  They laughed at my jokes, so they'll forever have my heart.
• 13:47
  They did.
• 13:48
  I'm going to ask a very Chris question here and one that he, in fact, asked our last guest, which is, you can teach good people almost anything, but you can't teach people to be good.
• 14:00
  What do you feel like you can reliably train and what character traits do you think have to arrive with the person?
• 14:08
  Really, the learning only happens when the student's ready.
• 14:11
  So I think forcing people to come into an environment, unless they've got an open mind to improvement, and, you know, that's, again, you know, through recruitment and having an attitude around what style of people we want to be part at Jealous Craig,
• 14:26
  If they're not open-minded and they're not looking to get better, and better doesn't mean to be that they have to grow with more activity, it's just better practice or better performance with customers or other things, then they just won't fit in or they'll be really hard for us.
• 14:40
  So I think people that are closed-minded are very challenging and there's problems.
• 14:44
  Look, I wouldn't say there's no place for them at Jealous Craig, but to get them on the journey, you usually need to fight through showing them a different path and other experiences to open the mind.
• 14:55
  But if there's no open-mindedness, it's probably a bit of a battle for your culture.
• 14:59
  Can I go back to something you said before?
• 15:02
  You talked about community.
• 15:03
  What does community look like in your organisation?
• 15:07
  When you reference it before, what do you do as an organisation around community?
• 15:12
  We do lots and we really value the role that we play in community.
• 15:17
  One of the things that I talk about in our induction for all new team members is that Jealous Craig sees itself as part of its community.
• 15:24
  And in doing so, we have to give back.
• 15:26
  We can't just take it.
• 15:27
  We're not there to take revenue and then leave people alone.
• 15:30
  We're there to give back whatever purpose that can be.
• 15:33
  So I couldn't tell you how many junior football club and netball clubs that we sponsor and how many schools and the like that we support through a number of different missions or initiatives.
• 15:44
  We do that through our office network.
• 15:46
  And then Jealous Craig has its own foundation.
• 15:48
  So we've had a foundation for...
• 15:51
  12 years at Charitable Foundation.
• 15:52
  We contribute $50 from every sale transaction into the pot, which is now becoming a pretty significant sum.
• 15:58
  Next year it'll be more than half a million dollars.
• 16:01
  And we choose a number of charity partners that we support in our communities to help improve the lives of those that aren't as fortunate as we are at Chellis Craig.
• 16:09
  And our group runs that foundation.
• 16:12
  So we have a foundation board that is volunteer led by our people.
• 16:16
  And then we have lots of volunteering opportunities through the year, which we get people involved in their communities to either help feed the homeless or to do working bees at properties that we manage on behalf of people that need shelter and care that can't pay rent or don't have a home.
• 16:33
  And that's something that I think goes, it sadly goes unnoticed, all the great work that a lot of real estate practices do in communities.
• 16:40
  But for us, it's really more of an internal measurement than an external sell.
• 16:45
  I think getting our people's perspective around, firstly, how fortunate we are most of the time.
• 16:49
  And then secondly, what it actually means to give back.
• 16:53
  You'd be surprised how big the smiles on the faces are when people get a chance to volunteer and do good.
• 16:57
  You just mentioned what my next question was going to be, which was going to be prefaced with a statement.
• 17:02
  The smiles on the faces of the boys and girls that work with me over the years when we do volunteer stuff surpasses the smiles on their face for anything else.
• 17:14
  Like, they just love it.
• 17:16
  And when you see people able to give for no other reason than they're helping people, whether it's helping with homeless or with kids or whatever else, it's amazing.
• 17:29
  I also think, Andrew, our profession suffers in one respect that we don't get to feel proud enough as a profession because...
• 17:38
  We're often in the news for the wrong reasons.
• 17:41
  And I think the more times we can give our staff a reason to feel proud of whatever they do, whether it's giving good service or whether it's raising money or whatever else, it's like balances maybe some of the other things.
• 17:55
  You're sitting in the seat of an amazing brand, Jealous Craig, but you've only been in it, let's say, less than three years.
• 18:05
  Share with us some of the lessons that you've learned since you sat down in that seat after Nick got out of it three years ago.
