Blog / Leadership
Paul Curtain, In the Right place
Over a decade ago, Paul Curtain and his business partners Damian Hackett and Sarah Bushell had a dream - to create one of the most successful real estate brands in Australia. They launched Place in Bulimba in Brisbane and now have 12 offices, a number of associated businesses, more than 270 staff and a stable of superstar agents.
From day one, Paul and his partners wanted to ‘go pro’.
Now the Managing Director of the brand, Paul explains, “From the very beginning, we wanted to offer something different. In real estate, a brand is the front end. It makes up 20 per cent. An agent, how they physically present themselves, in their clothing, in their grooming, their car - that makes up another 20 per cent. The rest - the grunt, the engine that makes the difference between a performer in real estate and someone who never quite gets there - is the backend of the business, the essential services.”
From the outset, Place was committed to providing essential services to agents. Paul says, “A number of pillars underpin a real estate business and they are training, leadership, technology, support, systems and financial relationships. Our business was and always has been modelled so that for each one of those pillars we give the agents the best essential services in the business.
We lead from the front. We provide a training plan, a technology platform, a leadership model, an accountability model, and we work with our people to make sure that Monday through Sunday, that they are getting every opportunity they can out in the market place.”
At Place, providing these essential services allows agents to be free to focus on what they do best - sell property and earn impressive commissions.
Paul gives an example of how the system works. “We have a marketing department so when an agent comes back and lists a property, that person will fill out an online form and enters the key details - that is automatically sent to five or six people across the business and next thing, there’s a photographer at the property.”
Paul says, “The process of getting the property into the market is taken care of, as it is when a contract comes back and our clients then get an offer of insurance through our partnership with a mortgage broker. Agents basically don’t have to do anything except sell, and if we end up selling the client a level of finance, the listing agents will end up with a further bonus in their structure as well.”
We lead from the front. We provide a training plan, a technology platform, a leadership model and an accountability model.
Of course, Paul believes that, “No amount of essential services provided by a business owner will cover over the sins of an agent who just doesn’t get out of bed and work hard. Someone who has a healthy attitude and applies themselves daily is still the key ingredient.”
Further the model only works when you have a strong management team. Paul says, “The management of the people in the essential services team as a whole is why it works. As a real estate principal, you are a counsellor, you are a manager, you are a mentor, you are a trainer. You have to be everything and across all aspects of the business.”
Agents can focus on what they are good at doing - prospecting, listing, marketing, negotiating, selling and creating advocates or clients for life.
Importantly too, for the model to work, the tone of the business has to be right as well. Paul believes that, “A real estate office is competitive, and if you want to have a successful business, then a level of competition within that is okay.” However, he believes that competition is not about pitting individuals against each other. He is of the view that there needs to be a competitive spirit for the team and not always just for the individual. He says, “The game plan must be sustainable; a game plan that allows the agents to go out there and have success in the market place - for everyone, not just a few.”
Even though the brand has enjoyed great success over the last decade, not prepared to tread water about 18 months ago, Paul and his partners looked inwards again to see how they could make their business even better. Paul explains, “We knew what we were doing was good; we knew we had a brand that the market liked, that the people liked. But we also realised that we actually had to improve in a lot of areas to be more than just a brand with outstanding professional photography and copywriting, To get to this next level, we had to drive agents’ efficiencies and get agents to be absolute pros in the market.”
By constantly striving to improve their business model, Place is reaping the rewards. Paul says, “We now have some of Brisbane’s superstar agents and some of them are $2m fee riders. They are reaching the stratosphere because we have made the EBU work for them. We give them the right level of support, and keep life simple for them so that they don’t have to worry about tax invoices and so on. They go out there and do what they do best - list and sell.”
Place has achieved its great success because Paul and his partners have been prepared to say, ‘Right, we’re going to take this up another notch, we’re going to go again, we’re going to keep sharpening the blade’. Paul says, “We don’t live in fear of people being taken from us because we fight every day to provide the things that retain people. That’s the most exciting part for me: when we have someone who does come to our group - be it that they’ve made a decision to perhaps move away from a competitor or they’re new to the industry - the recognition two or three months on that perhaps even we’ve undersold it, so that when they actually experience it for real, it’s above their expectation.”
Paul believes in the power of a union. By harnessing the power of good management and cracking agents, he says, “Agents can focus on what they are good at doing - prospecting, listing, marketing, negotiating, selling and creating advocates or clients for life. We do all the rest so that agents can grow. We are partners. They grow, we grow. By bringing the two minds together, offering them the system, offering them the support around it, it means we’re more likely to have the agent achieve what they need to achieve out in the market.”
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