Latest / Elite Agent - The Edit / Can you teach trust? John Cunningham on hiring good people

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Can you teach trust? John Cunningham on hiring good people · Elite Agent - The Edit

• 0:00
  Do you, John, believe that you can teach trustworthiness?
• 0:05
  Because I have a theory that you can't.
• 0:07
  Our level of trust deteriorate in a good market, not in a bad market.
• 0:12
  Trust is a path of a lot of resistance.
• 0:14
  It comes at a price sometimes, and it comes with massive rewards.
• 0:19
  Feedback is one of the most negative words you can ever use.
• 0:22
  Why do we spend so much time on learning how to overcome objections when we shouldn't actually have any objections?
• 0:28
  We get objections, in my view, because the public don't trust us.
• 0:33
  Well, John, I do have a business plan.
• 0:35
  It's to make a million dollars in GCI.
• 0:37
  You're probably just putting your nail in the coffin right there, Sam.
• 0:51
  Welcome everyone to another episode of The Edit from Elite Agent.
• 0:55
  I'm Samantha McLean and once again I'm joined by my co-host Chris Hanley from First National Byron Bay.
• 1:02
  Chris, good morning, how are you going?
• 1:04
  I'm well, Samantha.
• 1:05
  Very nice to join with you again.
• 1:07
  Today is a big question, and I know that's something that you're very passionate about and our next guest is passionate about, and this is about trust.
• 1:15
  So a couple of episodes ago in episode one, when we kicked this whole thing off, you said that trust in the real estate industry is at an all-time low.
• 1:24
  I've had a fair bit to say on it this year.
• 1:26
  So before we introduce John officially, you actually said to me, there's only one person in the industry I know who will speak openly about.
• 1:34
  on this topic.
• 1:35
  So why John and what do you think he understands about trust that most people miss?
• 1:40
  I've known him a long time as John Cunningham.
• 1:43
  I call John a friend.
• 1:45
  We've worked together.
• 1:47
  We often roll up or end up at the same place over the years, didn't we, John?
• 1:52
  And whether it's a conference or a dinner table or whatever else.
• 1:57
  And I know the topic of trust is close to his heart.
• 2:01
  But my evidence is he's built one of the most amazing real estate organisations and trust is the underlying tenet of that because of the culture that he's built.
• 2:11
  You can't have a great culture in real estate, impossible without a level of trust.
• 2:16
  And the trust isn't just between the agency and the buyers and sellers.
• 2:22
  The trust, more importantly, is between the leader and the team.
• 2:26
  That's all of the team, by the way, not just sections of the real estate business, which is another topic.
• 2:32
  But I know he's great at it.
• 2:34
  And I know his staff, I've had a lot to do with him over the years.
• 2:36
  He's a pivotal person in Rise, which I think now, John, I heard this week,
• 2:42
  There's been more than 15,000 people in our profession download the RealCare app, which is extraordinary and wonderful.
• 2:49
  So I can wax lyrical about all of the evidence, but he understands trust better than anyone I know in the real estate profession.
• 2:58
  That is a pretty good intro, but I'm still going to give the official one if that's okay.
• 3:03
  So John Cunningham, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Cunninghams on Sydney's Northern Beaches.
• 3:07
  More than three decades, he's built a business known for shared leadership, career pathway, service and professional standards.
• 3:14
  He served as president of REI New South Wales, received the Woodrow Weight Award for his contribution to the profession.
• 3:21
  But John, John, welcome to the show.
• 3:23
  What do you think Chris has got right about where he sees trust in the industry right now?
• 3:30
  Thanks, Sam, and thanks for the invitation, and thanks, Chris.
• 3:33
  Yeah, look, it's a double-edged sword, a trust in the industry.
• 3:38
  I'm half uplifted by seeing an increase in trust by some very, very, very good agents, and I'm...
• 3:47
  disheartened by seeing it eroded by so much others.
• 3:51
  Whether it's been that way the whole way through in my career, I'm not sure, or maybe I've just got a clearer perspective on it now.
• 3:59
  But I think there's a great divide between those that understand trust and those that don't.
