Ray White’s 12th call-a-thon hit a new level this week with more than 8,700 appraisals booked across Australasia, powered by NurtureCloud, the group’s cutting edge proptech platform.
NurtureCloud uses machine learning, data automation and market intelligence to help agents generate leads and improve the overall performance of their real estate businesses.
Appraisals are the lifeblood of real estate and Ray White holds its Real Estate of Origin days three times a year to create friendly rivalry and banter between the states and New Zealand.
New Zealand claimed bragging rights this year with a whopping 2498 appraisals, closely followed by Queensland with 2363, and NSW/ACT on 1469.
The top agent winner was the unstoppable Damian Portaro of Ray White Mildura who logged 161 appraisals and the top office was Ray White Whangarei | Tutukaka in New Zealand with 428 appraisals.
No one other single group could drum up 8,700 plus appraisals in four hours which will ensure the group is set up for spring.
Ray White Head of Recognition and Performance Bianca Denham (pictured above) hosted the webinar from Sydney’s Royal Randwick Racecourse in front of more than 350 agents and associates.
Ms Denham said it’s been wonderful to watch, not only how important this event has become to the network, but also how important it’s become to the corporate team.
“Several of our corporate leaders have really embraced this tool as a critical driver to engage with the network and bring teams together to energise what is arguably the hardest part of being a real estate agent,” she said.
“The New Zealand team have been strong supporters of this program for some time, with the whole corporate team engaging collectively to encourage businesses and agents to get involved with the world’s biggest prospecting session.
“Since then, the Queensland team has hosted four events engaging multiple businesses coming together to compete in a large off-site venue.
“NSW/ACT have hosted their second event with 350 agents coming together at Royal Randwick, and Victoria and Tasmania have also created their first collective event at The Taylors Lakes Hotel.
“I spoke to several leaders today who had agents who were starting their first week in real estate participating in a mega group prospecting session, learning from our best agents – what better training could you ask for?
“The camaraderie between offices coming together to make calls side-by-side is one of the best things about our network. We love coming together to learn and share and this event is no different.”
Real estate coach Tom Panos (pictured above) reminded all the agents gathered at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney about the 30 day rule.
“Remember this, what you do in the next 30 days affects the next 90 days. So don’t stress, just make the call. Prospecting is learning the art of gentle interruption,” Mr Panos said.
“Until you become a top agent like David Walker from Upper North Shore or Josh Tesolin of Quakers Hill, where clients prospect you, you prospect them until you become an agent of attraction you need to hustle.
“You don’t have to be good but you have to be fair. You have got to be grateful to work in this industry, be human. There’s some people in this room who earn more than Anthony Albanese at 25 years of age without a uni degree. So prospect now.
“Right now is the most important four weeks of the year, so get on track and make the calls,” Mr Panos said.
He also reminded all the agents that “being famous on Instagram is like being rich in Monopoly, it doesn’t matter in the real world.”
“Great agents ask questions, rookies ask questions. Make prospecting a scheduled activity in your diary. You can prospect every day if you have a phone and you have numbers then you are in business.”
Mr Panos congratulated Ray White for organising the Real Estate of Origin series.
“Sessions like this are not normally loved by real estate people, because it’s where the real work happens,” he said.
“But what has surprised me is the strong attendance by Ray White agents here, which says to me, they understand the value of prospecting.”
“This will ensure Ray White has a strong spring. In real estate there is a lag effect, the conversations you have in winter are the listings you have in spring.”
Ray White Quakers Hill principal Josh Tesolin (pictured above) reiterated that frequency builds trust.
“If you continually add value and be consistent, then frequency builds trust. In my office, we show homes seven days a week. Anyone who does one open home a week is dead set lazy. People who come are either the neighbours having a sticky beak or serious buyers but either way you are adding more data,” Mr Tesolin said.
Mr Tesolin told the agents in Sydney that you just need one sale to get rolling.
“One sale, you get a buyer, one sale and you’re off, you get a buyer review, you get a seller review, you get a sold photo with both. You can get a buyer testimonial, you can get a seller testimonial, you can invite the neighbourhood to the auction, you can send them all the auction sold data. One client can lead to 20 pieces of content,” he said.
“My office, obviously we do high volume, we’ll sell 600 houses this year, and with that volume I’ll post on social media 15 times a day. However, if you’re in an office where you’re selling, let’s say one a month or two a month you still got one or two bits of content you can still leverage.”
“Three years ago I had never ever done an auction. Now the leads come to me because I’ve got a lot of fishing rods out there as I am an attraction agent and I get a lot of business in. But if I had no listings I would target the withdrawn listings. I’d be door knocking them four times a day.”
“All my friends are in Mykonos or Bali right now but guess what those real estate agents are missing a whole month but I could never do that.”
Ray White Albury North managing director Andrea Lever, who had four of her team with her in Sydney, said she loved the vibe of Real Estate of Origin.
“I have been at Ray White for 15 years, and I know continual training is the most important thing we do. It gives my team and I motivation and inspiration. I have always supported training. I think that if you don’t attend these events, you get stale,” Ms Lever said.
“You really need to embrace these sessions as it encourages us to be better versions of ourselves.
