ePOWER REPORT: (full story)
Mr.
Internet Goes "Down Under" And Comes Up With
Some Great Insights! ...
Just having returned from my second speaking
visit to beautiful Australia in a year, I had a
chance to meet some incredible people. Despite
the fact that the market structure is much
different (and more difficult) than in the U.S.,
there are several folks in the industry there
that have no equal even in the States. Here's
their story...
During my speaking engagement
for the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ)
I had a chance to meet with industry expert Robert
Bevan. There is no one in the U.S. real
estate industry quite like Robert (rb@bestpractice.com.au,
http://www.bestpractice.com.au). In addition
to having extensive experience with the entire
Australian real estate industry, he was also the
youngest President of the
Real Estate Institute of Australia (their NAR
equivalent).
One of the things that makes
Robert so unique is that he has earned the trust
of the senior management of every major real
estate firm in Australia. So much so, that they
allow him to completely (and confidentially)
review their operating books and procedures which
he then compiles into an extremely comprehensive
annual industry report. Invaluable for
broker/owners, this report measures just about
every brokerage metric you can imagine. This
enables broker / owners to determine how well they
are performing in every aspect of their business
compared with the rest of the industry. While
there are several U.S. firms that do similar
studies, no one that I'm aware of is as
comprehensive both in scope and depth.
Robert and I had a chance to
meet several times at length during my recent
speaking visit to the beautiful Gold Coast region.
In addition to discussing the differences between
the Australian and U.S. markets, he also was able
to introduce me to some of their top industry
leaders. It was during my last two days in Sydney
that I had a chance to meet some of these
extraordinary people, one of whom clearly stood
out.
I had the distinct pleasure
of meeting John McGrath, founder of
McGrath Real Estate in Sydney, one of the
fastest growing firms in that area. While waiting
for him to arrive for our meeting (just a few
hours before taking a plane back to the State), I
fully expected to greet someone in their 50's,
given his many accomplishments. Needless to say I
was somewhat stunned to shake hands with a
fresh-scrubbed 34 year old who exuded tremendous
warmth and confidence.
John's is a classic "rags to
riches" story which he chronicles in his recently
published book "You Don't Have To Be Born
Brilliant". He tells the tale of how he almost
flunked out of school because of his intense
desire to play professional rugby and how that
career was suddenly ended with a collapsed lung
before he reached 20. Broke, depressed, and not
highly educated, he picked himself up, changed his
attitude in a major way, started a career in real
estate sales and the rest as they say, is history!
Okay, I know what you are
thinking —we have all kinds of similar success
stories here in the U.S. True, but there is more.
You see, John's company also hosts the largest
real estate sales rally in Australia. They expect
to see about 1500 attend in May 2002. To put this
into perspective, there are only about 40,000
total real estate sales associates in all of
Australia. A similarly sized sales rally in the
U.S. would have to be about 30,000 attendees!
Remember, this is a sales rally, not a
general industry conference like NAR puts on. No
one in the States even comes close to this.
In addition to Robert and
John, I met all kinds of terrific people (have yet
to meet an Aussie I didn't like...). The weather
was great, the country was beautiful, and if you
ever get a chance to visit, by all means take it! |