• 18:13
  Share some of that.
• 18:14
  And you can tell us a catastrophe story or two if you want to or you can leave them out, whatever.
• 18:21
  Well, look, I haven't had any catastrophe stories, thank God for that.
• 18:24
  I probably wouldn't be here if I had.
• 18:26
  The board would have executed me and found someone else to do the role.
• 18:29
  But I mean, look, I think I'm very fortunate, Chris, that I inherited a role with good support, but also we had good downstream support in that we were running in the right direction.
• 18:41
  I've been part of decision making and my predecessor had done an incredible job.
• 18:45
  So,
• 18:46
  I didn't come in with this sense of I need to change a lot but if you spoke to Nick who's on our board and chairs our board he would say to you yeah the nice thing about observing me into the role is that I came in with a fresh set of eyes and a different level of energy to prosecute and see things differently and that's been a good thing for our group.
• 19:03
  What I learned really quickly is that we can't do everything so as a leader you know the first thing that you do is you go out and
• 19:12
  and your colleagues and the people that have been your friends and you ask them, you know, where do you think that we need to keep investing energy?
• 19:18
  And, you know, that laundry list could have 50 items on it.
• 19:22
  And if we kept 50 items on that list, then we would have never gotten anything done.
• 19:26
  So I was very good at, I think I've been very good at understanding what's going to have the biggest impact and make the biggest difference.
• 19:33
  And I talked to probably our other leaders about that.
• 19:35
  I think,
• 19:36
  The overwhelming nature of chasing too many projects was probably a fear for me early and then a question that I challenged myself and then our other group on is, what are we capable of and what can we deliver that will have impact?
• 19:50
  And when you get down to knuckling into two or three big initiatives, that's usually enough to really shift the needle.
• 19:58
  So I've learnt to focus in on things that matter and,
• 20:01
  and ask enough questions to make sure that we're not just chasing competitors or thinking about someone else's strategy when we've already got our own.
• 20:09
  I think that's something that I observe.
• 20:12
  It's always a challenge for anyone in real estate when they've got a competitive landscape and they're trying to keep pace with market share or what someone else is doing is to not be distracted by that.
• 20:21
  So they're probably my big learnings and the things that I would view as being ongoing
• 20:27
  And then I'm really, I suppose from when I talk about myself, I'm obsessed with leadership.
• 20:33
  I think that if you're not interested in getting better and thinking about how important your responsibility is, I'm not a dictatorial leader.
• 20:41
  I'm a people leader.
• 20:43
  I lead from the bottom up.
• 20:44
  I get behind people and push them forwards.
• 20:46
  I think that's what a good modern leader does.
• 20:49
  So I've got a very flat management structure.
• 20:51
  We're non-hierarchical.
• 20:53
  Most people that you talk to hopefully would say Andy McCann's really approachable and he's easy to talk to and he's always there if I need some support.
• 21:00
  And I think in playing that role, that's where I see the most outcomes.
• 21:03
  So I stay really focused on those areas.
• 21:06
  But I'm always learning, always thinking about different ways to manage my emotional regulation so that I'm not bound into rushing things and that we can make good, strong, intentional decisions.
• 21:18
  What's the hardest pieces, Andrew, of your working day and your working time?
• 21:24
  What's the hardest thing for you to do?
• 21:26
  Well, the hardest thing is to get around to as many people as you'd like to because I think that when you are running Strong Culture, the more time that you can be in front of people, helping them to be seen and heard and acknowledged and listened to, then the tighter things are.
• 21:45
  So probably having enough confidence to allow others to play those roles is a personal battle that I need to work on.
• 21:51
  But then having enough initiative to know that some of the projects that we need to deliver are slow and time-consuming and require thought and a number of meetings, which is a bit different to running a sales campaign and being a transactional real estate agent.
• 22:05
  And then having enough opportunity to get out and see people, they're the things that I think that you're always challenged by as a leader.
• 22:10
  Leadership is hard.
• 22:11
  You know, like as a business owner, you know, Chris and I have been in touch a fair bit lately, putting together the episodes for this show.
• 22:19
  And Chris called me the other day and said, how are you, Samantha?