• 4:05
  And I think that is in itself a conundrum, and I don't think we're going to legislate our way out of it.
• 4:12
  Yeah, that's interesting.
• 4:14
  You can't legislate character, can you?
• 4:17
  No, I mean, character's a fascinating word.
• 4:19
  I had one of my partners got a review from a client quite a few years ago.
• 4:23
  I referred this client to him, and I got an email from the guy at the end of the sale saying, and he used two critical words.
• 4:32
  He said, thank you for putting me in touch with such an honorable man of true character.
• 4:37
  And you go, wow.
• 4:39
  You know, it doesn't get...
• 4:42
  any better than that quite frankly they're words that really aren't used that frequently anymore um and maybe for reason unfortunately trust is our currency that's what we deal in and i'm interested in john's answer to this i'm not sure he used the word that character honorable man which is offense you don't sadly see those words written much about our profession
• 5:08
  But here's the thing.
• 5:10
  Do you, John, believe that you can teach trustworthiness to people?
• 5:18
  Because I have a theory that you can't.
• 5:20
  My theory is someone is trustworthy or they're not.
• 5:24
  And my whole theory has been it comes right back to recruitment and the reasons and why we recruit people.
• 5:32
  But what do you think about it?
• 5:34
  That's the first part.
• 5:35
  And the second part relates to Sam's thing, is trust something that is actions or is it words?
• 5:44
  What led those people, for example, let's start here, to call that action
• 5:49
  partner of yours, an honourable person, what did he do or she do or say that made people feel that about?
• 5:58
  them.
• 5:58
  Yeah, I think you are right in many ways that it can't be taught.
• 6:03
  I believe it's like spectrum concepts, right?
• 6:06
  You've got scale.
• 6:08
  And I'm of the belief that any given day, we're on the spectrum of some sort.
• 6:13
  We're at a one to 10 on any given day and we don't know what it's going to be.
• 6:17
  It's the same with the trust thing.
• 6:18
  I think that if there's an inherent goodness in people,
• 6:23
  that, you know, and that's, you know, what you try and find, that goodness in people.
• 6:28
  But to me, that's the base, the foundation of everything.
• 6:31
  The trust levels and that character can be developed
• 6:37
  I think that there has to be foundation.
• 6:40
  Without the foundation, people always default to second nature and therefore they fall back onto those early beliefs and early lessons that they learned in life.
• 6:51
  And if those early lessons in life were untrustworthy situations, it's almost like you can't get out of it.
• 7:00
  Something has to happen immediately.
• 7:02
  And where I think it actually does happen and when it does change, where people face either life-threatening situations or major traumas in their lives to enable them to actually have that epiphany, to have that opportunity to grow out of that.
• 7:15
  But if you're just sailing through life without those things happening,
• 7:20
  You're constantly defaulting through, and a lot of that's through fear and things like that, which is happening in this market at the moment, that people just default back and become untrustworthy because it's easier to take a path of least resistance.
• 7:35
  Trust is a path of a lot of resistance.
• 7:38
  It comes at a price sometimes, and it comes with massive rewards.
• 7:44
  But unless you understand where it sits in your psyche, in your life, and the life that you want to lead, because I think one of the problems with this industry is most agents don't actually know the life they want to lead.
• 7:56
  They know the next deal is what they want to get.
• 7:59
  And they don't understand that there's life is playing out all the way through this.
• 8:05
  And life to me, and I was fortunate to be brought up with trust, to be brought up with values, to be brought up with the things that had meaningful parts to my life and the outcomes of those lives.
• 8:17
  Therefore, it was much easier for me to just continue that journey.
• 8:24
  So, yeah, it's an interesting dilemma this industry faces because the stakes are so high and the outcomes are so high.
• 8:34
  Well, it's very interesting that you put it that way because someone actually said to me once, somebody wise, that you see who people really are when you put them under stress.
• 8:48
  Like, you know, like it's almost like everybody can be a good person when conditions are good.
• 8:55
  But then, you know, the second that you apply some pressure, then you see, you know, the whatever is real come out.
• 9:03
  And I guess, you know, that's what we might be seeing.