“Appraisals are our lifeline. It’s all about making the calls.”
Former professional rugby player, and Ray White Lower North Shore agent Ross Nesdale said he loved Tom Panos’ session in Sydney.
Mr Nesdale, who played for the Irish national rugby team for four years in his 20s, also then worked as a coach for the New Zealand All Blacks for three years, said there was a lot of crossover with rugby and real estate.
“Tom was great to listen to and David Walker’s session on dialogue was very helpful. “There’s a great energy in the room and it was totally worth getting up early for,” said the Mosman-based agent.
“I transitioned late in life to real estate, but rugby requires some of the same skills such as tenacity, discipline and resilience. If you do the training, then you bring it on game day.
“It is also a long game because the calls we make today won’t come to fruition for some time.
‘The calls we make over the next few days will generate business over the next 90 days.”
“Like rugby, real estate requires you to be uncomfortable. It’s not rocket science, but it requires discipline and optimism.”
With more than 20 years in the group, Ray White Baulkham Hills principal Darren Dowd said he deeply valued days like Real Estate of Origin.
“Days like today are important for the team, particularly to keep them all motivated. There’s a lot of team camaraderie. We have always run an appraisal day inside our office, with prizes. For a principal, appraisals are trackable. Appraisals are the lifeblood of our business.
“I have one guy in the office who is doing big numbers, but he comes in at 8am to 9am every day and does 20 calls. So he does 100 for the week. Schedule your calls, block out the time in your diary.”
Elsewhere, with the Story Bridge in the background, more than 100 Ray White Queensland members from across 10 different offices charged up their phones ready for the Real Estate of Origin call-a-thon.
With a record 103 offices registered in the state, Ray White Queensland CEO Jason Andrew emphasised the importance of Real Estate of Origin.
“There is no more important day in our calendar than Real Estate of Origin,” he said.
“What we see is a spike in listings two month
To kickoff, CEO of Ray White Concierge, the group’s national client care and database management business, Kelly Tatlow (pictured above) gave everyone in the room a few tips on how to get the most out of every phone call.
“When customers answer the phone or listen to your messages and call you back, what do they want out of the conversation? They want value so there’s a mismatch between what you want and what they want, so what do you do?,” Ms Tatlow said.
“If you give them something, they are more likely to give you something back. That could be in the form of information about their market, recent sales or auction results.
“What you need to achieve is to develop relationships with the people in your database. They may not give you an appraisal today but you want to be able to speak to them in a month, six months or in a year’s time.
“When it comes time for them to sell, they will be calling you and you will be their agent of choice.”
The theme of the day was Drive to Survive and for every three appraisals, agents were invited to take three laps on one of the Formula One racing simulators (pictured below).
Ray White Ascot agent Nick Roche topped the F1 simulator leaderboard with a winning lap time of 55.743 seconds.
“It’s been a great day. When we are doing these events here, we do really see a few months afterwards that good things do happen, listings come up and we get more opportunities,” he said.
Last time for Real Estate of Origin, I had a really good day and off the back of that I had a few really good months, it isn’t a coincidence that we do these calls and good things happen.
“So much of the time, I feel like we waste key prospecting time. Prospecting time is the number one thing that people push away from, maybe because they don’t like it, but it’s part of the business and appraisals are the number one, key part of the business.”
Ray White Sherwood | Graceville sales executive Kim Duong (pictured below) said she thoroughly enjoyed the day.
“It’s been really fun to be surrounded by colleagues in my office and also all the other offices as well,” she said.
“I’ve learned a lot seeing how everyone makes phone calls in terms of dialogue.
“It’s great to be surrounded by like minded individuals and seeing firsthand the impact NurtureCloud has on everyone and how many leads it’s able to generate.
“A bit of friendly competition to get to the top of the leaderboard has been great, it’s definitely very motivating.”
Jackson Roberts (pictured below right with fellow associate Alastar See) from Ray White New Farm said Real Estate of Origin was a great opportunity to get together as a team.
“We’re able to motivate each other and hit the phones to see what opportunities we can create,” he said.
“We haven’t set a goal but we’re striving for as many as we can.
“Going into spring we are looking good. We’ve definitely got a strong pipeline going. I think it’s just about keeping close to our clients and making sure we’re providing valuable information.”
The Ray White Victoria and Tasmania network hosted an event at the Taylors Lakes Hotel that saw around 70 members from across the metro area attend.
Ray White Sunshine selling principal Marcus Fregonese came along for the first event since recently joining the group.
“The Ray White Sunshine team came and weren’t sure what to expect, but they were impressed with the quality of the event,” Ray White Victoria and Tasmania sales performance specialist Shaun Doyle said.
“They had never seen another company do anything like it and were happy to be part of something bigger.
“Other offices came to get their team into the environment for fun and network with their neighbouring offices.
“The energy started with excitement – every time someone booked an appraisal, they high-fived their teammates. Martin Mintoff from Ray White Melton was also about to secure two listings and Joe Mavrikos from Melton said it was an incredible day, and they can’t wait for the next one.
“We had the live feed on the centre stage screen, with the live leaderboard on about five televisions around the venue – a lot of people were checking the leaderboards and trying to compete with their peers in the room in a friendly way.”