• 22:22
  And I said, I'm six out of 10.
• 22:24
  And he said, wow.
• 22:25
  why only six?
• 22:26
  And I said, oh, just, you know, various... And it is hard when you, you know, small team in close proximity with one another and it's just...
• 22:34
  It's not always a bed of roses because nobody's perfect and we're all human.
• 22:40
  And it made me think of...
• 22:42
  Chris, you said to me a couple of weeks ago, you said that the answer to both recruitment and retention is forgiveness in both directions, which I've kind of clung on to.
• 22:52
  Tell me what you meant about that.
• 22:55
  And then I guess I'd like to sort of throw to Andrew to see what his point of view on that is.
• 23:01
  What I've found with salespeople in their enthusiasm and zest to make commissions and earn money, they're all on commission only, I've found over the years that some of them, in order to manage them properly,
• 23:16
  you've got to forgiveness has got to be at your base and and staff members in other parts of the business as well in that it's never about all that action it's about the intention and over the years if you got rid of everybody that did bad things including myself you you'd have no team you'd have no people there so so for me it's a cultural issue but
• 23:38
  Working with people, we'll all make mistakes, myself included, regularly.
• 23:43
  I'm still learning like Andrew, except I'm decades in front of you.
• 23:46
  You'd think I would have learned a lot more, but that doesn't change.
• 23:51
  But I think forgiveness is a very, very big part of running an organisation, particularly with salespeople, because sometimes some of them do things that need to be forgiven.
• 24:04
  Yeah.
• 24:04
  Here's another question for both of you, actually.
• 24:07
  What should leaders forgive?
• 24:08
  And at what point does forgiveness become permission?
• 24:12
  To me, you're forgiving something if there's a bad action.
• 24:16
  And I have a different view, which is that the world's just never perfect.
• 24:20
  So, you know, coming back to your 6 out of 10 day, Sam, you know, I really have 10 out of 10 days.
• 24:28
  But if I can constantly run at 7.5 to 8.5, then I'd class that as successful because I always think there's going to be some friction somewhere along the way.
• 24:36
  You know, I probably look at problems and matters that arise in the business in the same way.
• 24:42
  I think that you absolutely have to, you know, if you've got good people, then people will make mistakes.
• 24:49
  And you can't walk past bad behaviour and not deal with it.
• 24:52
  So that's where, you know, if I was talking back on culture and leadership are the same to me in this regard.
• 24:57
  If you have standards and you're asking people to abide by them, then you have to call them out.
• 25:02
  But you just have to give them opportunities to continue to improve rather than to execute them.
• 25:07
  Because I think if you get too rigid, you end up never living up to the standards because...
• 25:12
  There needs to be learning.
• 25:13
  Every time we fail, it's an opportunity to learn.
• 25:15
  And salespeople especially will fail regularly, as will leaders and as will property managers.
• 25:21
  So I think it's really important that everyone knows what the standards are.
• 25:25
  And when they're not met, there's an opportunity to have an honest conversation.
• 25:28
  But that conversation can be warm.
• 25:31
  and educational rather than disciplinary.
• 25:33
  I know how you guys in that, in Jealous Craig, have devoted so much to the best trainers, the best coaches, but not just in one lane.
• 25:43
  You guys have trained and coached your people with the best people in a very broad educational.
• 25:51
  So tell us a little bit over the years about some of the training that you've done at Jealous Craig.
• 25:56
  Well, we do a lot.
• 25:57
  I can have a cynical view and say I think the real estate industry is the most over-trained industry in the world because we're just always seeking it.
• 26:05
  And that's, I think, because the industry is often looking for a silver bullet to make it a bit easier or a bit faster.
• 26:10
  But we probably...
• 26:11
  view training as a number of things.
• 26:14
  There's an energy to it that provides people an opportunity to get up and get re-reminded of the skills that are needed to work in our organisations.
• 26:23
  And there's a best practice element, so certainly we celebrate and work hard on
• 26:28
  If something's done well, how can we really amplify that across our group?
• 26:31
  So we would do a lot of internal training for that.
• 26:33
  But we train in different lanes.
