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Steven Cross
The leader of one of the country’s most successful real estate offices believes principals should step back form sales to focus more on the business.
Speaking at the Ideas Exchange event in Sydney yesterday, John Cunningham from Cunninghams Property in northern Sydney said principals should ‘let go’.
“You’ll never grow if you can’t let go,” he told the audience.
Cunninghams Property was ranked number 26 in the Real Estate Business Top 50 Sales Offices ranking earlier this year.
“Letting go and allowing my team to take control for themselves has been the most empowering thing I’ve ever done,” he said.
“As a selling-principal I realised I was holding the business back. It was a leap of faith, it was a risk but the team had been trained for it and they flourished.
“I let go and our business doubled in three years.”
Mr Cunningham shared a session at the Ideas Exchange with fellow Sydney Sider Ewan Morton managing director of Morton & Morton, who focused on fees, auctions and leadership.
“As much as we all say ‘stay firm on your fees’ and we should aim to do that, there is always going to be a situation where you break the rules," Mr Morton said.
“We’re cannibalising ourselves if we keep on cutting commissions. One of three things can happen. Running a sales company becomes unviable, we have to push ourselves to sell more in a shorter timeframe or we have to increase fees.”
Mr Morton outlined the importance of earning staff respect by standing by them on the frontline.
“I attend every Morton & Morton auction, and if we’re going down in flames I’m right there with them," he said.
“Some people say that auctions work better in some markets better than others, but I think you can auction the lot. Auction campaigns used to be more expensive when you had to run it through print, but we run online only campaigns.
“Last week we had 120 people through a property all from an online campaign.”
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