Nick Penton, Sales Agent of Barfoot & Thompson Warkworth is one of our New Zealand Changed Agents Award 2019 finalists. Nick tells us how he has engaged in a team, what he does to ensure he is evolving every day, and how he has changed his life to be able to focus on the core of his business of looking after his clients.

The biggest change I have made is going from "me" to "we". I have learnt to leverage myself and let go of control, I have engaged in a team to help with the vendor nourishment and layered my offline presence.

I am evolving every day, learning something new and trying to shift the needle. I write two blog posts a week for Facebook and Instagram, a monthly email and quarterly report. I have been working to upskill my abilities through reading Josh's daily email, listening to the podcast, joining the JP membership program and going along to listing mastery.

My team is slightly unusual in that my wife Amanda set up a business specifically called Elite Agent Support. She has two virtual assistants in the Philippines and one account manager here in NZ. I made the decision after hearing Josh speak at AREC in 2017 to engage her as a paying client for a monthly retainer (instead of expecting her to work for free!) I now get a team that can look after and nurture my vendors, do all the copywriting, vendor reports, and onboarding (sending marketing calendars, welcome emails, etc.) to getting testimonials and sending gifts out once the property has sold.

This allows me to focus on the core business of looking after my clients and doing the dollar productive real estate activities.

My favourite quote from Josh: “What’s one thing you can do today to shift the needle? GOLD keeps you back on track when you stray off target!”