It is an unusual road that starts with managing a KFC restaurant and ends with being named World Champion Salesperson for properties sold in 2009, but Robert Matheson takes it all in his stride.
Mr Matheson, 38, reached this accolade at the LJ Hooker Tuggeranong office after selling 129 properties last year, but his beginnings in real estate were not as spectacular. After working as a KFC manager for 10 years he decided to try real estate on the recommendation of a friend. “I showed up on my first day and he said, ‘By the way I’m out of here,’ so he left me with a telephone, a phone book and the rest of it was for me to make up.” Living off his annual leave for the first nine months until he made a sale, Mr Matheson used this time to learn about the industry and develop his technique.
Running the numbers
Mr Matheson is not in the position of top salesperson now for no reason. He has a carefully crafted prospecting program that involves a number of steps. It begins with making 570 calls every week, making him accountable for the results he wants. Using an egg timer to ensure he wastes no time, Mr Matheson’s day is planned right down the last minute.
“Every half an hour I write down exactly what I’ve done - the number of calls I’ve made, appointments booked. If I go and have lunch I write that down, as well as recapping at the end of the day how many appointments were booked, how many thank-you cards I sent out and what my energy level was like. I also record the number of calls, the number of connects and my face-to-face appointments,” he explained.
“I know there are a lot of people who think accounting for every half an hour is insane, but without that I probably wouldn’t have achieved half of what I have. I know that between 10 and 11, that’s when I make my vendor calls. Between 11 and 12, that’s when I make my OFI calls. Between 12 and 1, that’s when I make my top prospect calls. I can actually see what I’ve achieved in a day, see where I’ve wasted time, see where my appointments have gone well and where they’ve gone bad.”
Stick to the formula
Appointments start at 4pm leaving most of the day to achieve those numbers. “I know exactly what I want to achieve in my business. I know exactly what I want to achieve in my personal life. With that in place, I feel that I can go into people’s homes with a clear head,” he said, and explained he had a formula he followed when meeting a prospect at their home.
“Everyone is time poor. They don’t want to listen to people dribble on for hours. I am actually building the agenda based on what they want,” he explained.
“I’m dressed well, my car is clean, my shoes are clean and when I get into the house, I’m enthusiastic. I love what I do and I would do this 24 hours a day if I could. I think that because I ask so many questions, they feel I’m part of them and they want to be part of me,” Mr Matheson said, and added that he continuously asked questions to confi rm information as if he had already won the listing.
“From the minute I walk in the door, I have the attitude they are listing with me – all I’ve got to do is make them put pen to paper.”
Top prospects
In the offi ce, Mr Matheson works off a paper list of his top 30 prospects and makes contact with these people daily until they make a decision. “There are a thousand reasons why you can call people without asking for the business,” he said, explaining it might be to ask if they had any further information, or if the gardener he arranged had arrived. He has a goal of 25 face-to-face appointments per week, which is around six buyer appointments and 18-19 appraisals. “To do what I want to do, it needs to be 25.”
And if he loses a listing he keeps track of the money it has cost him. “Someone told me years ago that if I recorded the commission that I lost, then at the end of the year looked at that and said that it was money I didn’t put into my family’s pocket, it would make me a lot hungrier throughout the year.”
Where to now?
Not content to be the top salesperson for 2009, Mr Matheson has a bigger goal. “I had the dream of being there, and now I have the dream of pushing on and staying there for a number of years,” he said, adding he wanted another seven LJ Hooker gold medals (for writing $1 million in a year) for his collection to make an 1 even 10 in a row.