• 26:36
  So we train our leaders around not just leadership skills.
• 26:40
  We certainly do a lot of leadership training on how to have honest conversations, how to be authentic, how to personality profile your team and recognise that everyone will be motivated by different things.
• 26:51
  But we also train them on health and wellbeing and mindset and how to be a bit calmer and a bit more considered in the way that they look after themselves so that they can then project themselves really well rather than in a bombastic manner.
• 27:05
  So we worked with people like Steve Griffith, who is a business and leadership coach that specialises in meditation.
• 27:11
  And that's been an interesting exercise.
• 27:13
  We spent time with Ben Crow, who's a mindset coach, quite a famous one now.
• 27:18
  And we spent time with him through COVID.
• 27:20
  And
• 27:21
  I've said on the record and spoken on another podcast recently about how transformational his wisdom was for me personally.
• 27:28
  And I think that when we invest in people being the best versions of them, it actually takes the pressure off what they think their identity needs to be about being an estate agent and just being judged on listing and selling and revenue and profit.
• 27:40
  And then the other parts of the training that we do around best practice is that we do, you know, early days we get people like Chris who have got great community businesses to come and talk to us about what can we learn from you because you've been doing it for longer than us.
• 27:52
  So we have lots of different business leaders across the country that we, I think, foster good relationships with and partnerships with and believe in sharing.
• 28:00
  And at a technical level, we go out and source, you know, people that we think are the best in the sales arena, like Josh Vegan, who has worked with us now for 14 years and is part of our furniture.
• 28:11
  where we don't hop around.
• 28:13
  We like consistent theming and we're not looking for a silver bullet.
• 28:16
  So we try and stay quite constant in, I think, the lanes that we think add the most value.
• 28:21
  Let's just say you've lost a couple of key people and you don't have a recruitment pipeline, nor do you have sign-on bonuses being flung around, can't outbid the largest group.
• 28:34
  What should you do in the next 90 days?
• 28:36
  So I guess I'm looking for advice for leaders out there.
• 28:40
  I certainly talk to our group regularly.
• 28:42
  I think recruitment is often spoken about in real estate.
• 28:45
  How do we get more people?
• 28:46
  How do we get more people?
• 28:47
  And I probably reverse engineer that a bit more and say, how do we fall in love with the people that keep turning up for us every day and help them to be the best versions of them and to get the careers that they're hoping for?
• 28:59
  So I think if you had two people leave early days, it would be about looking internally to say who can we promote, who can we help to fill the void, and how do we come up to deal with either revenue coverage or role coverage because I do fundamentally believe that most of the time that someone leaves an organisation, there is an opportunity for you to fill a good majority of what's there and you should feel calm about it.
• 29:24
  So I don't get super offended or upset about departures
• 29:28
  because I usually think we've got enough coverage and opportunity to fill the void.
• 29:32
  At a recruitment level, if the talent pool's not there, the worst thing you can be doing is going out there and headhunting and recruiting and paying different scales and different tiers under panic, because it disrupts culture, it sets bad standards, and as soon as you've got separate rules for separate people in an organisation, you just create a rod for your own back that you just can't remove.
• 29:54
  And I'm really clear about how important that is.
• 29:58
  So that's how I would manage that situation and that's where I would feel probably for my years in it now.
• 30:04
  I used to get really upset if anyone would resign or leave our organisation.
• 30:09
  I took it as a personal affront and thought, what have we done wrong here?
• 30:13
  And in most cases, we really hadn't done much wrong.
• 30:16
  There might be times when you're not close enough or you've missed someone's talent or you haven't spent enough time with them.
• 30:23
  But people will come and go and people will seek opportunities elsewhere.
• 30:27
  And that's just part of the nature of being in business.
• 30:30
  So getting calm about it is probably really important.
• 30:33
  But I think leaning in is a strategy that I don't think enough businesses look to, which is how do we keep supporting the people that we've already got rather than looking for people that don't work here.
• 30:45
  There's a great series of lessons in that.
• 30:48
  Let me add this.
• 30:49
  When people come to work for you, it's a little bit like children in a sense that you bring your kids up and then they leave home.
