Login
iscover
A top-performing agent and principal spills the beans on why a completely open database works for his business.
Speaking on a recent episode of REB’s Secrets of the Top 100 Agents, the second-ranked agent in REB’s Top 100 Agents 2021 revealed that his Northern Beaches-based agency, Clarke & Humel, relies on “a totally open database”.
What it means is that “nobody steps over each other and you’re not having to worry about what you’re putting into our database because it’s open and it’s honest”, Michael Clarke explained.
“Every note that any agent has ever made about a buyer or a seller, you can see in our system,” he said.
According to Mr Clarke, it’s a practice they’ve implemented since “day dot” in the agency — but at the same time, he did acknowledge that it is only really possible “because the business is going so well”.
“The whole idea around having a spirit of abundance or a paradigm of abundance — that all sounds great in a book, but if people aren’t going really well, then it’s much more difficult to be generous,” he conceded.
It also helps that he’s in the business with wife Cherie Humel, highlighting that they reflect daily on their staff’s wins and losses, and taking a look at “who’s on the roll of their life? Who’s just lost a listing?”
According to Mr Clarke, this daily check-in, and the business’s open database, means that if any staff members are in a situation where a listing can be passed on to another member of the team, “that positivity and that generosity comes back”.
“I think that’s been one of the major reasons why things have gone so well for us,” he considered.
It’s also a “great test” when Mr Clarke goes into recruitment, admitting that he uses it as a litmus test of sorts during the hiring process.
He said: “The person sitting across from me — are my other agents, or am I, going to feel like I need to hide some work that I’m doing to prevent them from taking advantage of that?”
“If I get any sense of that whatsoever, they’re just not the right fit.”
Adding that the open database has been a major consideration that has allowed Clarke & Humel to choose the right people, he called it “a real guiding light”.
“If there’s somebody that we feel that we would need to be careful about, i.e., that we would feel uncomfortable about letting them into our world… and if I get the impression that there’s somebody that I’m chatting with who[m] I wouldn’t be totally comfortable, then that’s always been a great way for us to know who we shouldn’t hire,” he said.
So, if Mr Clarke isn’t keen on hiring staff members who aren’t team players, who does he look to hire?
“The most important thing for us is that they’ve got to be a good human,” he said.
“They’ve got to be the kind of person who we feel we’re going to be happy to see their smiling head when we walk around the office in the morning.”
Acknowledging the cliché in training for skills and hiring on attitude, he still sees the value in it.
“We want to have ourselves surrounded by people who are naturally happy people, people who have a good moral compass. We know that if we’re hiring nice people — not just good people, but nice people — and we take care of them, then they’re going to take care of the clients.”
You can listen to the full conversation with Michael Clarke here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
Newsletter
