Ep 211 – Special Edition – Part 1 – Live from The IVY Ballroom at LSN19

In today’s podcast, Josh and Alexander talk about the most important lessons in 2019 and the challenges Alexander faces in the lounge room. We talk about how to become customer-obsessed and what to pitch to set you apart.

How to be Positive

Positive task orientation tells us how to play at our best and recover quickly. Most of all you’ve got to know how to be positive, and in my Coaching Tip this week I’ll tell you a number of easy ways to do that.

Remember as an agent that people buy your energy, so feeling at your best is valuable. When challenges and obstacles come at you, like the changes and conditions in the market right now, you need to know how to get through them.

Every day you have to be working your pipeline, now and well into the future. The way to do that is through consistently performing a few fundamental individual actions. I’ll tell you why you need to follow a daily routine, and step you through my own.

It’s especially important to know how to keep going when all of your positive emotions are suddenly gone. I’ll give you an example of how to be positive when nothing is working out for you. The secret is to learn to get yourself back on track and being You again.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 210 – Finishing Strong and Kicking Off 2020 Now

This High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips on finishing strong in 2019 and then kicking off for 2020. Josh looks at changes in conditions and getting sidetracked in the last months of the year, and knowing what you need to do next. Alex tells how to get on it quickly so you have plenty of stock to begin 2020, and he shares some of his own plans and goals for driving into the new year.

Josh states that however you end the last 6 months of this year, and how you start in the first 6 months of the next year, will make a massive difference to what you can do for the rest of 2020. Start thinking about it now so you can build consistency and momentum to get the results you deserve.28

Being an Infinite Learner

When you think about all the skillsets you must master as an agent, you’ll begin to realise the functional roles you play. In my Coaching Tip this week I’ll give you reasons for being an infinite learner. You’ll be shocked by what you don’t actually know.

There are five basic key skills that will enhance your value proposition and rapidly change the game for your business and your customers. What those things depend on your specific situation and I’ll give you some examples for comparison.

Inside of all businesses, there’s either a know-it-all culture or a learn-it-all culture. Of course, to know and not to do is really not to know at all – it just ends right there. You want to learn it all because learning is active, and that’s how you grow.

Learning to learn is the most important part and I’ll give you several resources you can use immediately to start that process. When you’re truly successful you don’t have to tell anyone. Being an infinite learner makes you an incredibly valuable person, and it shows.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 209 – Direction Meetings for Productivity

Today’s High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips on ultimate productivity and what it takes to reach it. Josh starts discussion around starting to scale by putting on the first assistant, he outlines the elements of the daily directions meeting and emphasises having intent inside of your business. Alex steps up with the need for direction so your people know what to do and why they’re doing it, and he tells how he does this every day with his team. He also describes how that lack of direction shows, and it reflects badly on your business.

Josh points to the advantages of having that direction in place and operating, and what his company has been doing with teams they’ve been coaching. He’s adamant around getting clear on what you want out of each day and your team will build and drive momentum.

Fuelling Vendor Expectations

Conditions change, and as an agent, you need to adapt, so in this week’s Coaching Tip I’m talking about the challenge of fuelling vendor expectations around pricing with the best information.

The media is both your best friend and your worst foe. Everyone in the media has an opinion about the economy and there’s a ton of conflicting information. When customers read about exceptional property sales results in the media their expectations grow.

As an agent, you have to learn where the economy is actually going and know what to do next. I’ll tell you some of the great things that are happening and also about some turbulence that lies ahead.

Get prepared now for ways the media will be fuelling vendor expectations. I’ll give you some tips to guide your approach, but just make sure you’re tuned in to what’s really happening in the marketplace and stay ready to adapt day to day, play by play.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

What problem are you solving? How to set yourself free and scale so you can successfully serve more customers.

The problem is not the problem, the way you think about the problem, that’s the problem. 
In a world that’s speeding up, where the relentless pace is taking its toll, and people are struggling to align today’s urgent actions with a bigger future, there has to be a guiding light. That guiding light is having a bigger future view. When you’re clear about what you want, 25 years from now, then one question sets you free. Will this or won’t this get me to where I want to go?
The secret to sustained performance is to amplify what works. To do that you have to build an environment where better thinking survives and thrives. The challenge for many is they are flying too close to the financial borderline between scarcity and abundance.
From our work with the most progressive agents, they have one trait in common. That trait is to pay themselves and their future plans first. They do that by taking their monthly costs to operate as a successful human, then they times that by three and have that on hand for the rest of their career.
Let’s say your monthly costs are $10,000 a month that means at $30,000 in your savings account you feel good and out in front, at $29,999 the panic sets in. Watch what happens when we times it by 10, and now you have $100,000 in your savings account. All of a sudden, you become bulletproof because each decision is easy to make when you have cash. Cash gives you choices. I take people from below the safety line to the entrepreneurial line as quickly as possible by establishing some basic financial prudence.
Simple things like taking 10% of every $1 you earn and placing it in a lifetime savings account, it’s peace of mind money. I then get them to set up:
  1. Tax savings account and ensure there is a weekly deduction into that account, so there are no surprises when tax falls due.
  2. Holiday savings account with weekly deductions so you can get enough time out and away from the game.

