Dane Atherton is something of a legend in real estate circles. Coach, trainer and auctioneer, Dane has been training, coaching, leading and supporting real estate sales people for more than 15 years.
A little over a year ago, Dane realised a long held dream when he took up the challenge and opened up his own real estate business, Harcourts Coastal based on Queensland’s gorgeous Gold Coast. Dane says, “I’ve had an ambition for many years to own a real estate business. Loving the industry and always knowing that one day I would do it, the timing became right for me. My wife had our second child and that was a signal for me to stop flying all around the place and get settled in the community and put my skill set into building the people, under my umbrella.”
Even though he had worked in the industry for years, Dane found that owning his own agency was a seismic shift. Dane likens the change from salesperson to business owner, “to being like the DJ wanting to buy the night club. They think you know 'I’m the one, I’m the reason they come'. They see the drinks going over the bar, - which are making eight dollars a Corona. Then all of a sudden they own the night club and they realise night club ownership is very different to being the star - to being the DJ. It’s a very different type of skill set.”
It’s no longer about your glory. It’s about your people’s glory.
But he was prepared for the change. He understood that the buck stopped with him. He knew that he was responsible for compliance, for the livelihood of his employees and for their well being. So very early on, Dane realised that for him, it would not be possible to sell and manage an agency at the same time. He says, “The best piece of advice I got given very early on was that you can’t do both well. So if you’re doing both, you know you’re either going to do them both okay or poorly. And I made a decision early on that I wasn’t going to sell. I was going to be a non-selling principal and my head space changed completely, and that was a game-changer for me.”
Dane believes that while it is not his position to tell someone else you should or shouldn’t sell, he says, “It really depends on what vision you have for your business. But if the true intention of business ownership is to be a business owner, then selling can only be counterproductive to that longterm vision. You’ve got to do the recruitment, build your business, support and create an environment which attracts people.”
I didn’t have the distraction of vendors calling me to list their properties.
He found that not selling actually turned into a business advantage. He explains, “I didn’t have the distraction of vendors calling me to list their properties. And if I did have, I think it would have taken me longer to get to where I am now. I think the short-term income I might have had from an established sales business if I was an agent probably would have had the golden handcuffs on me. All I had was my skill set which then forced me to focus on what I was there for, which is recruit, train, grow, support and create the right environment."
He adds, “Once you step away, your head space changes, that’s when you will attract people into your business. Because it’s like an agent with no listings. If you’ve all of a sudden got no listings, the reactive approach is to start prospecting. If you’ve now made a decision to stop selling, and you’ve made that decision, you’ve drawn the line in the sand, your reaction now is to recruit and actually get serious about it.”
Dane is of the view that sales agents, by the nature of the job that they do - have to be self-focused. “They have to do their own client management, their own database, their own issues, inbound calls, you know, racing out to appraisals. It’s a very single, insular world.” Business owners however require a different kind of thinking. It’s not about the ‘I’, but the ‘we and us’. Dane says, “When you’re a business owner, you’ve got 10, 15 of those people, 20 of those people that are all going through that.
“One person’s up, one person’s down and you know, you’re not managing those people but you’re helping those people get through tough times. You’re encouraging some of those people when they’re up. So, you know, it is a very, very different job and I think that’s the big message that people need to understand is that it’s a career change. Doesn’t mean it’s not right. But you’ve just got to be aware of it.”
Dane advises that if anyone is considering owning their own agency because they are bored, or think it is the next step in the career to think again! “It can be a mistake,” he says. “If you want to build a business because you love growing people and you love developing people and you love building an asset, then I think it can be a great thing. But I think you’ve got to be really clear about the fact that when you become a business owner, it’s no longer about you. It’s no longer about your glory. It’s about your people’s glory, and that’s a real psychological shift and I think that’s what people need to realise.”
The best piece of advice I got given very early on was that you can’t do both well.