• 9:07
  Well, we could be seeing a little bit of in the next few months is when fear enters the office as...
• 9:14
  And I'm hearing anecdotally that it kind of is.
• 9:19
  This is when the stress almost becomes like a vicious cycle.
• 9:25
  Like people get stressed.
• 9:27
  They do things they maybe wouldn't do because they're under stress.
• 9:31
  And then they're under more stress.
• 9:35
  Like you guys are the most experienced people I know in the industry.
• 9:39
  How have you seen it play out in the past?
• 9:42
  Let's go back to pegs.
• 9:45
  John mentioned it and so have you.
• 9:48
  Let's talk about fear right now because fear and trustworthiness, trust, truth, it's all connected.
• 9:56
  Though some people will tell you which one comes first, but that's another issue.
• 10:03
  I would argue here that...
• 10:05
  The 5% figure that I gave on the first podcast wasn't my figure.
• 10:09
  It was a survey of the public about where we sit now, which is down around 5%.
• 10:15
  It's one of the lowest professions, if not the lowest profession in the country.
• 10:19
  And let's be honest here, there wasn't much fear around in recent years.
• 10:23
  People were making lots of money.
• 10:25
  So our level of trust deteriorated in a good market, not in a bad market.
• 10:31
  but that's a different matter.
• 10:32
  But let me go to the issue of fear here.
• 10:35
  Every office in the country at the moment is dealing with fear on a level probably that they haven't dealt with going back a very long time.
• 10:46
  So fear is running at all levels from bosses to leadership team to EAs and PAs.
• 10:54
  But
• 10:55
  Even more importantly, it's running through the veins of salespeople on two levels.
• 11:00
  Level number one, let's acknowledge it, is they're making less sales than they were, which means if they've got big mortgages and whatever else, that they're hugely impacted.
• 11:08
  But there's another level we don't talk about.
• 11:11
  And the other level is a lot of salespeople have bought houses the last few years in different markets around the country.
• 11:18
  And if you're highly geared, for example, to get into a house wherever you are in Sydney or Melbourne or any other areas, and you bought something for $2 million and it's now worth, I'm going to pick a figure, $1.5 million, $1.6 million, if the markets come back and you had $500,000 in that property,
• 11:35
  your equity's gone or a large portion of your equity's gone.
• 11:39
  So on two levels, this fear is operating and causing great difficulty and
• 11:47
  I would argue at the moment we need guidance to lead us out of this.
• 11:53
  And my view is the guidance will come from the wise, calm people.
• 11:57
  They don't mean to be old like John and I necessarily older.
• 12:00
  He's not as old as I am.
• 12:02
  But the guidance needs to come from the calm people who've been through this before and know one simple thing.
• 12:10
  Not only is there a way through these markets, there's a way to prosper in these markets if you know what to do and say.
• 12:19
  John, what do you think about that?
• 12:21
  Well, absolutely, Chris.
• 12:22
  I mean, I take a view that...
• 12:26
  I'm very measured around what this market's doing.
• 12:29
  And we sort of identified this at the end of last year that this was coming.
• 12:33
  We were able to prepare.
• 12:34
  We saw the writing on the wall.
• 12:38
  And so we've been able to navigate it fairly well.
• 12:42
  We've seen market share increase and those sort of things.
• 12:44
  And there's an answer to that.
• 12:45
  Therefore, well, what is it about what did you do to make that happen?
• 12:50
  And the reality is, I did an interesting study on 175 years of Australian real estate.
• 12:57
  And it showed that every 10 years, there was two to three events that occurred that had a significant impact on property and the way real estate was.
• 13:08
  And I sort of looked at what a real estate agent role was in society and so on.
• 13:11
  And it was really interesting to see these things happen.
• 13:14
  So this is just another recurring bump along the road.
• 13:19
  Every bump along the road has been different, right?
• 13:22
  And the interesting thing is the industry or the media looks as if it's like, oh, my God, it's something new.
• 13:27
  It's constant.
• 13:28
  It's part of the fabric of the economies.