• 30:57
  No one's going to stay with you forever.
• 30:59
  Number two, like Andrew, I personally over the years, and remember I'm still running a single retail office here with a whole bunch of salespeople, so I've had this happen to me, significant people.
• 31:14
  On numerous occasions I've had people leave me that were very good operators who had been with me for a long time and they left.
• 31:23
  But number three, people I had in my office who were number six or number seven in my office when people left are now number one in my office and are much, much better than the people who left.
• 31:35
  So the trick when you're a good leader is to try and keep your income up there, even if it's like coaching for sport.
• 31:45
  Sir Alex Ferguson, that wonderful Manchester United coach, when he retired, he went to Harvard.
• 31:52
  And they got all his great lessons from coaching that he'd put together.
• 31:58
  One of the things he said in there, the years he was proudest of, was when Manchester United would win the Premier League with a B team, where his great players had gone somewhere else and they still won the competition.
• 32:12
  And I've got to say, I've had that in my business so many times.
• 32:16
  Others ride up and people leave.
• 32:18
  And I'll go back, there's no way to prevent it is the bottom line and you're going to have the pain.
• 32:23
  But just think about this if you're a leader out there.
• 32:26
  People talk about exit interviews and I've never understood exit interviews because they're going like, what's the point?
• 32:33
  But I'm a bit thick with some of the modern stuff.
• 32:36
  But you should have stay interviews, right?
• 32:39
  Now, you...
• 32:41
  If you're regularly meeting people and talking to them about stuff that's important, most of the time if you develop a good enough relationship, they'll tell you what's going on or why they're thinking or maybe of leaving or what you're not satisfying and don't get me wrong...
• 32:57
  You get it wrong all the time.
• 32:58
  And this is my great learn.
• 33:01
  It does not have much money to do commissions and split.
• 33:04
  It's usually about recognition of something somewhere.
• 33:09
  That's my observation, right?
• 33:11
  So if you're talking to them regularly...
• 33:14
  and they stay interviews with people.
• 33:16
  It doesn't stop them leaving, and sometimes they've got to leave for their growth.
• 33:20
  Andrew mentioned one other thing at the start.
• 33:22
  So many people leave, and some of them circle back to their business years later.
• 33:28
  A lot of them have got to leave.
• 33:29
  They've got to go out into the world and see what it's like out there and the grass isn't greener.
• 33:34
  No offence, anyone listening to this, most real estate offices are the same crazy places inside.
• 33:40
  They've just got a different brand, right?
• 33:43
  And it's not going to be much different going there, but good luck to you.
• 33:46
  Yeah, they would be my observations.
• 33:49
  And the last thing is this, you can survive anything.
• 33:52
  Anyway, Andrew's word about being calm, that's the essence.
• 33:57
  If you can be calm through that stuff, and your staff watch you when you're a boss.
• 34:02
  It's a bit like you're under a magnifying glass.
• 34:05
  And even if you're a bit twitchy, they'll pick it up, right?
• 34:09
  So you've got to be Dalai Lama calm most of the time, even if you're not on the inside, you know what I mean?
• 34:16
  It seems to help.
• 34:17
  Does that answer your question, Samantha?
• 34:19
  Yes, it definitely answers my questions.
• 34:22
  So what we might do is we might leave it there and I'll thank Andrew for coming on and sharing some of his wisdom and lessons with us.
• 34:30
  There's some super valuable lessons in there.
• 34:32
  So, Andrew, thank you.
• 34:33
  And thank you, Chris, for inviting Andrew along.
• 34:36
  It's a pleasure.
• 34:37
  And I want to congratulate Andrew on the job he's doing at Jealous Craig, mate.
• 34:40
  You're doing really well there.
• 34:42
  Congratulations.
• 34:43
  Thank you to you both.
• 34:44
  Thanks for having me and for your support.
• 34:46
  Chris, thanks for thinking of me.
• 34:47
  And Sam, it's been great to connect.
• 34:48
  So thanks for having me.
• 34:50
  I'll talk to you in regularly, Andrew.
• 34:51
  Have a good weekend.
• 34:52
  I'm always here for you.
• 34:52
  Thank you.