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When you’re moving from you to a team, its a scary jump, but it doesn’t have to be. If you want to serve more customers, it’s either a system or a person, and the easiest way to get systems is to put that person on. Quickly you refine what you do, and you gain instant leverage. You start moving everything that’s on a computer to your assistant and everything that; ‘s client-facing and prospecting to you. The best way to start is to retain $15,000 in an assistant savings account. That way, you’ve got the first 12 weeks of income set aside, allowing you to focus on building a formidable team.
When you scale, the question, is it a system or a person forces you to look at technology to scale the effort to serve more customers. For us, six essential apps change the game in building a winning team.
Slack – think to reduce internal email by 90%. It allows you to communicate across your team, on mobile or desktop, based on context. It makes searching easy, allows automation from your existing systems and provides an executive overview on everything that’s happened in your business during the day. My team places direct messages to me in slack; anything life-threatening is a text message. We have a channel set up called JP Decisions and anything they need me to make a decision on goes in that channel. By the start of every business day, a decision is made. This prevents wastage, speeds up decision making and empowers your team members.
Asana – There’s plenty available, including Trello and Monday.com. Asana allows us to specify the tasks in key projects we need to get done. It keeps everyone aligned and allows us to repeat projects and activities with consistent results.
Evernote – A simple note-taking tool. The one feature we love is being able to start a stack of notebooks. You create a stack of journals, set aside for specific people or client work. It allows you to find your notes as you go about your work quickly.
Miro – This is my favourite brainstorming and ideas platform. It’s an electronic whiteboard and is awesome to draw relationships between ideas before they get to the project stage. Excellent for working through workflow improvement.
Amazon Notes – I read a lot and love Amazon Notes. It allows you to export your highlights from your Kindle, so then you can use those notes. Awesome to provide summaries of what you’ve taken from each book you read.
Typeform – This has been a game-changer for us as we take our manual forms and make them electronic. We then take that data and push it into the various systems we use, so there’s no double handling. It allows us to collect information from customers at scale.
The best way to build a better system is to do it manually first before you add the technology. For me, manual forms allow you to work out what works before you produce the electronic ones on apps like Typeform.
We live in an era where everything is a subscription, so before you know it, you can have app bloat, with little usage. Check for engagement and that each app is serving its purpose to allow your team to serve more customers more often successfully. We hold a broken systems session each week for 10 minutes where the team puts forward systems that are broken, need work or have low usage. Then we go about putting in solutions once we’ve identified the problem we’re solving.
And that’s the problem. What problem are you solving? Make it a good one.

Ep 208 – Flat markets and how to work in them

In this High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents, Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips discuss learning to be an agent for all markets. Josh explains the 10 year trend line and what we’re seeing today in our current flatter market. Alex weighs in on whether it’s a long term trend or short term blip in the market, drivers that contribute to the situation, the significance of lifestyle aspirations, and what has insulated the east coast market. Josh digs deeper into lifestyle and life cycle changes as motivators and old-style real estate service opportunities.

They discuss some of the foremost concerns today such as Brexit and environmental uncertainties that affect the real estate marketplace. Josh tells why a flat market is a good market, and he emphasises the need to present properties at their best.

Wealth Creation

What do you really want to create in this one wild life that you’ve got? In my Coaching Tip this week we’re talking about wealth creation and that’s what you’re here for, what success looks like, and how you’ll know when you’ve achieved it.

The reality is, there’s no ceiling to what you can earn in this industry, but there’s also no floor. It’s not about the hours you spend – it’s the skill you bring to listing and selling that gets you the income you need.

I’ll talk about how to get long-term perspective on what’s really important. As a great agent, buying property is the way you begin to work on your own long-term wealth creation.
It’s about buying into the business you work in and owning income producing assets.

I believe it’s a real travesty for an agent who gives real estate advice to clients every day to have never purchased property themselves. I’ll tell you how my own experience buying investment properties has made a difference in my career success from the start.

The importance of wealth creation is that when you have backup cash you have more choices and few worries towards making those critical investments. I’ll tell you how to get started and then you’ll be on your way to building a bigger future for you and your family.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 207 – What To Do When Volume Shrinks

This High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips on primary and secondary markets and expanding the size of your market when volume shrinks. Josh notes that agents have to decide how they want to grow, and he outlines the characteristics of primary and secondary markets. Alexander continues with things you can do to be able to go after more markets more often, the importance of getting branding right, and being knowledgeable when you do a listing presentation.

Josh shares the secret to becoming an agent of all markets, how that positioning gives you more advantages and flexibility than specialisation does, and he advises growing your market share so that no matter what happens you can always write the numbers you need.