• 13:32
  So therefore, to consider that this wasn't going to happen or it's not going to happen again is insanity.
• 13:39
  So the reality is this is one of those pivot moments.
• 13:41
  It's one of those recalibration moments to say, okay, what have I got to do?
• 13:46
  Now, I started my business in 1991 in the middle of the biggest recession that we've had since the Depression.
• 13:51
  And we thrived.
• 13:53
  We just took massive market share.
• 13:55
  And how did that happen?
• 13:57
  We just did real estate completely different to everyone else.
• 14:00
  We did real estate that was needed for the clients and what they needed at that time.
• 14:04
  And I think people just simply haven't changed sufficiently enough to understand what is required for clients in this market.
• 14:15
  Normally, they're in probably a 70% state of don't know what they don't know.
• 14:19
  That was a survey that we did 10 years ago.
• 14:21
  We discovered that.
• 14:23
  Now they're probably in 90% don't know what they don't know.
• 14:26
  And our job is to fill that massive gap.
• 14:30
  And that is our primary objective, to bring people from the unknown to the known so they can make decisions.
• 14:36
  Now, decisions, whether to list and sell, whether to consider an offer, all those things are decisions that we are guiding them to a place where,
• 14:44
  where they have enough information to make the best decisions.
• 14:47
  And to my view, that is simply the answer to no matter what market we're in.
• 14:51
  It's understanding our role.
• 14:53
  Guidance.
• 14:53
  I love that you use that word.
• 14:55
  I've been telling people very recently to stop using the word feedback and to start using the word guidance.
• 15:03
  It completely changes your conversation with your sellers.
• 15:07
  But more importantly, it changes your own self-esteem.
• 15:12
  Because guidance is something that an acknowledged, wise, experienced person gives to someone.
• 15:18
  Feedback's not.
• 15:20
  Feedback is one of the most negative words you can ever use.
• 15:23
  And the moment you bring it up, people know in our profession what you're going to do and say to them.
• 15:28
  John, let me ask you another question.
• 15:30
  You said something before.
• 15:32
  You said you prepared for this.
• 15:36
  By the way, there'll be people listening to this that don't know about Cunninghams.
• 15:40
  They know you.
• 15:41
  Tell people a little bit before you answer that question about how did you prepare.
• 15:45
  Tell them a little bit about your business.
• 15:47
  You've been going since 91.
• 15:49
  We know that.
• 15:50
  You've got a number of offices.
• 15:52
  How many people work there?
• 15:53
  Just give us a summary.
• 15:55
  Yeah.
• 15:55
  Sure.
• 15:56
  We've got three offices, 78 people, I think.
• 16:01
  And we've been operating, it was 35 years this year.
• 16:07
  We made a lot of decisions along the way as to what type of business we wanted to have.
• 16:12
  That was Anne and I.
• 16:13
  My wife and I started the business.
• 16:14
  We
• 16:16
  We had that classic, you know, no dickheads policy, which is a great policy to have, but you learn the hard way, you know, when you try and think you can change someone or save someone.
• 16:26
  But the reality was we've tried to create an environment where people can thrive, but to have people that we like, that are good people.
• 16:33
  We say good people get great results.
• 16:36
  And that's the thing.
• 16:37
  It's not...
• 16:39
  So it's not about just wanting more and more and more.
• 16:41
  It's just about everyone having a good life.
• 16:43
  You know, that's my whole thing.
• 16:44
  If I can make a difference to my whole team in giving those people that work for me, no matter what role they're in, an opportunity to have a great life, objective achieved.
• 16:54
  So it hasn't ever been driven by GCI.
• 16:58
  I didn't know what GCI was until I think it was James Tostevin told me about it back in 2003.
• 17:04
  He said, what's that?
• 17:05
  I've got no idea.
• 17:06
  It's never been a driver for our business.
• 17:08
  It's how can you be the best person you can and perform at your best and choose the life you want to lead.
• 17:15
  Now, I've got, as you know, some very high performers, but the objective for them and me is they have a life.
• 17:22
  You know the Georgie story, it took 12 months off and still had the best year.
• 17:27
  And how do you do that?
