Movers And Shakers - Mastering 2025.

That's the secret to business excellence. Staying out in front, keeping things simple, looking for what's ahead, and choosing the game-winning strategy.

You're either playing offence, defence, or a good mixture of both. Here are some of the biggest areas for success in the next 90 days as we close out 2024.

Get Planning

Melbourne Cup, the first Tuesday in November, is the psychological turn when we stop listing for 2024 and start our campaign for 2025 listings. Write up a T-chart with 24 on one side and 25 on the other. Ring everyone for 2025 campaigns and list as many as you can for a Boxing Day launch. The first opens in 2025 will be on Saturday, January 11, then the 18th and 25th, with the first auctions on Saturday, February 1 and then the 8th.

The sooner you start the flywheel momentum of opens and auctions, the quicker your business moves. In Australia in 2025, we've got Easter in April and a Federal Election no later than the end of May. That means you need to make huge momentum happen in January, February, and March; otherwise, April and May have the very real risk of high turbulence.

If you start post-Australia Day (January 26) or Waitangi Day in New Zealand (February 6), you'll lose 4-5 really good weekends, and the first half of 2025 will have immense pressure. Relieve the pressure, and get your team to go on holiday earlier in December and come back earlier in January. We lose consumer focus every day from the Melbourne Cup into Christmas. Smart business owners have teams finishing with their final Saturday on December 14, then a second set of team members on holiday after Saturday, December 21.

Plenty of great time to enjoy an Australasian summer. Mobile phones have changed everything. We no longer go on holidays; we live in our digital lives every day, business or not. Searches online boom over the holiday period as people have nothing to do. With the 14-day refresh of listings, it makes sense to launch on Boxing Day, with a refresh just before January 10 to the top of the search results. You can resist it all you want, but exceptional businesses are planning much healthier cash flow by being nimble, reading the play, and changing long-held beliefs that are no longer useful.

Huge changes to Land Tax in Victoria, a 70% increase in the cost of mortgages, new rental legislation, changes to AirBNB, and a volatile global economy are playing havoc on market conditions. Second home or holiday markets are in trouble. The wealth effect is gone; the money from Sydney and Melbourne has left, so now only the locals are buying up, and they are hard on price. Make sure you know what's going on in your market so you can provide better advice. Like a lifeguard, they write up the conditions of the day. So, too, should you. Fully brief your team on what they need to do to work the market of the day.

Consider:

- Better buyer work - bringing buyers through from previous campaigns in the last 12 months.

- Work market appraisals in the range before; i.e. ring all three-bedroom appraisals when you list a four-bedroom home. If they like it, you find a buyer and a seller all in one.

- Know where the opportunity is. If you have large amounts of expired listings, create an expired listing marketing program. Many of the portals offer incentives for re-listing properties that have not sold within the last six months.

- Use SQM's Total Property Listings chart to work out what's happening in your market. In Daylesford in regional Victoria, close to 85% of the listings have been on the market for more than 90 days, with a significant proportion over 180 days. There are no expired listings in Balmain on the inner city fringe of Sydney. Know your market so you know what to do next.

Price Reductions + Workflow

We're now facing an entire generation of agents who have never had to do a price reduction in their careers. Most seem to think you just email and SMS that there's been a price change and turn up on Saturday, hoping it works.

When markets get tough, you return to the relationships that matter. Here's a few things:

1. Get better at buyer matching. Most CRMs are hopeless at it because buyers change their search criteria dynamically. Instead, review all campaigns in the last 12 months. Which properties would a similar buyer have walked through? Call every single buyer and see if they still have an appetite to purchase. Then, arrange for two agents and two buyers to attend a private appointment at the same time. There's nothing quite like the feeling of creating competition.

2. Contact all the buyers who've been through the campaign. Advise that you have a 'new price' that represents great value. What would it take for them to view the home again?

3. Work on that data. Get creative. Call the market appraisals in the price range before.

4. Then get to marketing, bumps, emails, social collaborations, etc. Remember the golden rule: You must get a buyer to the home within 24 hours so they link price reduction equals buyer activity.

Distressed Sale. Owners must sell. Owners moved overseas. Price reduced. Owners motivated. Owner says must sell. Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. Price Adjustment. Price improvement.

None of this communicates value; it all communicates desperation. It's better to use simple language. Remember, sellers are watching what you do with every campaign.

I prefer 'new price' or 'new price guide'.

It lets you move up and down on price.

Team Alignment

I take a team of three, hand them each a piece of paper, and ask them to write down their team's annual target for listings, sales, and income. Not once has any team been able to come up with the same numbers.

Why does it matter?

They measure everything in Formula 1. The team manager needs to see how fast they are going for each lap, how much fuel they have, etc. The same is true in business. If you don't know the numbers, how can you quickly react to improve business performance?

When you look at numbers, there are three that really drive performance: buyer appointments, market appraisals and listing presentations.

Why would an agent book plenty of buyer appointments and never get a market appraisal?

Because they don't ask the question:

'Have you bought locally before?'

'What are your plans with the existing?'

'Any chance I can come and see it?'

Why would an agent book plenty of market appraisals and never get a listing presentation? Because they never develop the client and their problem.

'If you did sell, why would you?'

'What would you do next?

'What would you need to see, feel or experience to have the confidence to do it now?'.

Why would an agent book plenty of Listing Appointments and never win a listing? They're just not that good in the listing lounge room.

If you want a team to grow, you need to de-risk the business of a key person and get more people doing the work that really matters.

Clearance, Strike Rate and Efficiency

Most agents are used to a market where they list four and sell 4. In the next 12 months, you'll see more withdrawn listings than we've seen in the last five years. As Governments play with property taxation policy, there are significant shifts with reluctant sellers.

On a recent speaking tour of the UK, we found one client that for every 100 properties they listed, 50 would get to offer and acceptance, and only 20 would ever settle. In Australasia, we'd be closer to 90%. The skill is to dial up your sales process as conditions change. Add in the number of properties that have had a price reduction in the last seven days, showing the % or $ amount in your vendor reports.

Then we head to strike rate.

Just how effective in the lounge room are you? Most agents would know their strike rate this week. How many listing presentations did you go to this week? And how many signed an agency agreement? Went to 2, listed one, 50% strike rate. But it's fascinating what happens when you look at that on an annual basis. Improving from a one-in-2 to a 3-in-4 strike rate radically shifts the quality of your work.

Then Efficiency.

This number is hard to track. How many market appraisals do you need to get a listing presentation? Lead agents probably don't do many market appraisals as what they go to tends to list. New agents, however, do plenty.

When you engineer the numbers backwards, most are shocked at how small improvements in clearance, strike rates and efficiency can change the daily requirement for appointment numbers.

Look for the areas of improvement and watch your business thrive.

It's time for a performance review.

As you close out the final quarter of 2024, review the numbers. Data provides great insights as to what's really working.

Here are the three areas we look at:

1. Prospecting

Review every listing won this year. How did we meet the seller? And what did we do to get them to the market?

2. Listing

If we asked every seller within 24 hours of signing an agency agreement, why did they make the decision to use us? If it boiled down to one reason, what would it be? Use that to make up the three reasons why someone should use you. Don't make it hard; make it easy for people to choose you.

3. Clearance

Review every successful campaign this year; what made it successful? Find the common elements, like pricing, marketing and sales strategy. Look at all the campaigns that didn't go well; what went wrong and why? Fix the issues and get your business moving fast.

This is a dynamic market where great agents thrive. This is the market that makes industry leaders. It's time to get strategic; it's time to get back to your best.

Our training calendar of events for 2025 is now live. Let's make the future happen together.