Blog / Leadership
Phil Harris, Planning his way to Success
Things didn’t look good for Phil Harris when he started his career in real estate. He only listed and sold one property in his first six months on the job. However, Phil’s life changed for the better when he attended a Complete Salesperson’s Course in Adelaide.
Phil remembers, “I sat in the front row, took notes and then I bought a Dictaphone. I remember practising scripts and dialogues over and over again and then within six months I’d listed and sold about 70 houses.”
Since those dark, early days, Phil’s career has gone from one success to another. Three years ago, he opened up Harris Real Estate in Adelaide in South Australia. Phil says, “It’s been a tough journey but we’ve grown very quickly. We’ve got just over 60 staff. We’ve just had our best sales month in November. We sold 64 properties for the month, so on average we do about 50, 60 sales per month with about 20 salespeople.
And our property management department - we’ve grown that to about a thousand properties after purchasing a rent roll midway through last year.”
Phil’s rise to the top has not been all plain sailing though. Looking back on the past year, Phil says, “2012 was a really tough year for me. I actually got really lost in the business. I was trying to list and sell and manage. I couldn’t do it all well. I therefore made the conscious decision to bring in good management. I want to get back to doing what I’m good at which is listing, selling and training our salespeople within the business.”
In addition to putting on a general manager Phil adopted a simple, bulletproof business plan that fits on one page. Phil says, “Like a lot of people, I’ve wrestled with business plans. But as John McGrath says, ‘If your business plan doesn’t fit on one page, it’s probably not going to work’, so now I probably have the simplest business plan I’ve ever had.”
He has business plans for the business and for himself personally. “The business plan is very much KPI based on activities per week and the daily performance patterns that I want to adhere to,” explains Phil. His plan includes categories such as Selling Goals, Success Patterns, Listing Strategy, Service Area Plan, Mainstream Marketing and Buyer Management. So what are some of the features of his business plan?
Selling Goals
In this category of his business plan, Phil has as his first KPI, the total gross commission he wants to collect. Phil says, “So, if we’re saying, ‘I want to write a million dollars in fees’, then that’s going to be listing ten properties per month. Of those ten properties I want six of those, at least, to be auction- orientated properties. I’ll work out what the average commission is per property, the average sale price and the average fee.”
Success Patterns
Phil firmly believes that there are a set of daily behaviours that will push him towards success and achieving his selling goals.
Phil says, “The difference between somebody writing really good numbers and average numbers, is purely based on their ability to do the things that matter day in, day out, not just one day of the week.”
So Some of Phils specific success patterns are:
- Starting in the office at 7:45am.
- Making sure that all vendors have being contacted between 7:45am and 8:30am.
- Conducting a daily team meeting with his EBU at 8:30am.
- Committing to a minimum of an hour-and-a-half to two hours of prospecting a day.
- Completing at least one buyer appointment every day.
- Walking out of the office door between 6 – 7pm at the latest.
Phil explains, “Success in real estate is all about patterns and behaviour. Mornings are about contacting vendors and prospecting aggressively. Afternoons are for appraising and selling property. If you’re prepared to maintain it over a medium-to-long-term period, be that two to three years, you can’t help but succeed in this business, provided you get your skills right along the way.”
He continues, “I prospect harder now than ever. If you don’t prospect, even if you think you are in your marketplace, they will forget about you very, very quickly. But when I concentrate and I get on the phone, it’s amazing how quickly you can build it back and people just love to hear from you - and then work just starts to flow to you once you actually start picking up that phone.”
Phil focuses on his key referrers and past clients, in particular people who he has sold for, not so much people who have bought from him.
Listing Strategy
Another key element of Phil’s business plan is Listing Strategy. He says, “I like to remind myself of the four or five key things that I want to talk about in a listing presentation. It’s like a mental refresher to ensure that when I’m in that lounge room, I’ve got key dialogue, and know what I want to get across and deliver each and every single time.”
Some of the key dialogues that Phil wants to highlight in a listing presentation are things like price presentation marketing. He always reminds himself to talk about the three key factors in getting a property sold: multiple buyers, emotionally connected in a competitive environment equals a premium price.
Armed with his business plan, Phil will systematically work his way to his realising his goals. As he says, “The people who are doing well in real estate have a passion and a commitment to building a process and a system where other people can thrive.”
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