• 17:28
  How do you have 12 months off of traveling to Australia and have your best year in real estate?
• 17:31
  You can do things in this business that you can't do elsewhere.
• 17:34
  It's understanding that.
• 17:37
  And Georgie said, I don't care if I earn an income in that year, right?
• 17:40
  I just want to make sure my team's looked after while I'm away.
• 17:44
  And the complete opposite happened, right?
• 17:47
  It's having people around you like that that see a completely different perspective, Chris, and I think that's enabled us to then continually have a different perspective.
• 17:57
  We made a decision when we started our business that we were going to do business
• 18:01
  completely differently.
• 18:02
  And one of those things is we're going to do all the things that other people couldn't be bothered doing.
• 18:06
  In other words, shortcuts.
• 18:09
  And when we applied the OIC rule, which is observation, initiative and creativity, when you put those three things together in no matter what market, and I've revisited this with the team, which was what we said, we made that.
• 18:22
  observation that things were changing.
• 18:24
  We saw it happening in December.
• 18:25
  We went, okay, we knew this was coming.
• 18:28
  The reset was coming.
• 18:30
  We had the reset in 22 after the massive COVID boom in 21, particularly in the Northern Beaches.
• 18:35
  That was insane.
• 18:36
  We had to have a reset.
• 18:37
  We knew it was coming.
• 18:38
  We knew this was coming.
• 18:40
  So what did we do?
• 18:40
  We said, how do we take a different perspective into the market?
• 18:43
  What's the conversations we're having with people?
• 18:45
  We're going to be more selective with what we take on.
• 18:48
  and we've got to make sure our time is used wisely so it's efficient and effective in everything we do.
• 18:53
  So I suppose that's just having that, putting that lens on things at the right time is, I suppose, how we realise that.
• 19:00
  Can you pretend that I am some young whippersnapper that's ended up on your doorstep?
• 19:07
  Because I was thinking about this too.
• 19:09
  Like, you know, let's just say I've arrived in the real estate industry, I've got stars in my eyes.
• 19:15
  Cunninghams are entertaining the thought of employing me.
• 19:21
  What is the talk that you have with me as soon as I come through the door?
• 19:26
  Very good question.
• 19:28
  Yeah, and look, I actually got asked that question at a conference I was speaking at last week, and it was one of those things where, you know, there's this set thing.
• 19:36
  And the reality is it's I'm looking for the goodness in you.
• 19:41
  I want to find that goodness in you, and I'm hoping you're having a good day because, you know, I see so many people judge people on their 5% instead of their 95%, you know, because they only saw the 5%.
• 19:51
  So I'm looking for that in the questions that I'm asking.
• 19:54
  And I love Chris's concept of, you know, did you have a job at school?
• 19:57
  You know, it's like that's to me like when I heard that was like that's gold.
• 20:02
  But it is finding that goodness in how they saw their roles at where they were, what they loved about that, what their life, what are their life goals?
• 20:11
  And it's more about that, the initial thing about who they are as a person than that.
• 20:16
  And then it gets into aspirations and so on.
• 20:19
  And I'm also looking for people who are just giving me the answers they think I want to hear because the answers that they think I want to hear are not the answers I want to hear.
• 20:29
  And I make that clear to them because this is about taking you on a path.
• 20:34
  It's about this journey that we're going to go on together to see where it lands.
• 20:38
  So it is a situation where it's very bespoke.
• 20:41
  It's very much about what's...
• 20:43
  in front of me.
• 20:44
  Also what I've read in a resume, for example, I'm looking for things in there that might jump out and you can just get so much crap in a resume that you've got to wiggle your way through to get to the gold.
• 20:57
  And then I'll focus in on those elements later
• 21:00
  And I've got this, you ask anyone that sits on an interview with me, because I'm not doing the initial interviews anymore, but I'm brought in at the right time to do that.
• 21:13
  It's like, okay, we've gone past the, okay, who is this that someone that we will consider and into the consideration phase?
• 21:20
  And I ask them a simple question.
• 21:21
  Have you ever considered to write a business plan for yourself?
