Blog / Leadership
Adrian Abel, Two Roads, One Destination
So what do accounting and real estate have in common? Perth’s top agent, Adrian Abel.
Not taking the traditional road to real estate, Mr Abel trained as an accountant and ran a number of businesses before dipping his toe into this industry – with the agent who sold his own house. When Mr Abel told Simon McGrath he thought real estate might be a good fit for him, the latter jumped at the chance to share his workload with someone he respected, and within months Abel McGrath was formed. “I think [Simon McGrath] resonated with the journey that I had taken and I really liked his ethic; I liked his approach to work and I also appreciated that he had a good empathy with his clients. Simon has a wonderful service ethic that comes first,” Mr Abel explained.
“I didn’t know much about this industry, having [been in] manufacturing for a long time, but I did recognise the ability to earn some money and I thought I had something to contribute,” he added.
Humble beginnings in business
Interestingly, the fledgling partnership started out of Fremantle Prison, which Mr Abel said was a “prison on death row”. Cells were rented from a business development corporation and conditions in their space were so cramped Mr Abel, Mr McGrath and their PA could not all sit down at the same time.
“Whenever we had a meeting two people were sitting and one was standing, and we outgrew that,” he laughed, adding they set up their own office within their core area, which covers Perth between the river and the sea, once the business got off the ground.
And after closing 67 transactions in 2011 to put himself at the top of Perth’s real estate sales professionals from a pool of 8,800 registered agents, he must be doing something right. As principal at Abel McGrath, Mr Abel works on a median price between $1 million and $2 million.
Now he has reached the pinnacle of Perth’s top sales agent, Mr Abel is setting his sights on a more inclusive goal for 2012 – to be the best sales team in the state. Abel McGrath finished the year at fourth in sales, out of 1000 offices in WA, so there is a big year ahead for the team.
What's in it for them
When discussing his sales style, Mr Abel said vendors were attracted to Abel McGrath’s energy and the way the entire sales team operated, but also to him as a sales agent personally and his personal interest in helping them get to where they’re going.
“I don’t tell all my clients that they should sell and I sometimes say to them ‘Don’t sell, this isn’t the right time for you’, but really what I’m interested in is what motivates my sellers and trying to find a way to achieve that goal for them.”
Mr Abel draws on his own life experience to build the strong foundation for these principles and is committed to constant improvement. He has faith in himself and his own abilities, but rather than believing his “own press”, he works with coach and mentor Dr Fred Grosse to ensure he is always getting the best from himself. “I’m trying to work smarter, not harder. I used to live under the premise that the harder you work, the more you earn, and I know that to be totally untrue now,” he said.
Harnessing talent
The successful team Mr Abel and Mr McGrath have put together works on the EBU (Effective Business Unit) concept, with each principal leading their own unit and support staff. Mr Abel’s 23-year-old daughter recently joined the office as the Buyers’ Manager and his EBU’s Client Service Manager and brings experience as a state manager for a cosmetics company to the mix.
Competitors have tried to use the EBU set up against the Abel McGrath team, however Mr Abel stuck with his plan to utilise each person in the role best suited to their skills - and it’s paid dividends. “I use people to their best skill base. I was a principal before I was even selling, so I came in very fresh, without any misconceptions or bad training from the real estate industry, and immediately I said ‘Why would one person want to do all of this?’” he said.
“I’ve got a very strong business unit that we’ve honed over a long period of time. I believe that the best way for young people, or even older people, to come into this business is not to be thrown against the wall like some of the supermarket brands sometimes do, but to be trained through the service quality of buyer management and database management. I don’t believe you can be a successful selling agent until you understand how the back office works,” Mr Abel explained, and added he walked a fine line between being a working principal and “buying” himself a job so was always tweaking the business to ensure it was self-sustaining.
“My real goal for the future is to try and emulate what we’ve done and cut a path and systems and provide a facility where other people can achieve their goals.”
And he intends to do this through constantly improving Abel McGrath’s client nurture program. In the seven years he has worked in real estate, Mr Abel has sold a lot of properties but still attends “prospecting school” to find out better ways to keep in touch with all those people. He explained it like this: “If I could just tap back into that database and nurture those people on a personal level, automate it and make phone calls to past clients, I think I could unearth a goldmine.”
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