The lessons learned over decades in the industry

When he began his real estate journey at age 31, one of the first lessons he learned was the mental toughness required to succeed.

“You can feel like you spent the whole first year of your career, you’ve done the calls and letterbox drops and walking the streets, and you have nothing to show for it,” Smythe told REB.

“You’ve got to take a longer-term view that it is likely to take a while, but if you’re willing to invest time and effort into it, there’s a massive reward.”

He said that while agents could earn enough to out-earn some doctors and lawyers, they needed to realise it was a privilege rather than the norm, and that it would take a long time to build.

When he first joined the industry, Smythe said he immediately began thinking long-term about where he wanted his career to take him.

“From my point of view, I just had the singular mindset of ‘real estate is going to work’, and that was it. There was never a backup plan for me,” he said.

“I didn’t see real estate as anything other than a 20-year investment of my time.”

Here are some of the best habits Smythe learned over the years:

Managing your time

Smythe said nailing time management was one of the biggest differentiators for agents looking to strengthen their careers.

Alternatively, Smythe said agents who hadn’t figured out how to manage their time successfully were shooting themselves in the foot.

“It’s a big red flag when you get to five o’clock and realise ‘I was busy all day, and I don’t even know what I achieved’,” Smythe said.

“If you don’t actually have a target of what you want to achieve or a structure for the day, then it is easy for it to slip away.”

He said that agents had to be quite strict with themselves on their time management in order to get the most out of their day.

“A task will expand to fill the time that you give it. If you give yourself an hour, you’ll do it in an hour, but if you give yourself two hours, the same task will take two hours.”

Mastering the art of phone calls

From the start of his real estate career, Smythe learned the importance of strong phone skills.

“If you want to be a good real estate agent, you have to be good on the phone,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the industry; most of what we do as agents is phone work.”

He said the sheer amount of phone work the role required often shocked those who were new to the industry.

Smythe said there were several ways that agents could practise their phone mannerisms, such as with work colleagues or by leaving voicemails and listening back.

An industry of lifelong education

Despite cementing himself as one of REB’s Top 100 Agents, Smythe said the learning never stopped.

He said agents needed to keep growing and developing their skills, regardless of experience level.

“Be a sponge. Absorb knowledge from every agent in the business that you work with.”

By being around other agents and observing, Smythe said they would develop their own knowledge base and gain confidence in their abilities.

“You have to have that growth mindset around absorbing what other agents are doing around you. There are always agents out there coming up with new ideas.”

Even after decades in the industry, Smythe said he was still learning from other successful agents around him.

“We’re always looking at angles to get better, more efficient and get better outcomes.”

“I love it because our industry never stops growing and learning.”