• 21:25
  and part of that is a life plan, you know.
• 21:28
  Have you ever thought of doing that?
• 21:29
  And people look at me blankly, you know, is there a form you're going to give me?
• 21:33
  And we're not letting people go, oh, yeah, that's the extra I have, or no, I'd love to do that.
• 21:38
  I said, because whether we employ you or not, I would suggest that you go to any interview with a business plan.
• 21:46
  In other words, what do you see...
• 21:49
  you want to achieve in the next one or two or three or five years, and what are you going to contribute?
• 21:53
  It's a classic All Blacks thing.
• 21:54
  What are you going to bring and what are you going to leave behind is a really big part of that.
• 22:00
  And so that throws some people.
• 22:02
  I've had people go, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then they go, and we never get the business plan back.
• 22:07
  and you go, yep, thank you, dodged a bullet there.
• 22:10
  If someone's not prepared to actually put pen to paper and articulate how they see their future, I don't think they're – and this is in quite a lot of roles that we do that in because I think it's important to understand what this is because we want people who want a career no matter what role they're in.
• 22:31
  I've got another question, actually.
• 22:32
  The whippersnapper's got another question.
• 22:36
  Well, no, I mean, we all know I'm not a whippersnapper.
• 22:40
  I know what it is.
• 22:42
  You are when you sit with us, Samantha.
• 22:44
  I'm going to get back into the role of the whippersnapper and say, well, John, I do have a business plan.
• 22:48
  It's to make a million dollars in GCI.
• 22:50
  Okay, great.
• 22:51
  Thank you.
• 22:53
  Well, that's great, Sam.
• 22:54
  I'm glad you've actually thought that out.
• 22:57
  And, you know, I'd love to help you achieve that objective.
• 23:01
  But put that aside.
• 23:03
  Now, let's talk about, you know, what you want to achieve in your life.
• 23:07
  I'm going to switch it around because if someone ever comes to me and all they want to do is make money, I'm just most likely not interested because if that's their driving force, it's a hollow driving force in my view.
• 23:20
  And this is maybe what's kept my business smaller than it could be.
• 23:25
  And I'm quite comfortable with that because, and look, if someone does it and they think that's what I want to see, and it might not be what drives them.
• 23:34
  I want to find that out.
• 23:35
  It's not like I'm dismissing it.
• 23:36
  It's simply the fact that it's great to see that you have your business goals quite clearly set.
• 23:42
  Now let's discover more about you.
• 23:45
  And often when you do that sort of thing, people go, oh, great.
• 23:50
  Because if I'm going to help you achieve that objective, there's a life journey that you're going to go on.
• 23:55
  And it's going to have lots of ups and downs and it's going to be lots of learnings along the way.
• 24:00
  Are you someone that is actually wanting to learn?
• 24:05
  Because if you're not wanting to learn, you are going to absolutely struggle to achieve any goals, let alone the million dollars GCI.
• 24:13
  I've already learned everything.
• 24:16
  I watch TikTok.
• 24:17
  Great, fantastic.
• 24:18
  That's great.
• 24:19
  I mean, look, you probably just put your nail in a coffin right there, Sam.
• 24:26
  So what's interesting too is if you're doing an interview and you're getting this arrogance or this I know stuff from someone who knows nothing, you have got a – that is just –
• 24:39
  red lights going off at a million miles an hour.
• 24:41
  If they're not smart enough to go to an interview to actually come out and have learned something, boy, oh, boy, you're going to struggle.
• 24:48
  As I said, people don't know actually how to learn.
• 24:52
  In real estate particularly, I did a talk recently and there was 20 people in the room and not one of them had a notepad and pen.
• 25:01
  So...
• 25:02
  You go, hang on.
• 25:03
  Whereas I was over in New Zealand the week before that doing the same talk and in a room full of 100 people and there was probably 80 people taking notes.
• 25:12
  But the question I want to ask is for the principal who's sitting here listening to this thinking, oh, my God, I've recruited three of those whippersnappers that Sam was pretending to be.
• 25:24
  What advice would you give them right now?
• 25:28
  I'd get them to read a book.
