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A long-term view of business growth has seen a Sydney-based agency home in on elevating its own employees into leadership and ownership roles.
In conversation with REB, Matthew Everingham of Richard Matthews Real Estate has revealed the thinking behind the brand’s next stage of growth — after the group reported threefold growth over the past two years alone.
According to the director and auctioneer, he and his business partner Richard Baini are “keen to further expand the brand into surrounding areas — strategically this would be in markets that we are not too far from and want to further break into”.
It follows on from the news that Mai Le had been inducted into the leadership team as a third director in the business alongside Mr Baini and Mr Everingham.
With Ms Le coming into the new Georges Hall office as a shareholder, he said the duo felt “lucky” to have her onboard, revealing how “we are very clear that we want our team to get involved in business ownership with us”.
“Our expansion plans are very much around involving our team and their growth into directors alongside Richard and I; This is what our drive to grow is now,” she said.
Despite having grown from a 15-person team operating out of one office just two years ago to a team of 45 spread across three offices today, success hasn’t come overnight.
“We have been building our brand for over 11 years now,” Mr Everingham acknowledged.
“We had to make sure we had support around in all aspects of the business. Without that we couldn’t have grown — as well as sustained [that] growth.”
He also outlined that as the business has grown, they have had to scale the team “to make sure the level of support around all of us has also grown”.
With both business partners spending seven days a week working in the business — and across all three offices — Mr Everingham explained that they aim to “lead from the front; working hard and making sure we are involved with every aspect of the company”.
It’s an ethos the pair are set to continue, especially given how protective both he and Mr Baini are over their company culture, even as their roles have changed “significantly” alongside their growth trajectory.
“The best part has been that change of helping my team grow their own teams within the business,” he remarked.
Espousing their “hands-on” approach to their leadership, the director revealed that they both still auction every Saturday and Sunday, for the reason that it allows them to be out there with the team and at the forefront of their markets.
Stating that all members of the team “live and breathe the values of long-term clients”, he added that this “helps us protect that culture and makes sure everyone is rowing in the same direction”.
Calling culture “everything”, Mr Everingham sees it as a large reason for the group’s long-term success.
“We didn’t want a brand that was short lived,” he said.
“We wanted to be around a long time and the vision of bringing in our team members as new business owners is the goal for us now.”
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.
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