• 25:31
  First, the book's called Give and Take.
• 25:35
  And the book was written by a guy called Professor Adam Grant.
• 25:39
  The truth is the complete opposite.
• 25:41
  So the first thing I would say is read the book because the book's going to tell you one simple thing.
• 25:46
  The contrary in our profession in particular to the theory that there is only one type of person who succeeds in real estate, there's actually not one.
• 25:57
  There's multiple types of people.
• 25:59
  But that the good humans, good humans,
• 26:04
  can be the best salespeople.
• 26:06
  Their path might be different.
• 26:08
  If you look in real estate and you go around in the different areas and you look, there'll be people who are at the top who you wouldn't call givers, they're takers, and good luck to them.
• 26:19
  They're not wrong, this is not a right or wrong answer,
• 26:23
  But there's equally, and I work with one.
• 26:26
  My business partner is Sue Reynolds, who's one of the most amazing salespeople I've ever met in our part of the world, has been the top agent for a very long period of time.
• 26:37
  And she's the biggest giver I've ever seen.
• 26:39
  And I know John's business is full of givers because I know some of them.
• 26:43
  The second thing I would say to some people here who are looking to do a recruitment broadly is that givers generally stay in a business with you.
• 26:59
  They are magnificent around the topic of culture.
• 27:02
  They share and give their time and energy to the other people.
• 27:07
  And I use this phrase.
• 27:10
  You can find good people and teach them to sell, but you can't find salesmen and teach them to be good.
• 27:17
  And I'll go right back to what John said.
• 27:20
  That's my premise.
• 27:21
  The third and last thing for me on that topic is you won't always get it right.
• 27:26
  And you just never will.
• 27:29
  There's a knowing in here.
• 27:30
  We'll circle back and I'll give you some questions to ask people, but you'll get it wrong sometimes, even if everything looks and smells and feels right and all the boxes are ticked and you've missed something on the way through a week or two weeks later, someone says something to you and you realise that the recruitment process
• 27:52
  They knew what to do and say.
• 27:54
  Like when you've been around as long as I have, people read about you.
• 27:58
  So when I interview them, they say things to me.
• 28:01
  Now, I know why that thing is in their answers, but you still get caught sometimes.
• 28:08
  Maybe you sometimes want it to be right when it isn't as well, but...
• 28:14
  I guess the final thing I'll say there is there's no mistake I have made in recruitment.
• 28:19
  I've made every mistake in recruitment.
• 28:22
  100% made.
• 28:22
  I mean, I try and save people as well.
• 28:24
  You know, it's sort of like, oh, I'm their saviour.
• 28:26
  I can be their saviour.
• 28:27
  And look, people who are good people...
• 28:30
  but simply are not hunters.
• 28:33
  And in this business, you know, there's the role for the nurturer, there's the role for the sage, there's a role for everyone.
• 28:38
  But if you are looking for a salesperson, a person who is going to have to be capable of closing sales, closing listings, because that becomes the concept of the more, the more.
• 28:53
  The more you put into something, being the giver, the more that you get out of it.
• 28:57
  Do you think we could have a part two?
• 28:59
  Yes, and look, and insights.
• 29:00
  I mean, you know, the reality of, I've got this great question for the industry.
• 29:05
  Real estate should be really easy.
• 29:07
  Why do we make it so hard?
• 29:10
  And my second question for the industry is, why do we spend so much time on learning how to overcome objections when we shouldn't actually have any objections?
• 29:17
  This is really interesting stuff about how hard we make it when people are just failing to front end everything they need to do with a client.
• 29:27
  They're waiting for stuff to happen to sort things out rather than actually resolving everything from day one.
• 29:33
  And that in itself is a fascinating concept that when you – for when I started in the industry, it was –
• 29:43
  It was so easy.
• 29:44
  And I'm not saying it was easy times.
• 29:46
  It was easy because I just asked one simple question to everyone I do with, how can I help you?
• 29:51
  I think the thing you've just brought up there is priceless.
• 29:53
  Why are we doing overcoming objections when we shouldn't have in the first place?
• 29:58
  A good friend or a friend, someone I know very well a few years ago, had been given a really bad diagnosis by three separate doctors.
• 30:05
  The diagnosis was so bad that the person was ready to give up.
• 30:10
  This is the short version.
• 30:12
  And someone, if they knew well, recommended they go to another doctor.
• 30:18
  So that's doctor number four.
• 30:21
  They went to the fourth doctor.
• 30:23
  The fourth doctor gave a different prognosis.
• 30:27
  And the person believed it, had the operation and is still alive today.
• 30:32
  And I couldn't resist asking one question.
• 30:36
  Why did you trust that person after you'd been with all the others?
• 30:41
  And my view about the answer to the question about objections and so on is we got objections because they don't trust us.
• 30:50
  Right.
• 30:50
  This guy, Dr. Four, I said, what was it?
• 30:54
  He just said to me the way he talked to me.
• 30:58
  I knew from about the second or the third sentence that I could trust this person.
• 31:04
  I put my life in their hands and I was 100.
• 31:07
  It was a knowing in my guts.
• 31:10
  And here's the thing.
• 31:10
  We get objections, in my view, because the public don't trust us because it's
• 31:17
  In all our coaching and training, instead of overcoming objections, in my view, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 31:24
  What we should be focused on in real estate is teaching people how to listen and talk much more effectively to other human beings.
• 31:33
  You can go to school, 11,000 hours or something it is you do, the school time in your life, and no one teaches you how to talk and how to listen and how to communicate and how to connect.
• 31:46
  And they're all skills, but they're the most important ones.
• 31:49
  If I could ask you both one question to wrap this up, that is we've talked a lot today about the idea of trust and the idea of recruiting good people and what to look for when you're recruiting good people.
• 32:05
  If there was one thing that you could leave people with from this conversation or one piece of advice, what would that be?
• 32:13
  I'll start with John.
• 32:15
  I would say actually understand exactly what the role is and what you need from the person and the type of person because often –
• 32:25
  you're sitting in front of someone who's simply not the right person for that role, but is potentially the right person for another role.
• 32:34
  And, but to make that clear that, that I know what we're after, but also look at what this potential is in this person.
• 32:44
  And, you know, we've, we've filled roles recently, um,
• 32:47
  from people that, like, you know how roles can appear from a person.
• 32:53
  You know, you go, this is a person we need in this business, right?
• 32:58
  So not only do we have this role to fill, but this person may not be right for it, but this person needs to be in our business.
• 33:03
  How do we make that happen?
• 33:05
  So that, I think, is a growth mindset of having that into play.
• 33:10
  So go into that knowing what you need, but also look at the person, what their potential is.
• 33:14
  Great answer.
• 33:15
  And Chris?
• 33:15
  Okay, I'll cut it quickly into two pieces.
• 33:18
  If it's a sales position, I'll give you the word in one word, it's their motor.
• 33:25
  It's their motor.
• 33:26
  I went to Vietnam years ago, wandered around.
• 33:29
  The whole city in Hanoi is about bikes with little two-stroke engines, but they go all day.
• 33:35
  At the end of the day, if you could...
• 33:38
  open people up and see the motor doesn't need to be big.
• 33:41
  It just needs to keep going.
• 33:43
  So if it's sales, but it's also in sales about overcoming stuff.
• 33:48
  Uh, and if people have stories in their life where they've had challenges and they've overcome them, they're two very, very, very good things that you can know from the get go, because I don't care how good you are when you start in the sales part of real estate.
• 34:04
  Um,
• 34:04
  you're not going to get famous for a few years.
• 34:07
  You're just not, right?
• 34:09
  And sorry.
• 34:10
  And you've got to do your time and you don't give up and all of those things.
• 34:14
  Yeah, great idea.
• 34:15
  John, thank you for joining us.
• 34:17
  Chris, thank you for joining me once again.
• 34:19
  Everyone, this has been The Edit.
• 34:21
  We will be back with a new episode next week.
• 34:24
  Thanks, Sam.
• 34:25
  Thank you, John.
• 34:26
  Thank you.
• 34:26
  Thanks, Chris.